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.

To the Courts!

In honor of Mr. Looking Out for Us, whose tactics this move emulates, here’s the ridiculous item of the day:
Donald Luskin had an attorney send a letter to Atrios threatening to take legal action if the latter doesn’t remove some allegedly libelous posts and comments from his website. Apparently, Luskin has yet to identify the offending comments; he wants all comments removed.
Suffice it to say this kind of maneuver, even if unsuccessful, has a chilling effect on the blogosphere.
There’s already a fair level of commentary up on this, and, I’m sure, plenty more to come.

Wrong Audience

Perhaps the Bureau of Engraving and Printing should have been making commercials for automated payment machines:

As colorful new $20 bills circulate around the nation, more consumers are finding out that the notes do not work on automated payment machines like those found in self-service checkout counters at grocery stores.
The first calls started coming into the U.S. Treasury Department Bureau of Engraving and Printing two days ago, frustrating government officials who had worked to overcome the vending machine problems that followed the 1998 redesign of the bill.
This time the problem seems to plague mostly automated payment machines � a relatively recent arrival in the industry, the bureau said.
. . .
[M]ore than a year before the new bills were put into circulation, the bureau reached out to the vending machine industry, transit authorities and the gambling industry to help them get ready for the new bills, [spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Dawn] Haley said.
Vending machine manufacturers received test decks of currency to try out on their software and hardware.
But nobody thought about the automated payment machines until the first calls started coming in to the bureau after the new currency was put into circulation.

Ooops.

Revisiting the Kennedy Assassination

Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone in killing President Kennedy? ABC News says “yes,” and is scheduled to air a special presenting the evidence:

ABC News has conducted an exhaustive investigation of the Kennedy assassination, complete with a computer-generated reconstruction, which irrefutably confirms that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the network said Monday.
A two-hour special on the event is scheduled to air Nov. 20, two days before the 40th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s killing.
“It leaves no room for doubt,” said Tom Yellin, executive producer of the special, narrated by Peter Jennings. He called the results of ABC’s study “enormously powerful. It’s irrefutable.”

ABC is going to have to cover a lot of ground in two hours to remove all grounds for doubt, because several questions regarding the Warren Commission report continue to linger.
Via Up for Anything.