Monday nights at our house are typically our Family Night (in our church it’s called Family Home Evening). We play games and spend time together and have a spiritual lesson and treats. Always treats. I love to occasionally toss in preparedness lessons or activities. Sometimes working in the garden is the activity (those nights are not usually as well received as the nights we play Pictionary). Anyway, I digress. The point is that sometimes we have Preparedness Family Home Evening and it’s a good time to get everyone on the same page and working together.
Each week we take turns being in charge of specific aspects of the evening and this past Monday, it was like all the stars aligned because I was in charge of the activity and with the recent events in Japan it was the perfect time to pull off an “activity” I’ve been wanting to do for a while.
The Set Up
When it came time for the activity, I told everyone that we were going to pretend that we were sitting around the house together when we got a phone call or someone came to the door and the local dam was breaking and we had 10 minutes to get out of our house. We may or may not return to it and if we return the things we left could very likely be damaged or destroyed. In the meantime, we’re evacuating to the next town or possibly farther, but society will still be intact where we’re headed. What are you going to take? Ready? Go.
I will admit we kind of cheated because it was already dark so I just had everyone put their stuff in the living room instead of the car, but I cut the activity off at 8 minutes instead of 10 to make up for it a little. When we were done, we took some time to look through what we had thought to bring.
What we Brought
I wish I had taken a picture of the pile. The kids grabbed:
Their emergency kits (okay, 2 of them got their kits and one didn’t)
A scout first aid kit
Coats
One grabbed his journal
Scriptures
Assorted toys (some with great sentimental value)
Flashlights/headlamps
BB Gun
Extra Clothes, shoes, pajamas
Camera
Pocket knife
Blankets
Pillow
Wallets with their money
Hair brush
Lotion (one daughter has rashy dry skin and thought she’d want some lotion)
Hamster in a carrier
Dog and leash
Not every kid had thought to grab everything the others did, but between them all they had a pretty good assortment.
Mom and Dad got:
Emergency Kits
Extra toiletries, medications
Cash
Extra clothes (the clothes in my kit won’t fit me 7 months pregnant)
Important documents (birth certificates, titles, insurance policies, etc.)
Coats, sturdy shoes
What We Didn’t Bring But Should Have
We then discussed what we didn’t get that we would like to have brought. Now you’ll see why it’s so important to practice! And I’m letting on here to some pretty dumb decisions, so you’ll know even I make mistakes. And remember, we weren’t under any “real” stress–we all knew it was a drill–how would my brain have handled packing in the face of a real disaster?
What we didn’t get in the pile:
Amazingly enough, mom and dad didn’t think of grabbing the guns/ammo until minute 7 1/2! Why? I don’t know.
Hubby has a cabinet full of genealogy (some copies, but a lot of original documents and pictures) and another shelf of his late mom’s journals he’d like to take but we hadn’t figured out how to quickly move them before the evacuation, so they didn’t get packed. He did spend some of his 10 minutes analyzing how he might get it all out.
We didn’t get photo albums, baby books, or journals (except the one our son brought).
And for the life of me, I could not find our family first aid kit that is usually in the food room. Of course I didn’t spend much time looking for it–we were headed to a civilized location after all–but still! I’m thinking maybe it’s in the shop with the camping gear. Talk about throwing me off for a minute though. A minute I could have spent gathering something else. Which brings me to the next part of the activity.
What We Shouldn’t Have Brought
The third part of the activity was to assess the things we DID pack and see if there was anything we didn’t need. We asked the kids to look at their things and take out any thing they would leave behind in exchange for something of more value (like their baby books). I was amazed with their choices. They knew which toys didn’t have to go with us and were willing to leave them behind. They had wanted to get a few things like toothbrushes, but then we talked about how they already have them in their emergency kits and really, contrary to what mom and dad say on the average day, brushing your teeth isn’t all that important.
We discussed smaller items like the scriptures (important, but with extras in Mom and Dad’s kits we could get the others replaced when we got to our destination), and the dog leash that we could find a piece of rope or twine if we needed to instead of taking time to pack the leash. The extra toiletries and medications weren’t really necessary either since we were evacuating to a civilized place. And did they get good shoes? Or just the first shoes they could find? Some good conversation and observations were made.
We talked about the things in the trailer and the shop–was there anything there we’d like to take. Decided there wasn’t. What if we had 30 minutes instead of 10? What would change? Maybe then some of the things in the shop could get packed–all the camping gear is there. What if we had 2 minutes? Just grab the kids and load in the car and leave. We’ve got the car kit to get us a little ways.
Clean Up
When we were done assessing our evacuation and making some better plans, I told the kids they had less than 10 minutes to put everything back where it belonged and we’d have ice cream. Clean up was quick. Ice cream is a good motivator.
A Couple Random Observations
Mom and Dad were pretty busy getting our own things together and would be the ones packing things into the vehicle/s, so the kids were left pretty much to themselves to gather what they needed. They did well, but I was surprised when it was done how little time I had to prompt them in any way as to what to take. They need to know before it’s evacuation time the things that are important to grab.
