We headed out from Miami shortly after The Collapse. The interstates were completely impassable as everyone knew they would be, yet millions tried to get on them regardless. All those roads turned into 6 lane parking lots all the way up to Orlando. Within 72 hours of the Collapse, half of those people were dead and forming large roaming herds on the [3 major highways out of South Florida]. That herd fed off the other half that still lived. Within a week it would turn into a 3½ million strong, 300 mile long super-herd.
Being on land wasn't just a bad idea; it was a death sentence.
Our small group of relatives and friends formed a 4 SUV caravan and headed to the only thing that we thought would save us; a road that ran next to a canal dug by the Army Corp of Engineers back in the 1930's to drain the Everglades. The spoil from that canal had been dumped next to it and formed a 15 foot high levy wide enough to drive on. The Water Management department used it as private access road to reach the small dams that controlled the amount of water funneled into the canal during rainy season. The canal started in Orlando, ran due south through the eastern edge of the Everglades, skirted the far west end of Miami, and terminated at the southwest tip of the state in a tiny outpost called Flamingo, Fl.
The road was just the means to an end though. A few hundred people had gotten the same idea, and were already using it to head north. We were the only ones headed south on it. I told everyone to trust me. Our goal was Flamingo, FL.
Flamingo was inside a national park, and even locals were often unaware it existed. It was little more than a campsite with amenities, but it had something we needed desperately.... rental Houseboats. If we could make it to those boats, our odds of living through the week would increase exponentially.
The trip along the levy road should have only lasted 2 to 3 hours at most, but it took us almost an entire day. The road skirted the tribal lands of several Seminole and Miccosukee native American reservations. Their local police forces barricaded a few parts of the road to keep people from coming into their lands. We ran the barricade and had shots fired at us by a lone sheriff, but he shot into the air, luckily. At the second one we were less lucky. That policeman aimed his .44 right at us and took a shot at the lead vehicle, which I was driving. I told everyone to duck and barrelled right over him. It would be the first person I'd ever killed, but not the last. I just didn't know it right then.
We arrived at Flamingo near dusk. The whole place was empty except for about a dozen freshly abandoned cars. We found only a lone houseboat still left, the other already having been taken. A small skiff was tied off to it as well. Neither had any gasoline in the tanks. That's probably why they hadn't been taken. We quickly loaded all 14 of us onto the boat. Six of the men then began to siphon the gas from our SUV's and the abanonded cars into the large metal campsite trash cans with lids. Thirty minutes later, we had filled up the 150 gallon gas tank of the boat and stored the remaining gas in the same trash cans on the deck of the boat.
We held our breath as I cranked the boat engine over. It started smoothly and we all breathed the 100th sigh of relief that day. We pushed off from the dock and headed due west.
If we were not running terrified for our lives, this would have looked like a beautiful sunset cruise for close friends. It wasn't, of course. It was far, far more terrifying than that. But we all realized we were safe. The roamers couldn't swim, and once we were in deep enough water there was no way for them to get to us. But we couldn't stay out on the water forever. We had a day's worth of snack foods as our only subsistence. We had no drinking water at all. Even with the extra trashcan of gas, the most we could expect the engines to run for before running out of fuel as maybe, 2 days of sailing.
Everyone was suddenly quiet, only the stiff ocean breeze and the drone of the engine making noise. I realized a few minutes in they were all staring at me. I wasn't the "leader" of this group, but it had been me that had pleaded and begged to be followed because "I know where to go".
Now their eyes all asked the same questions; what my plan was, where we were headed, what hope is there that we'll live through this. I told everyone to listen to me for a second...
"I have a plan. I know exactly were we are going, but I couldn't tell you before in case we didn't make it this far and someone forced us to talk. We are going to be fine, trust me. We are going to..."
