NOTE: I’ve edited this entry on Sept 2, 2005 as I refined my thinking about what was important. Some of the comments will no longer be pertinent.
Over the last day or so I’ve been watching the fears of hurricane Katrina’s landfall and the evacuation of New Orleans. New Orleans is a city that I’ve wanted to visit someday and now it may be too late for me to do so. I feel for those people and I find it strange to realize that on this same beautiful clear morning when I’m sending kids off to school there are other people huddled in shelters in fear for their lives. There isn’t much I can do for the people in New Orleans right now except send prayers, so I’m using the excess anxiety in a little mental exercise of imagining what I’d pack if I ever had to evacuate my home.
If I had to evacuate and had no time to plan or pack I’d grab the kids first. If there was time I’d make sure they had shoes and I’d grab our 72 hour emergency kits.
If I had 10-30 minutes to get out I’d also grab my file of Important Records (birth certificates, passports), scriptures, a toy or two per child, some extra bedding, Kiki’s hamster, the entire contents of the medecine cabinet, and some clothes.
If I have an hour to plan, then the limiting factor becomes “what will fit in the van?” In addition to everything already mentioned we’d put in additional food, photo albums/scrapbooks, Howard’s external hard drive (containing back-ups of his computer), additional books/toys, back ups of all my computer data, and the camera.
It is amazing to realize how much of what we’ve accumulated I’m willing to abandon in an emergency.
I don’t know how many CDs it would take up, but it might be worthwhile to archive existing Schlock to CDs and put it your Important Papers files. Or better yet, mail it to someone in another state for safekeeping. But maybe you’ve already done this and grabbing the computer would just be to get you the most recent stuff and make continuing to produce easier. 🙂
Re: Emergency Preparedness
Any chance of (say) monthly off-site backups of Schlock? (Which might as well include scans of the Important Papers).
On a linear importance scale of 0-10 where 10 is the children, Schlock probably doesn’t get above decimal dust (I’m guessing three or four orders of magnitude). On the other hand, Schlock is easier to plan for.
Emergency Planning
This sounds like my evacuation plans… I have an “immediate” plan, a 5 minute plan, 30 minute plan, 1 hour plan, and 1 day plan (that includes calling people, organizing things and moving them around the house…)
I have always wondered why this kind of plan is not more utilized… everything I have read indicated one should make a kit, including water, some papers, flashlight, etc… and be prepared to leave with that. but nothing about what to do if you have as much as 30 minutes, which is probably at least as possible as the person knocking on the door and saying “get out right now”!
Dan
Re: Emergency Preparedness
Howard does regular back-ups of the schlock material which then get burned to DVD and stored off site. He actually informed me that we wouldn’t bother to pack the computer or the paper schlock in an emergency.
It all fits on 2 DVDs and has been handed over to two off-site locations. 🙂
Re: Emergency Planning
I wish more people weren’t into emergency denial. It’s as if they believe that if they don’t think about it, then it won’t happen. Prior planning saves lives, it is much better to plan logically for an emergency that never happens than to sit in anxiety hoping it won’t happen.
Oh, good! 🙂
Emergency Kit
My friend from New Orleans who evacuated to Texas with her 2 children and her 4 brother’s children says that finding things for the kids to do is hard. (kids are 15, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3) So maybe packing one more emergency bag with pencils, paper, color books, a few simple card games, 1-2 books, a few small toys, etc. would be a good addition to emergency supplies. Then you wouldn’t have to assemble these things and could spend emergency time getting other things.