I’m interested to hear about the cat/pet plans people have. If this was a car evacuation plan, that’s easy enough, but what about those without cars? And do you practise with your pets? I can’t imagine trying to get my cat into a harness and baby carrier in a hurry but if that is the best way, maybe I need to look into it. She is going to hate me!
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We recently went carless, and have a 75-pound greyhound. It’s definitely a question we haven’t solved yet.
In the meantime, I have a spare collar and leash (although I need to get another tag with our contact info) and 3 days worth of food for him in our emergency bag.
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I also read somewhere about training your pets to run to you if the smoke alarm goes off. Haven’t done it yet, but it’s a great idea.
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My cats haven’t been in a harness for ages but I did used to teach them to walk on one. If you are able to keep your pet carrier set up, that’s probably a good idea, and then some kind of trailer for a bike would work if you already have one. Otherwise, we’re planning on getting a fold up beach trolley that would probably fit a cat carrier or two, or you could keep a skateboard lying around for the purposes of pushing a carrier on it? (Just spitballing ideas for putting a carrier on wheels).
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I never managed that. Our dog is terrified of the smoke alarm and runs up to the barn every time. (Well, now he’d shuffle up there like the old man he is.)
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It makes me feel sick to think about but given the latest from our stupid President and given that I live a stone’s throw from his home I feel like I need to start prepping This kind of stuff. Thank you all for your careful thoughts on the topic!
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Things you may not have thought about planning: where you will poop and pee if the wastewater services become unusable due to loss of electricity for pump stations.
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Blahhh. BFF’s fiancé is into survival stuff and is making me a list for go bags. The trouble is, he’s kinda extreme. This kind of thing is his hobby and I get it, but it feels somewhat impractical to me. I appreciate his help, this is his hobby and something he feels strongly about, but then again telling me not to live near DC because it would be “too hard to get me out when it happens” feels like a bit much and is overwhelming me.
I’m trying to think about what I would have done on 9/11 when the Pentagon was hit since I feel like this is the most likely scenario to happen again. It’s not far from here but not on our regular commute. I feel like the plan would have been to stay at home and either get H home from work or have him stay with a coworker (I imagine the beltway was nuts for a while that day so maybe him getting home would have been hard) but I feel like the next day everything largely went back to normal for anyone not working in the immediate area. Obviously that’s aside from the massive cultural shift. So I don’t feel like grabbing a go back and heading for Hometown would have been warranted, but that’s in hindsight. Perhaps in the middle of it we would have decided to head out. Even so, that is not the “grab your go bag and we’ll steal whatever else we need” end of organized civilization type of scenario. There would be time to pack while I waited for H to get home.
So I guess my question is, how does one find the middle ground? I need to figure out what emergency I’m prepping for in order to have any direction and feel like the prep is worth it.
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So, while I have a few scenarios I thought about while getting my lists together, mostly I went through:
- If we had to leave the house right now, what do I need in that bag? (Enough to survive a night; reasons include house is burning down, unsafe to stay at but civilisation is fine and we’re heading to a friend’s or a local hotel).
- What can I pack with 24 hours evacuation notice and assuming a week or longer away? (I don’t have to have this all ready but I MUST have written on the packing list exactly where to find everything, because when stressed and panicked people rarely think clearly)
- What do I need to survive 72 hours waiting in place, possibly without electricity or water services?
If society breaks down, that’s beyond my preparation capacity, certainly at the moment. So I don’t plan for that.
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THANK YOU. This is perfect. And gives me exactly the parameters I was lacking. I kept going down rabbit holes about what could go wrong that I was losing sight of it.
My friends list will be helpful I’m sure, but will also include more extreme things like prep for nuclear fallout. This is doable and manageable and I will start today by filling up my giant water storage thing.
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I found this site to be really interesting https://theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html
Not sure if I should call it a blog exactly? It’s a guy who went through Katrina with his family. He talks about getting your stuff together but also his first hand experience of experiencing the hurricane, from when it was somewhat on the horizon and they were still going about their normal lives to when they thought about leaving to when they actually evacuated to a different state (along with thousands of other people). It’s not a one-sitting kind of read but I found it fascinating because he would speak both in then-him voice (somewhat prepared but not as much as he had thought) and later-him voice (older, wiser).
