Last week, I had the pleasure of watching the second annual Thin Blue Line match in Anderson, South Carolina at the outstanding Skip-J range. It’s a win-win event where armed citizens who appreciate their local police do something good for them, turning out to run a several-stage practical shooting event where the cops compete in realistic, simulated gunfighting scenarios with their on-duty service pistols…and the entry fees go to local charities.

It gives the street cops a chance to show that they care about the most disadvantaged members of society, who so often need their assistance in disproportionate degree. It gives law-abiding armed citizens a chance to better know the boys (and girls!) in blue who protect them while they sleep, and it gives society’s designated centurions a better chance to get to know the self-sufficient Americans who are prepared to hold the line and take care of themselves until the folks with the badges get there.

Kudos to Ron Griffin and his team, mostly IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) shooters, who busted their butts to do something good for local charities and local cops.

I attended the eight-stage event (though I didn’t compete: it was for the South Carolina cops), and it was a helluva good match. If you patrol rural areas or communities big enough to have their own airports, there’s a chance you’ll have to interdict a small drug plane on the ground. When was the last time you actually shot around one? They had an airplane set up on the range! See photos.

More than one shooting has taken place in or around an ambulance; after all, that’s where surviving gang-bangers get loaded, and occasionally they’re down but not out, or their counterparts come back to finish the job. When was the last time you fired live ammo inside an actual ambulance, at hostile threat targets both inside and outside? At Thin Blue Line, the cops got to do both.

What goes around, comes around. Lavish props donated for the police match remained on the range the Saturday after the Thin Blue Line shoot for the armed citizens of the local IDPA group to test their skills upon. A match entry fee is same cost as a medium-priced box of ammo; most of us would find that setting up these elaborate stages is impractical and unaffordable. However, training should be authentically replicated experience, and both Thin Blue Line and IDPA deliver that in spades.

Congrats to all involved in this exemplary effort! If you’d care to donate a prize for next year’s match, or offer your services to help out on the range, or just get an idea of what’s going on and maybe see about your club doing the same locally in the future, go to www.thinbluelinesc.org. For more info on IDPA and to find a club near you, go to www.idpa.com. Finally, a tip of the Backwoods Home shooting cap to the winning squad, Anderson County Team 1, and to the high overall individual shooter, streetwise police instructor Sgt. Heath Clevenger of the York County Sheriff’s pistol team. And…a “biggest cojones” award to Sheriff John Skipper, who took time out of running for reelection to show his support for brother officers and armed citizens alike as he stood in front of an audience of 132 law-dogs and won the hard-fought, man-on-man “dueling tree shootoff” to prove himself the straightest-shootin’ high sheriff in South Carolina!

County, state, and city cops joined together for the Thin Blue Line event.

This officer fires on the move as he scoots between cover points on the “drug plane” stage. How’s this for realistic scenario props?

Note flash at muzzle of duty Glock as this officer “repels boarders” from inside an actual ambulance, live fire.

Winning team was Anderson County squad #1.

Flashlight is mounted on holstered duty Glock of Sgt. Heath Clevenger, high individual contestant.

Sheriff Skipper, right, comes from behind to win dueling tree event for fastest/straightest shooting High Sheriff. At left is Sheriff Steve Loftis.

Sheriff Skipper took time out from running for reelection to show his support for both brother/sister law enforcement personnel, and armed citizens.

There’s something yellow and vaguely familiar outside. It’s…it’s…sunshine! Yes, I remember now.

Tropical Storm Fay didn’t do much damage where I live. Bunch of branches down on my property, a tree down on my neighbor’s, some flood damage elsewhere in the area. The phrase I keep hearing is, “We dodged the bullet.”

That’s technically incorrect. We didn’t dodge nothin’. Basically, we were awfully lucky and it just missed. The worst part of the storm unexpectedly veered away from this particular county. Others were not so lucky: Fay killed a dozen or so people in the Caribbean and seven to eleven in Florida, depending on which source you believe. One city to the east of us saw 70,000 people without power and dealt with a lot of severe flooding, and another 12,000 people were without electricity in a community about equidistant to the west. And, as Dan predicted in a letter to this blog, there were indeed alligators in the streets, at least in Melbourne, Florida according to reports.

Folks are accusing the Governor and other officials of having overreacted in opening shelters, evacuating some communities, and all the rest. It’s easy to call it overreaction, after it’s over. However, the folks who needed evacuation and shelter were damn glad it was there, and that help appeared Johnny-on-the-spot when they needed it.

