If I had to do it all over again (and God willing, I never will...), in addition to having a rifle in the car with me, I'd have spent 5 minutes on Twitter before we went it.
Because I lived in Calgary and Phoenix for the past few decades (two cities not known for riots) gave me blinders about what might be happening in St. Louis, so I didn't even think to check on things.
Next time, 10 minutes on Twitter searching for what's trending near me will save me a few grey hairs.
An example: A few years ago, I came downstairs to see the chandelier over the dining room table swinging back and forth. Knowing that my boys were playing in the room just a few minutes earlier, I was about to come down on them like Sherman on Georgia when I noticed the chandelier in the front hallway was doing the same.
"Earthquake", I figured, and got out my phone and checked Twitter. Within two minutes, I had figured out the epicenter (Ensenada) and the strength and that California was still in existence. Meanwhile, my wife turned on CNN, and 10 minutes later, after the commercials and latest updates on what Kanye was doing, they mentioned they were beginning to hear reports of an earthquake near California and would update with more info as they got it.
Info that I already had.
We have a real-time public intel source in Twitter, and I didn't use it last week. Whoops.