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https://www.sf72.org/supplies - I found this site really empowering and helpful because the premise is, you’re more prepared than you think! It’s also helpful since we don’t live in the Bay but share some of the same most immediate disaster concerns. It also emphasizes the importance of community building, which is a goal I have anyway!
We have our camping stuff all together under the bed (not enough closets) and I put the stuff I’d want to have if we were running out into backpacks so we could grab them if needed (such as in a fire). Extra leash, water bottles and purifier, some food, some cash, some clothes I was going to declutter but instead through into the bags, etc. It’s mostly stuff to keep the kiddo more comfortable. We also have old worn out shoes under the bed since we’re most likely to have an earthquake and broken glass is a concern (although we used earthquake anchors for all our art so hopefully not!)
This wasn’t initially a disaster planning thing, but we recently moved to having more backstock of our pantry items. We have a little between-the-studs pantry in our house and then a sort of outbuilding that has our freezer and more pantry stuff. When we run out of black beans in the house, we grab the ones from the out building and put them on the grocery list. This ensures we have some extra food OF FOOD WE LIKE TO EAT, without doing a ton of planning. I love it. For the same reason and to reduce packaging and save money, I’m now planning to add to this with large purchases of flour, rice, etc. We’re regularly running through it so don’t have to think through rotational stuff. Little one loves anything with the texture of a cracker so right now we’re going through freeze dried fruit like it’s our business, and should probably buy it in larger containers.
Unfortunately in the event of a large earthquake we could be out services for a long time and ALSO a bunch of the bridges I would need to get away from the area could be out of commission. We have some stored water, plus the water in our hot water tank and then a nearby lake + tablets and other ways to make the water clean.
Do need to get something for human waste! Thanks @LadyDuck!
My favorite earthquake proofing supplies:
Small/light things on the wall: 3M command strips! Easy! Cheap! Wonderful!
Heavy things on the wall: https://www.emergencykits.com/emergency-supplies/home-safety/the-a-maze-ing-picture-hook/?gclid=CjwKCAiAmNbwBRBOEiwAqcwwpflpBZ65C8pkdAW537gVXw_BvS2FjiXaLnQXF8RIe67x2scsy2whzBoCSjIQAvD_BwE Easy! Cheap-ish! Heavy duty but still easy to get things on and off!
Favorite thing for TV’s, dressers, etc. (not just for earthquake country! Also for anyone with kids even if they’re well supervised!): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LUWC2YY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Easy! Discrete! Heavy duty but still easy to get things on and off!
There may be snow in the next week which will shut down our whole metro area. Last year, I had fun standing in line for an hour at our nearby grocery store to get food while everyone cleared out the shelves. This year, we’re good to go! I’m definitely under prepared for weeks without services but I can’t think about it too much.
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This, so much. I’m preparing for the scenarios I can actually prepare for.
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I would be super curious to see what’s on his list.
I feel totally unprepared for any type of emerency. So I’m just going to get started on making a list of things I need ready to go and setting aside a backpack and just filling it up as I gather the items. An evacuation plan is super important too. We have a small dog and a baby so that adds complication to the plan but at least the dog is small and one of us could grab her easily and run out the door if needed.
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I’ll share it once I have it 
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Training a cat? Hahahaha. Boy Kitty is terrified of loud noises so this would be a problem.
Though, this is maybe impetus for me to finally get them harnesses. I’ve been toying with that for a while so they could go outside in a controlled fashion, but kind of abandoned it after Boy Kitty, who never goes outside without a carrier, somehow got giardia.
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This preparedness series from the Northwest Edible blog is worth the time to read. It covers go bags, at home supplies, and general preparedness mindset in a really accessible way:
http://nwedible.com/tag/preparedness-101/
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That’s a good idea, a fold up flatbed cart that I could pull both cats in their carriers on. We have a wheeled grocery cart but it is too small to hold one carrier, let alone two.
My solar powered lamps/chargers turned up in the mail today! I’ve put them outside to charge and will test them out tonight.
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If you like them, please tell me which ones you bought.
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