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Disaster Evacuation Checklist

My SoCal friend, who I mentioned earlier, has apparently survived the California fires unscathed. But a fire did get close enough to his duplex to prompt him to prepare for evacuation.

This lead him to pose an interesting question: If you only had a few minutes to pack your belongings, what would you take?

Good question--one I haven't given much thought to. I heard that in some instances California evacuees had as little as 10 minutes warning to flee. Presumably, they knew in advance that they might have to leave, but in a worst-case scenario you might not. So it's good to plan accordingly.

If I had 10 minutes to flee the house, I would ideally grab items along the following priorities:

  1. Cat.

  2. Important personal documents (e.g., birth certificate).

  3. Family photo collection.

  4. Financial documents (e.g., bank statements).

  5. Trumpet.

  6. Cash.

  7. Personal computer files.

  8. Research documents.

  9. Work-related computer files.

  10. Work-related documents.

  11. Clothing.
As I said, this is an ideal list. Because as it stands now I couldn't even find all these things in 10 minutes, much less get them out the door. Nonetheless this is an important question to contemplate and plan for, because you never know when disaster might strike.


Posted by Brian on October 30, 2003 2:45 PM | Permalink |

Comments

teresa
October 30, 2003 4:46 PM

42

The blog is looking really great! I want to see a picture of your cat!

Brian Arner
October 30, 2003 11:40 PM

43

Teresa,

Thanks for the comment. I don't have a digital picture of my cat or I would post it. He's a solid-white, semi-longhaired cat with light olive green eyes. He looks somewhat similar to a Turkish Angora, but I'm exactly sure what he is. Sometime I should get a picture made for this site.