When the time comes, you may find yourself needing to evacuate your home. In many cases, you won't have the time to think about all the logistics that go into packing up and getting away from danger. That's why it's important to sit down with your family and discuss everything that needs to be done, should disaster strike.
A family disaster plan has many steps:
The best answers come from asking the best questions. Take time to ask them. Be aware of the risks in your area. You can learn more from local emergency management officials or you local Red Cross chapter. Here is a good starting place for the kinds of things you need to ask yourself:
What sort of disasters are likely to strike in my community?
While our site mostly concerns natural disasters, you certainly need to be prepared for human-caused ones. You may know what to do in a hurricane, or an earthquake, a flood, or a nasty winter storm, but do you know what to do if there's an oil spill? A refinery explosion?
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Industrial accidents are no joke, and while the risks are slim, you should know what to do in the event of one. Consider your proximity to major shipping routes, refineries, chemical plants, power plants, or other places that turn the wheels that make the world run. I once lived in a town near Houston, Texas called Pasadena. My father worked there when I was a kid, and like many people that work in the energy business, my father paid his dues at one of the oil industry's meccas. Pasadena accounts for most of the refineries along the Houston Ship Channel, and by no coincidence, it has the largest volunteer fire department in the United States.
The city sees more than it's share of petrochemical fires. While the local fire department has an excellent reputation for putting these fires out, I can remember as a kid, having to make some short trips with my family to cleaner air at the beach in Galveston to escape the fumes. Likewise, there was a time when leaking oil in the ship channel itself caught on fire. Eventually, from practice, we did have a plan together, which came in handy during in 1986 when Hurricane Alicia hit the coast. Of course, in that instance, he had to high-tail it inland, and Dad of course, in the dark days before GPS, didn't have a map or a clue as to where we'd go or how he'd get there.
While most communities don't have nearly the risks that Pasadena, Texas has, now would be a good time to think of any man made risks in your area that might prompt the need to evacuate.
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Find out if your community has some sort of public warning system. Be sure to be familiar with what the signals are and what you are supposed to do when you hear them. We lived in Oklahoma briefly, and we were all familiar with the sirens that sounded during tornado warnings. Years later, I lived in a quiet little house near Huntsville, Texas where I attended college. I heard what sounded like a siren and got ready for the tornado. I turned on the TV...but it was a hot summer day, during a drought. Hardly the weather I expected for a tornado. I flipped the channels around for an hour. Nothing.
Finally, I knocked on my neighbor's door to ask her if she heard the siren. She did. I asked why she wasn't watching TV. Then she said:
"Well, they aren't going to hang around here. They are long gone by now, probably in the forest somewhere, on the run."
I was very confused. Then I came to realize she wasn't talking about tornadoes. She was talking about escaped convicts from the nearby prison unit, which was the source of the vintage air raid sirens! When I told her I thought it was a tornado warning, she laughed at me, but she didn't laugh at me too much. She said she spent the last hour trying to convince her senile father that Japanese Zeros were in fact, not about to bomb our east Texas hamlet, but there was a small chance we might get to see some fast moving dudes in orange jumpsuits.
The point is, if you don't know the threats in your community, talk to people who know!
Had there really been a reason for us to evacuate, we all would have been in a mess of trouble. Take my neighbor for example. She never had much of a reason to leave town, and did most of her transportation on foot or with a little Honda moped. Her father, the naval veteran of the Battle of Midway Island, had serious mobility issues and would not likely fit his wheel chair too easily on the back of a 50cc scooter. If you live with elderly, disabled, or persons with other sorts of special needs, make sure you have a plan to evacuate them when the time comes. If you want to read more about this, we've got a hat trick's worth of advice in Readiness for Those with Mobility Issues, Disaster Preparedness for People With Disabilities, as well as Disaster Tips for Those With Special Medical Needs.
At that time I also owned a cat, my only companion in those days. He was a very sociable companion, but travel was not something he was very good with. I did not own a pet carrier. I would not have been able to bring him to the local shelter (even if I had known where it was, which I didn't) and I certainly hadn't thought ahead of where we could have gone where he would have been welcome. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend Pets and Disaster, for more on that one.
How to put a Family Disaster Plan Together:
Even if I did have a plan in my college days, it wouldn't have helped me much if I was at school, at work, or visiting my girlfriend, or in my car on the highway between any of these three places and home. Every member of your family should consider the places they spend time and make plans in the event of an emergency. Think through the steps each person needs to make, and write down a checklist. Your family needs to sit down at the table and talk over what to do. Kids need to understand the dangers of fire, severe weather, earthquakes (or petrochemical fires or prison breaks in my case). Everyone should have a responsibility in the event of a disaster. Children might even be given relatively small tasks to keep them busy and out of the way. It will also keep them interested if they know they have a stake in the whole business. Keep the details short and simple, and as long as everyone has a job to do, and is familar with it, everyone should be able to steer clear of the confusion and stress that can overtake the unprepared.
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Talk over the kinds disasters that are most likely to happen.
Obviously you won't be talking earthquakes if you live in Pasadena, Texas, and you won't be talking hurricanes in Pasadena, California. Once you've done the work to know about the risks in your community, explain what to do in each case. Everyone should know what to do, and how and where to meet or at least communicate if circumstances don't prevent it.
Have two places to meet, and have a communication plan:
The first one is right outside your home, in the case of something like a fire, where getting out is a matter of seconds, not minutes or hours. That may sound simple, but it often may not be, especially in the case of mulitiple level homes and small children. Read Creating An Evacuation Plan for more about creating an airtight escape plan and making sure it works!
