Many people left New Orleans with their equivalent of a bug out bag. They left with clothes and supplies for a weekend away from home. But home left them. And now, most of them have nothing.
We have a BOB, bug out bag, hanging in the garage. It has clothes, emergency supplies (flashlight, etc), and a first aid kit. In our house we have some food. And we have bottled water. (Although it is probably time to replace that.) But, in the case of a forced evacuation, leaving Houston for some other city, how reasonable is our BOB? It’s not.
If we were in an evacuation we should grab:
our tax stuff
our medical history
our insurance information
our house papers
our resumes (though we have these on our computers, which we would take even if we were leaving for two days)
If we were in an evacuation I would want to grab:
love letters from R
photo albums
family jewelry
R’s camera
my grandfather’s bear
R’s great-grandmother’s quilt
I’m going to have to think about this, flesh it out more, print it out, and post it in my closet where I can find it when I am in the stress of an evacuation.
One of my student’s work has just hired a guy from NOLA. He brought all his paperwork out with him. He had his tax stuff, his kids’ medical history, and all the other paperwork to get them started anew here. He and his family won’t be going back. Welcome to Texas!
Some off this stuff could be copied and kept in the BOB. You could also digitize some of it, like photographs, so they’d be available even if you had to cut back on what you could take. You could upload them online somewhere so as to not even have to worry about taking them.
Pingback: My Own Thoughts » Suggestions for Improvement in Disaster Preparedness