by Lisa Bedford
Survival Mom’s
No Worries Guide
Emergency Evacuations:
Get Out Fast When It
Matters Most!
By Lisa Bedford
NOTE: This book may contain links to certain videos, websites, and other information available on the Internet. The author has included these links as sources of information to help readers learn more about emergency preparedness topics. Please do your own research on any skill, product or advice before trying, buying, or relying on it, especially in an emergency. While the author has personally used certain products that are linked to (or similar products), she has not necessarily used all of the products, and some links and information are included based on third party recommendations, rather than personal experience. Links are included for educational, informational and entertainment purposes only, and are not intended to, nor should they be used to, replace applicable medical or other expert or professional advice.
As of the date of publication, links included provide information appropriate to the subject matter of this book. However, due to the nature of the Internet and third party control of links and linked information, there is no guarantee that any links or the information that they reference have not changed since publication, or that they will not change in the future. If you find broken, erroneous, or inappropriate links or information, please email the author at [email protected]. The author is not responsible for linked online content, information, advice or products, and does not express or imply any endorsement thereof.
Copyright © 2015 Lisa Bedford All rights reserved, including the right to copy, reproduce and distribute this book, or portions thereof, in any form. The Survival Mom.
ISBN: 1-942533-01-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-942533-01-6
Thanks so much for purchasing this book. I hope it is a great help to you and your loved ones.
As a special gift, I’ve recorded a 30-minute webinar that adds even more helpful information for your
evacuation plans,
“7 Lessons From Hurricane Katrina”
http://thesurvivalmom.com/evacwebinar
Click here to access this free webinar, and thanks again for your purchase!
An Introduction
Moms worry about many things, from the mundane to the truly scary. We worry about the expectations of others, how to get our kids to eat healthy snacks, and whether or not we should be concerned about the latest news headlines.
Survival Moms worry, too, but we know that worrying doesn’t change anything, nor does it prepare us if things go wildly wrong. So, we take charge. We brainstorm, research, make lists, and find ways to make our homes and families ready for everyday emergencies and even worst case scenarios.
One emergency that few households are prepared for is an emergency evacuation. Whether it’s a sudden house fire, rising flood waters, or a tornado that devastates a town, we want to be ready to grab the most essential items, kids and pets, especially, and get out of danger’s way.
Survival Mom’s No Worries Guide to Emergency Evacuations will provide you with the tools, strategies, and motivation to put everything in place should you need to evacuate your home in a crisis. You’ll learn the difference between an urgent evacuation and a planned evacuation, and how to prepare for both. You’ll have convenient lists for emergency kits that cover babies, pets, and even elderly loved ones. Also in this book, you’ll find strategies for getting out of the house quickly and planning the best routes to safety.
Preparedness brings peace of mind and a whole lot less to worry about!
Lisa Bedford
The Survival Mom
October 8, 2015
Table of Contents
Introduction
Evacuation: Chaotic. Confusing. Terrifying.
When is it time to leave?
Emergency kits, packed & ready
Think outside the box when it comes to evacuation destinations
Staying sane under (very) trying circumstances
Hitting the road
Getting ready to leave: the final moments
Your mindset really matters
Eventually, you'll return home
Prepare more, panic less
Appendixes:
Evacuation supplies checklist.
Evacuation to-do list.
Last-minute packing list.
Afterword
About the Author
Also by Lisa Bedford
Contact the Author
Evacuations: Chaotic. Confusing. Terrifying.
An all-too familiar scene that accompanies disasters and major crises of all kinds is a crowd of bewildered and desperate people – men, women, and children – carrying random suitcases, backpacks, and trash bags loaded with their only remaining belongings.
These refugees, for that is what they are, have fled an event that became so dangerous they feared for their lives and entered a scenario requiring them to depend on the kindness and generosity of strangers, which itself is a risk.
Escaping danger wearing only the clothes on your back and grabbing random items as you rush out the door is the worst possible way to "do" an evacuation! Even in the face of a house fire or oncoming tornado, preplanning and preparation make all the difference in the world for getting out quickly and safely.
