These Survival Situations are so much fun I about can't stand it. I am loving the insight from you all--hopefully you're using the comments and the thinking time to put together some lists and do or acquire something you didn't have before. :) Here's a new one for you inspired by the recent flooding in Australia and Utah's Herriman fire.
You're happily hanging around your house watching MASH re-runs when there comes a knock on your door and the authorities tell you the local dam has developed a leak and your house is in the flood zone. Or a forest fire is heading your way with tremendous speed. Or there's been a chemical spill on the highway nearby. You need to evacuate within the next 30 minutes. Of course sooner is better. They're not sure when/if you'll be able to come back to your house.
What do you do? Where are your family members? Animals? What do you take with you? Where do you go? What's your evacuation plan?
Monday, January 17, 2011
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In order of grabbing;
Fixed blade knife, may be a kitchen knife if a sturdier knife might be confiscated.
Hat (for warmth or shade), and wool long underwear.
Water bottle (with water), preferably metal.
Raisins and/or Clif bars.
Toothbrush.
Mini umbrella.
Wallet, house key.
In colder seasons, then jacket and scarf.
All of this can fit in pockets or be worn. If I can carry a bag, I'd continue grabbing;
First aid.
Extra wool t-shirt.
Extra high-density food.
Extra water.
Extra wool socks and long underwear.
Knitting.
Condoms.
Blanket.
Prep time <5 minutes. Being early out the door is a hell of a lot better than being late.
I would grab my bug out bag, the animals, and my important papers packet that I have set up and put into a large zip-lock bag in the closet right by my bug out bag. I can always call my family after I have evacuated my house to see if they are all safe. I am a single guy and my kids are all grown up so all I have to get is the animals into the carriers and into the truck. My bug out bag contains everything I will need to evacuate in a hurry. I too am a bit worried for the people that live on the hillside in Herriman. That burn scar is really bad and we have not even seen the spring thaw yet.
To answer the questions (there are four of us in our family still living at home):
What do you do?
I would evacuate as instructed. This happened on a federal holiday so three of us are home. I would attempt to contact the fourth, who is at work and tell her where we are headed.
Where are your family members?
See above. Married family members I would call as we are driving to see if they need assistance.
Animals?
None.
What do you take with you?
We have four 72-hour kits, not yet completed. They have food (MREs) and water for 3 days, a cranking flashlight, penknife, and small first-aid kit. So these need some work. I plan to add four 2 week kits which are large bags with additional food and supplies that are heavy but can be carried to a vehicle. They would be abandoned if we had to proceed on foot.
Our static water storage is a mix of 30 gallon drums and 5 gallon carry containers. So for this evacuation we can take some of the 5 gallon water storage in our vehicle.
We have a small supply of cash in small denominations so we take this.
We would probably take our van and another vehicle as backup.
Where do you go?
North, as this entails travel through less populated areas.
What’s your evacuation plan?
I made this up as I went along. So this needs some work, like prearranged meeting points. Also the 72 hour kits and 2 week bags need to be finished.
We don't have all of our 72 hour kits together but it's close. We need to get some MRE's for the kit, but otherwise we are in pretty good shape. We have our backpacks ready to go with the basic essentials and a larger tub with other items that would assist. We still need to get animal carriers together for the animals. First things first. Everyone gets to the living room with coats, hats and their loveys. Daddy and Mommy gather the animals and any stray children :) Backpacks are put on and I buckle in children while daddy loads the animals and the tub. We leave to a designated shelter or a safer town, however far that might be. I wouldn't want to leave the animals, but we (the humans of course) are my primary concern. If we did have to leave them, I would lift all toilet lids, pour HUGE bowls of food for them. I would leave the lids off of the pails of animal food as well. This should allow them quite a lot of time to survive forgoing other incident. I make sure that we have emergancy #'s and animal rescue information in our phones so that we can call and alert them to my furry babies that had to be left behind. Scriptures, cash and copies of paperwork are in the backpacks.
It's a good idea to have backpacks ready to grab and run. And cars should be already well-stocked as well. Ideally, all you should have to do is grab stuff like your wallet and purse, the kids, prescriptions medicines, coats if the weather is cold, a little food, water bottles and go. Shouldn't take more then 10 minutes.
If you're not as prepared as you should be, you could spend a few more minutes grabbing extra clothes, blankets, food and water. You won't be as well prepared as you could be, but that's the price of not thinking this out beforehand. When you need to move fast, move fast. Taking an extra five minutes to take extra papers and food might be the margin that kills you.
Even if you're not well prepared, escaping with your life is still the paramount goal. You don't need to be prepared for the end of the world as we know it to survive a local catastrophe, thank goodness.
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