After something like this, you feel a little like the guy who got a terminal cancer diagnosis and feverishly put his affairs in order. Then the doctor calls and says, “We got your diagnosis wrong and you’re fine.” “What,” shouts the patient, “I went through all that for nothing!?!?”

It’s something on which we need to maintain perspective. I see it as having an excellent drill to prepare for the next such crisis that does hit full force. At my place, the power only went out briefly and intermittently. Didn’t mean a generator ain’t worth its price for peace of mind. I didn’t get a flat this week, either, but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna throw the spare tires and the jacks out of the vehicles.

Today, we just relaxed and looked at the bright side. It’s helped the drought conditions. The waters have receded quickly here. Last night, on the way to the Policeman’s Ball in the last of the driving rain (yes, policemen do have balls), we noticed that the water was up to Smokey Bear’s knees, on the fire danger sign, and look how low it is already.

So here I am in North Florida right now, battening down the hatches as Tropical Storm Fay makes her approach. According to the Weather Service predictions, the small community where I am is right in Fay’s crosshairs. They’re speculating that she might have achieved Hurricane status by the time she arrives.

Most folks are preparing as usual. The last of these storms that hit this part of the state was more of an adventure than a disaster for me and those I hang with. Generators, food, chainsaws et al were in place and ready to go. They are this time, too.

Some folks overlook less common preparations until it’s too late. Have extra cash and keep it on your person. I like it folded into secure ZipLoc bags in a money belt. When power goes out, so do credit card machines, and many of today’s generation of moneychangers don’t seem to know how to process a charge card other than electronically. Stock up on bleach. Yes, it can be used to purify water in a pinch (retch!) but mainly, there are cleanup issues. Floods tend to accompany hurricanes, and floods float sewage everywhere. Friends who were in New Orleans for weeks after Katrina reported sometimes being chest-high in water that was brown with feces. Bleach is a most effective field decontaminant. Stock up on pre-moistened towelettes, a.k.a. “baby wipes.” They’ll seem worth their weight in gold when the water stops running.

My corner of the Backwoods Home bailiwick is the gun room. When emergency services are stretched to the breaking point by natural disaster, the Bad Guys know they are more likely to be able to literally get away with murder. Ask Miamians about the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, or New Orleans survivors about what happened after Katrina. In such situations, I would be keeping a semiautomatic .223 carbine close to hand at all times. Where I’m posting from right now, that sort of thing is low on my list of concerns. In time of disaster, the back-country folks here come out in force, but to help others, not to plunder.

Greater concerns are suddenly-homeless dogs that go desperately feral…large livestock maddened by terror sufficiently to attack humans after escaping from blown-down fencing…and, here, venomous water moccasins that get very temperamental when flood waters move them unwillingly from their swamp to your front yard.

Every piece of equipment you deploy is going to face a ruinous hostile weather environment. My fancier sporting guns with their deep blue finishes and Circassian walnut stocks will stay in their (dessicant-filled) gun safes. On my hip will be a Glock 31 pistol with polymer frame and Tenifer finish. The cops who worked Katrina told me that the Glocks were the only firearms among them that didn’t rust in constant exposure to that environment. It will be in a synthetic holster on a synthetic belt: the septic environment you face in floods will ruin leather, but the pathogenic filth can be wiped off plastic and machine-washed out of heavy duty nylon. The G31 holds 16 .357 SIG cartridges – powerful, likely to penetrate deeply enough into large animals, flat-shooting enough for long shots – and will be backed up with its subcompact 10-shot baby brother in the same caliber, a Glock 33, where my other hand can reach it. The smaller gun will take the 15-shot spare magazine for the larger.

For any serious shooting needs, my “hurricane gun” is an old beater 12-gauge pump shotgun, a Remington 870 traded in by a police department on AR15 rifles. Mechanically perfect on the inside, it has enough pitting on the outside that I no longer worry about what will happen to it in the rain or the muck. One-ounce 12-gauge rifled slugs at about 1400 feet per second should take care of any large, “hard target” that requires emergency shooting.

As they like to say at the police Street Survival© Seminars, it’s about “preparation, not paranoia.” The longer I’m alive, the more experience confirms for me that bad things are most likely to happen to the people least prepared for them.

Mas loads a well-worn Remington pump gun with Remington 12-gauge rifled slugs, with spare shells attached to the stock in a butt cuff. Glock .357 pistol rides in Kydex holster by FIN on nylon mountaineer belt by Jack DeShong.