How’s your gas tank? I’ll admit I’m not the best at keeping it full. Usually when my sweet husband uses the car he’ll fill it up because I’ve let it get too low. We only had about a third of a tank at mock evacuation time. How far would that get us before we’re trying to get gas with everyone else that was evacuated? If you’ve got extra gas stored, it would be good to put that on your evacuation packing list.
Dad was home. Usually he’s not. It’s important for me to know what he wants saved and for him to know what I want saved and where it is in case the other one is not there at evacuation time. If one of us is not home, that also means we have fewer man-minutes to pack things and a few other things would have to be left behind.
In a real short term, life or death situation, even the emergency kits aren’t as important as getting everyone out alive.
Overall, the activity went pretty well. We would have had a good amount of supplies to get us quite a ways even if we had to spend a night or more in the car. And I was pretty impressed with the things the kids decided to take.
So give it a try. I dare you. Hold a Preparedness Family Home Evening. Evacuate your family. Just don’t forget the ice cream afterward!
Keep preparing! Angela
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This is an absolutely fantastic idea! I’m going to do it for our next FHE…thanks so much for sharing.
And the bonus was it took approximately zero minutes in preparation! ;)
I realize the mother’s journals are important, but he can leave them home and hope they are intact if he scans them and puts them on a flashdrive or an sd card. If he makes two sets of copies on elecectronice media devices (sd card and drive), then he can keep one and put the other in a safety deposit box.
Also, I email things from documents or pictures to myself. Those items can be retrieved from email if the computer is lost or destroyed.
The same would go for baby books and insurance policies. I know that the original is important, but copies would work.
Fantastic idea! We sometimes talk about what we’d do, but never actually practice. Gonna give it a try–even though we only have our two selves, there’s a physical disablilty we have to work around and that will be time consuming and deserves consideration in planning.
Hand fans cuz if you run the AC while stalled in traffic jams, your engines will overheat, and there’s not a lot of breeze from open windows when sitting still.
Really enjoy your posts and laugh-out-loud at times when I recognize your adventures and sometimes mis-adventures being mirrored in the life of my own family.
The mention of genealogy records in your post invoked this note. The Lineagekeeper allowed me to repost his recent post on survival planning for his his genealogy records, websites and blogs. It is worth thinking about these issues and solutions in our own emergency planning.
See it on my blog at: Will My Genealogy Records Survive Me?
We keep a full copy of our genealogy records on 16-gig thumb drives in our 96-hour kits and update them monthly as part of a regularly scheduled update cycle. We will loose recent data added between updates and the hard copies of our records but at least the data and images won’t be completely lost.
More things for the preparedness checklist..
Great idea! I have thought about what I would do if I had to evacuate, but I have never actually timed myself getting ready to leave! Scary thought.
Awesome idea! I especially liked the part about knowing what your spouse wants taken if he/she aren’t there.
This also made me think it would help to have empty duffel bags stowed in each room/closet to ease in quick packing. All our luggage is stowed together out in the garage which wouldn’t help in a fast evacuation scenario.
Oh! Another thought I just had… My brother’s family was evacuated once for a nearby fire and they quickly took pictures of each room in the house to document their possessions in case they had to make insurance claims on any losses (thank goodness they never needed to!). I thought that was a good idea if you have time and could be something you do in advance as well.
We did the same thing with our bags–kept them all together out in the shed, but I’ve since moved a couple inside to strategic locations. One is in the bathroom to grab extra meds/toiletries and a couple more under our bed. Does make throwing things together a little easier. A rolled up duffel bag really doesn’t take up much space in the bathroom cupboard or under a bed.
And our insurance agency actually suggested taking pictures like your brother did and they said it’s best if you get a person in the picture also so it proves it was your house and your belongings. Definitely something better to do before the time to evacuate. Those pictures could be in with your important documents or in a safe deposit box or a relative’s house. Good reminder!
Had an email comment from a single guy who is planning to have his friend call him at some random time for his evacuation drill. Great idea! Even a family could use that one–arrange with someone else to tell you when the disaster strikes so nobody knows when it will happen.
Could you pack the journals in a rolling suitcase and just keep them in there all the time? Then in an emergency, it’s grab and go.
This is a great idea!
Could anyone suggest an alternate disaster scenario?
We are upstream and uphill from the only local dam and I’d like to make this as potentially realistic as possible. We have briefly discussed what types of situations might cause us to evacuate. We are mostly prepared to stay put.
We are new to prepping, so I am sure we’ll learn more than I can imagine!
Thanks!
How about a wild fire? Or a chemical spill–any train tracks or highways nearby? If one of those is involved in an accident and spills whatever it is carrying it could require the evacuation of the surrounding area until it is deemed safe for those folks to return home. Any other ideas?
Wildfire- that is it! It’s fire season here in the spring and fall. There are trains nearby enough I could probably go with the spill idea, too.
We are set to go in an hour, once dinner is done, though the family has no idea.
I’ll let you know how it goes.