This Is Going To Completely Change Our Weather…

@Chords of Gratitude Yes to some extent, but there will be back up vehicles, including the chase cars and trucks. All the Response Bus needs is to make it to a parking lot of some centralized location. A place with battery powered lights, serving coffee and donuts to survivors and rescuers alike. They can even equip locals with chain saws and gasoline to go rescue others.

Not only is the bus a rolling Disaster Response Mobile Base Unit, it’s a big yellow substantial, reassuring “presence” itself. (These rigs could easily pull a pickup along behind if that were needed.)

@The Living Miracle I’ll bet some school that is buying new busses here in Tornado Country would donate an old bus or two. They seldom bring too much because the cost of a conversion can easily run into the $1000s and a lot of semi-skilled labor that can be all of a buyer’s free time for a year.

And the busses are by no means wore out. They’ve had good maintenance right up to the end, and are really only being sold because most schools have a milage termination point of some kind, not because they don’t run.

About $5-6K out to buy a really well maintained diesel powered 72 passenger bus. (A big one!) Which would be way cheaper than buying 3 diesel crewcab pickups with comparable miles. And for this type of work, the buses would be ten times more useful.

(Side note: put a top rack on these rigs, for small boats, odd shaped items, and misc. stuff. But also, extend it a couple of feet forward of the drivers area. That will almost always save you a broken windshield in hailstorms.)

I understand how a schoolbus could look odd for the job, but it has enormous advantages, especially for disaster situations.

It’s big and heavy, so stormy conditions are safer. Modern schoolbuses are designed to channel air across the top so as to avoid windshear when meeting tractor trailer rigs at highway speeds. A bus driven into a 2 foot trench or ditch, would require a direct hit with an F-3 to dislodge.

Which brings up safety. The schoolboard doesn’t care about gas milage, because parents will pay it, so they’re built solidly. No wood or fiberglass in them. No particle board flooring. A solid metal box, except the windows. Even a complete rollover shouldn’t crush the interior space, as the window frames double as a steel support for the steel roof.

There’s plenty of room for not only a work/sleeping space, there’s also enough area to carry a lot of disaster supplies like water, chainsaws, tarps, hand tools, and such immediate needs.

And food, because a PBJ and a glass of milk is comfort food for all ages. The nutrients will show up with the Red Cross and churches and formal recovery operations. But when it all goes down, “The Y’allers” are the shock troops meeting the first tears and fears of the survivors.

Oh, and keep it yellow, for the kids. Something they find familiar and safe coming through the debris.👍