Recent bushfires and resultant air pollution from the ash have seen dust masks sell out in affected cities - a good reminder to me that I need to buy some P2 dust masks for our emergency stash and (half-complete) go bags.
7 Likes
Iāve been thinking in a similar vein and am thinking of getting an air purifier that @lhamo recommended.
6 Likes
thats a good idea
2 Likes
Curious if there are any other people here who donāt have cars, and donāt know anyone with cars, and thus feel like your evacuation options are pretty slim should that become necessary. I mean, seriously, I have literally no idea how weād evacuate if that were necessary and if public transport were shut down, which I assume it would be. I know one person who owns a car; it is a tiny tiny car and it cannot haul her and her cats plus us and our cats.
We definitely need to be better about having a food supply and probably go-bags. Weād have to make sure the go-bags are light enough to easily carry while on foot and while also toting 2 10-lb cats in carriersā¦
Here, pretty much the bad things that happen are blizzards and ice storms that trap you in your house and knock out power. The city proper generally doesnāt get tornadoes, though the suburbs do.
3 Likes
Th risk of that style Evac in my area is low, and i do know car havers but donāt rely on them. Backpacking backpack plus cat in a baby carrier and harness in front. I can barely carry him 10 minutes in the carrier.
2 Likes
I think that if you donāt anticipate disasters that require evacuation, your preparations should largely be for shelter-in-place. In that case, access to a car is not particularly important. You would instead want sufficient water and food for the duration of shelter-in-place, and would want to prepared for things like loss of power (i.e. could you still get heat/water if your electricity went out?).
You might want a small nod towards something like a housefire (e.g. keep a small bag handy with documents/important photos by the door) and being stuck out in the city due to transit going down in bad weather (e.g. have a little shelter-in-place kit at work). But generally, given what youāve said, you donāt need to worry about evac so much.
4 Likes
Also think about ways to get home from work if public transit is down: a small āget homeā bag with extra food and water, good walking shoes, and warm clothing.
5 Likes
We have bikes and backpacks. We could get to family with cars in 2 hours by bike or a full day hike. It would take two weeks to walk to a family cottage out of town. If there was an evacuation, staying in place or bikes would probably be best any way.
We are not in good shape to stay in place with no heat or water in the winter becausewe donāt have a working fireplace. I should get us a water purifier and a solar battery type thing. Also a crank radio. But urgent vs. Important. I used to have a go bag, but it is empty again.
2 Likes
Good idea! I keep dry socks and shoes at work because itās not unheard of to arrive drenched from my morning commute. I could be better about keeping snacks at work just in case I am stuck here; I tend not to do that because, well, Iāll stress eat everything in my desk. I should keep stuff that Iām less likely to stress eat, like, I dunno, soup? Things I donāt particularly like?
@plainjane, I donāt know what to do about heat either if we lost power in a polar vortex or something - how does one run a generator in a second-floor apartment? Is that even possible? No fireplace here either. On the plus side, my landlords live a block away, in a very nice house, and always check in on us when weāre having extreme weather so they might be of help in a pinch.
2 Likes
I need to think about this one. I only have a small locker at work for personal storage (we hotdesk) so I could only store absolute essentials, but also, work is only 4km from home so an easy walk for me.
2 Likes
Please donāt run a generator inside a building. Thatās how you die of carbon monoxide poisoning. I think you also need your electrical set up to be powered from a generator and thatās probably not something youād have in an apartment. Have you ever lost heat before?
4 Likes
Bury them in the back of the bottom drawer so theyāre annoying to get at?
1 Like
In an apartment building at -40 with a cook breeze, itās unlikely to be -40 indoors. Just extremely unpleasant. Last winter when my heat wasnāt working it was getting to -10 indoors. You can find the warmest room, all the layers and all the bedding and all mammals will naturally congregat and sleep e. If the situation continues youād move to a warming station or evacuate.
If you own a tent, it lets you make a room inside the apartment that is warmer
1 Like
We stocked an extra propane cantister for our propane heater, partly because there was a slight chance of ice** last night, but really because we donāt want to run out of auxiliary heat for the dog to enjoy.
** Ice storms are more common here than snow because it starts falling as a liquid and freezes onto everything including power lines.
2 Likes
When I was a child we used a portable kerosene heater if/when we lost power in winter. Sometimes we would lose power for days, and our house was small and poorly insulated. However, I believe that is now considered highly dangerous. 
I might recommend a winter rated sleeping bag. I have one that is rated down to like 10 degrees, and sometimes I cozy up in it at night when it is 60 degrees or below in the house. It is super comfy and I am sure it would be great in an emergency. One of the best purchases I ever made.
3 Likes
Iām still working my way through this thread but I love it and think itās such an important thing to do. It will be my goal for early 2020 to get this going.
2 Likes
From LadyDuckās journal:
3 Likes
Thank you for alerting me to this thread, I think I found it at the start and then lost it again so a bit to catch up on.
2 Likes
Youāre welcome!
Iāve just ordered some plastic ID card holders and brightly coloured landyards, so I can do this bit:
2 Likes
Things I need to do: practice an evacuation. We need to know what we donāt know and where weād get stuck or slow if we did have to get out fast.
Some of our ā24hr-to-Evacuateā stuff will be kept in different places, like tinned food, so we need to add lists of where to find stuff and practice getting it out and in the car.
2 Likes