The second place is outside your neighborhood, in case you can't return home. Make sure everyone knows the address AND the phone number of the location.
Ask an out-of-town relative or friend to be your "family contact."
The last thing you need are confused or panicked mobile phone calls in the eye of the storm. Have one point of contact out of town and use it. Granparents, who tend to be much more likely to be at home, are a good first choice. In a really high-risk situation, telephones can get jammed, and a long-distance number is likelier to work. Having said that though, it's good to have a backup plan.
Most of the panic on September 11, 2001, was experienced by people that were in no danger at all, but weren't able to reach anyone. Not only could many not ask if their friends and loved ones were safe, people couldn't even say, "Hey, I'm fine, I'm at home now and we are all OK." Short of learning smoke signals, I highly recommend checking into Pameno's Notify, an application in the Pameno Platinum Protection suite, which specifically addresses this problem.
Your contact should live outside of your area. After a disaster, it is often easier to make a long distance call than a local call. Family members should call the contact and tell him or her where they are. Everyone must know the contact's name, address, and phone number.
Talk about where to go in the event of a mandatory evacuation.
You can make arrangements with out-of-town family or friends so you know where to go. You should have alternate plans as well, and if there are emergency shelter in your area, discuss where they are.
Know your escape routes.
In the event of an evacuation of your area, local officials may advise taking alternate routes to avoid blocked traffic. Keep your radio on. Still, you should know multiple ways out of town if you need to go. If you don't own your own means of transportation, make plans with a nearby friend or family member who does and has the means to help you. Also, remember that not all escape routes work for the same disaster. In the case of those Pasadena days of my own childhood, we went to the coast to escape fumes, but we went inland for tropical storms and hurricanes.
Make plans for your pets.
Pets (other than service animals) are not permitted to be in places where food is served, according to many local health department regulations. Plan where you would take your pets if you had to go to a public shelter where they are not permitted.
Complete your checklists.
Take the steps outlined in the checklists you made when you created your Family Disaster Plan, and include all your important contact numbers, as well as fire, police and ambulance numbers. Save them in your cell phone, and post them by the land line.
Prepare the house to leave it.
Everyone who can should know how and when to turn off the water, gas, and electricity at the main switches or valves. Keep the necessary tools near gas and water shut-off valves. Turn off utilities only if you suspect a leak or damaged lines, or if you are instructed to do so by authorities. If you turn the gas off, you will need a professional to turn it back on. You may need to paint shutoff valves with bright colored paint so that they are easy to find in low visibility situations.
Do you have adequate insurance coverage?
Call your insurance agent and review your policy. Home owners should read Ira Fisten's How Much Home Owners Insurance Is Enough? to learn more. Renters should know that their landlord's policy does not cover their personal items, but the good news is, coverage is often less than $20 a month. Your insurance agent can also answer any questions you might have about renter's insurance as well.
Install smoke alarms.
Are you really up on new advances in smoke detectors? Do you know which kind you have installed? Even if you are one of those lucky folks in a newly-built home with smoke alarms built in, it's time to go back to school, and review Home Fire Prevention 101. It's a good article. I promise it isn't boring.
Get training from the fire department.
Your local fire department is there for you when you need them, and as much as you can count on them in an emergency, they are much happier helping you prevent them. Contact them and ask them to teach about fire extinguishers and how to use them. Different kinds of fire extinguishers work in different ways and when you need them to put out a fire is not the time to break out the manual. Make sure you and other adults in your family know how to use the fire extinguishers you have.
Conduct a home hazard hunt.
During a disaster, ordinary objects in your home can cause injury or damage. Anything that can move, fall, break, or cause a fire is a home hazard. For example, during an earthquake or a tornado, a hot water heater or a bookshelf could turn over or pictures hanging over a couch could fall and hurt someone. Look for electrical, chemical, and fire hazards.
Stock emergency supplies and assemble an Emergency Disaster Kit.
You'll want to make sure you have food and water for three days in your home, but even if you are squared away, it won't help you if you have to evacuate. Keep one at home, and get one for your car.
Take a Red Cross first aid and CPR class.
Have your family learn basic safety measures, such as CPR and first aid. These are critical skills, and learning can be a fun activity for older children.
Make two photocopies of vital documents and keep the originals in a safe deposit box.
Keep one copy in a safe place in the house, and give the second copy to an out-of-town friend or relative. Vital documents such as birth and marriage certificates, tax records, credit card numbers, financial records, and wills and trusts can be lost during disasters. An even easier solution is to let us hold them for you with the Pameno Platinum Protection Archive tool.
Make a complete inventory of your home, garage, and surrounding property.
The inventory can be either written or videotaped. Include information such as serial numbers, make and model numbers, physical descriptions, and price of purchases (receipts, if possible). This list could help you prove the value of what you owned if your possessions are damaged or destroyed and can help you to claim deductions on taxes. Be sure to include expensive items such as sofas, chairs, tables, beds, chests, wall units, and any other furniture too heavy to move. Do this for all items in your home, on all levels. Then store a copy of the record somewhere away from home, such as in a safe deposit box. Pameno Platinum Protection's Home Inventory Tool can help you get started in building it and can also store it for you on our secure servers
Practice and maintain your plan.
Practicing your plan will help you instinctively make the appropriate response during an actual emergency. You will need to review your plan periodically and you may need to change some parts. Quiz your kids at least once on your plan every six months. These are also good times to conduct a fire drill.
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