This guide will help you predict potential threats to your home and family and create a customized plan for an emergency evacuation.
An emergency evacuation vs. bugging out
If you're familiar with the prepper world, you know that no topic is more popular than bugging out. Preppers love to debate and discuss their bug out routes, bug out locations, contents of their bug out bags, and even which vehicle is the best for, you guessed it, bugging out!
In these discussions, and in countless blog articles and books, bugging out involves hitting the road and leaving home forever in the face of a worst case scenario such as an economic or societal collapse. For sure, an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) or the eruption of the Yellowstone caldera would necessitate evacuating far away and for good. None of these scenarios are out of the question, and it's very possible that certain SHTF events might necessitate extreme decisions and actions. However, mundane events that would, nevertheless, require heading to a safer place are far more likely. So mundane are these events that the most popular survival websites barely give them a mention!
The truth is that most evacuations become necessary due to everyday emergencies, and that is the topic of this No Worries Guide.
Two types of evacuations
A house fire or a chemical spill can cause us to race out of the house with moments to spare. Other types of disasters, however, give us enough advance warning with hours, perhaps even days, to prepare.
Whether a future evacuation becomes necessary due to an everyday emergency or a worst case scenario, you need to have plans and preps in place for both. Depending on what sort of emergency you face, your evacuation will be either urgent or planned. You’ll read about both types on the next few pages and learn how to begin putting plans in place for each.
Urgent evacuation
It's the middle of the night and the smell of smoke awakes you to a house fire. There is no time to mosey from room to room searching for important documents and making several trips to and from your car in order to pack more supplies. There is no time at all to do anything other than react. You must just get out! In these cases, it is doubtful there will be time to do
much else. If you pause to gather pets, supplies, valuables, and documents, you are more likely to endanger yourself and your loved ones.
In the case of a widespread, sudden emergency, scrambling at the last minute, deciding what to take and what to leave behind, will take precious minutes you don’t have. It also increases the chance that you’ll run into major traffic issues as panicked people also try to get away from harm.
Possible scenarios that may necessitate an urgent evacuation:
Avalanche
Earthquake
Explosion
Chemical spill nearby
Landslide
Mudslide
Floods
Nuclear event
Riots
Terrorist attack
Tornadoes
Tsunami
In the case of an urgent evacuation, it’s doubly important to be prepared since you will be managing your own fears as well as those of your loved ones. Even pets will react to your strong emotions. At times like this, your brain will kick in by sending not-so-helpful messages that instruct you to flee, fight, or freeze. None of those options are very helpful at this moment, but by having an evacuation routine in place, routes planned, and emergency kits ready to go, you’ll have a better chance of fighting back against those emotions and brain messages. If you’ve rehearsed the evacuation in a family drill, you’ll be even better prepared to survive.
Be prepared: Grab and run!
Since you never know when you may have to run from home in the middle of the night, it’s smart to have just a few key items in a small bag, something similar to a zippered cosmetic bag or a nylon drawstring backpack, kept in your bedside table or hanging on a bedpost. This isn’t your main emergency kit or bug out bag, but is meant to hold just a few essentials in case that’s all you have time to grab.
That bag could contain:
A small but powerful LED flashlight
A whistle (helpful if a tornado or powerful earthquake leaves you trapped in your home).
Spare pair of eyeglasses and/or contact lenses
A multi-tool with a good blade
Hand and foot warmers if you live in a cold climate
A pair of very warm (possibly wool) socks
Cash
A photo ID
Planned evacuation
The second type of evacuation to consider and prepare for is a planned evacuation. An example of this is when news of a hurricane begins to dominate the attention of the media.
Thanks to modern technology, meteorologists can predict with a fair degree of accuracy when and where these will make landfall. You may have days to plan for your evacuation before it occurs. Ideally, you will already have your emergency kits prepped and ready to go, with appropriate clothing and food rations for each person. Everyone knows what he or she is responsible for. With these basic things out of the way, you are free to do additional planning that will make your time away from home go more smoothly.
Besides a hurricane, there are other possible scenarios that may necessitate a planned evacuation:
Earthquake – Your home may be reparable and safe to enter, but not habitable. Simply having a water main break may necessitate leaving your home.
