On the other side of our town there was also an evacuation of homes for a few hours. There is road construction going on and the workers hit a major natural gas line.
Yesterday there was also a section of town that was evacuated in the middle of the night for a burst major water line.
I not sure why but I had never really thought of needing to use our 72hour kits for situation likes these. I guess in my mind I figured it would be a situation on a much larger scale. You know something that made everything/everywhere around us stop; not just a portion of the city(to many sci-fi/end of the world movies for me I guess).
I had never really thought that we might need to use our kits in situations where we still had to function in everyday life. Situations like my husband would still have to go to work since he works in a city that is not right close to home.
We recently rotated and changed our food so it was more likely something we would want to eat. I figure having foods the kids look forward to eating will help keep them calm in a stressful situation.
This past week I have been going through making sure our kits also included things to allow us to still feel comfortable in everyday life.
My friend had a link to a grab and go list. Truly an excellent idea! I had a little trouble printing this and figured I would like to personalize mine more (since I don't have a pet or a baby). I also found some of the items I have in our 72 hour kits so we wouldn't need to grab them .
Here's our families' list that I am now sticking a copy in my kit, in my file folder about emergency preparedness and taped in my garage. I figured I would have it in multiple places so I know I can find one when were in a rush.
Emergency Evacuation Grab and Go List
(Need to leave within 5 minutes)
- Wallet or purse
- Car/house keys
- Cell phones and chargers
- 72 hour kits
- Adequate shoes for weather
- Coat or jacket
- Lap top
- Important documents (should be in one container)
- Contacts/glasses
- Prescriptions
- Back-up drive
- Fire proof safe
- Camp stove
- Blankets
- Tent
- Pillows
- Towels
- Case of bottled water
- Extra batteries
- Memory items-Scrapbooks, wedding book, kids books, family videos
We currently keep first aid kits in all our cars so I didn't put this on the lists. I did go through them this week to make sure they were still stocked. I think I will try to do this twice a year when we rotate the food in our 72 hour kits. Awhile back I made a car emergency kit. We also keep blankets and an umbrella in the main family car. It wouldn't hurt to make sure these are still in the car twice a year.
As I read over the suggested list I realized there was also some things we could do to make some of the items easier to grab. Here's my goal for the next few weeks to organize:
- Put batteries that are scattered in the drawer into a tote.
- Copy important documents and put in an accordion folder. We have them in a fireproof safe but this is pretty big to grab. Having an extra copy wouldn't hurt.
- Put my family videos into one tote
I hope we never have to use this but being prepared brings peace.
These are some great ideas. I'd be interested in talking to you about what you have in your 72-hour kits sometime...we really don't have anything in place for an emergency, and I really should do some of these things. Thanks for the reminder!
ReplyDeleteI love how organized you are about this! I'll probably be spending a bunch more time with this post getting our family better prepared, too.
ReplyDeleteBTW -my sister is in a singles ward in Pleasant Grove and the leaders there took a FHE night to really encourage them to get their food storage by a certain date. They feel very strongly that it is critical they do this now! And after what happened in Provo when the power poles came down just after we'd been counseled to get prepared, it just makes me so grateful to have priesthood leaders so in tune with the spirit.