Hurricane
Epidemic or pandemic
Rising floodwaters
“Storm of the Century” — Blizzard or otherwise, you may want to get out to avoid the worst.
Volcanic eruption — Volcanoes usually give some warning before erupting, but once they blow, time’s up.
Wildfires in the area – These can abruptly change direction. Stay safe and be prepared to flee.
Ironically, in spite of having time to plan, evaluate routes, and double check all your preparations, planned evacuations may not go smoothly due to factors beyond your control. It may be difficult to persuade family members that now is the time to go. The weather and road conditions may not cooperate and authorities, including law enforcement, may have made decisions that affect your route and ability to move quickly.
One Survival Mom reader, Gille, told me about a hurricane evacuation in which she and her family traveled 24 hours to reach a destination that was just 4 hours away. At one point they stopped at a gas station to sleep and woke to armed police limiting the amount of gasoline that could be purchased by customers — one gallon per person!
As with any type of emergency evacuation, make your plans, stay informed, be ready to move when it becomes necessary, but be prepared to make last minute adjustments. The ability to adapt quickly is key to survival.
TIP: Throughout this book and in the Appendix are several checklists for your use. You can make copies of those in the Appendix or download them.
http://thesurvivalmom.com/downloadable-resources
Case study: a real-life urgent evacuation.
Marilyn, a Texas mom and registered nurse, told me the story of how a house fire forced her family to evacuate late one night.
“Around 11:30 one winter night, my spouse and I were watching TV in bed with our door closed. Our 18 year old son was in the living room on the computer and in our basement lived a single gent who was renting that space.
My husband and I started smelling something like burned toast, and I opened the bedroom door to ask my son what he was cooking/burning. As I opened the bedroom door, I heard him yelling that smoke was coming out the furnace vents. At the same time, I heard the basement tenant banging around downstairs, knocking over furniture. I yelled at my son that the house was on fire and to get out.
It was at this point that our prior planning and preparedness for just this type of event helped but still, mistakes were made, as you’ll see.
We have been foster parents for delinquent teens, and because of this, we were required to have certain safety procedures in place. Bedrooms doors were always closed when occupied, and fire drill plans were framed and hung by bedroom doors. From time to time, we even had actual drills. Our written plans included instructions to check the bedroom doorknob for heat before opening and to not open it if the room was already smoky or the door was hot. We also had a prearranged meeting spot outside so we could make sure that each person was safe. As part of our fire safety plans, everyone was always told to not wait around inside the house or look around for things to “rescue”. We made sure that everyone knew to climb out of a window if a doorway led into an unsafe, smoke-filled area.
The night of our house fire, I first opened our bedroom door and for just a few seconds, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Yes, the house was on fire and what happened next, happened within just a couple of panic-filled minutes!
Before going to sleep at night, I’ve always put our 3 dogs in their kennels. On this particular night, only one was in his kennel, and the other 2 were loose in our bedroom. Our cat was allowed to roam the house. As soon as I opened the bedroom door to check on the smell of smoke, the 2 loose dogs ran to the side door as they were used to going out to the yard that way. My spouse, without checking, opened the side door. Later, I learned that smoke was billowing out from under that door and the two dogs were killed, most likely immediately, by the heat and smoke. It was a very sad loss.
My husband, son, and I ran out the front door in our pajamas and into a snowy, frigid night. Because one toy poodle was in his kennel, we were able to grab him as we raced to safety. My son was able to go back to the front door and grab coats, shoes and, luckily, our wallets and my purse. They were all hanging on hooks by the front door. From just those few, brief seconds in the smoke-filled house, however, my son experienced a significant smoke inhalation injury.
Once all three of us were outside, my son dialed 911. This all occurred in a matter of just two or three minutes from when we first smelled smoke. It happened so fast!
We basically lost everything in this fire. The gentleman who was living in the basement died. He had fallen asleep smoking.
Looking back, we did a lot of things right in spite of the tragic outcome of this event. We had planned for a po
tential house fire, even if those plans weren’t executed perfectly. Having our coats, wallets, and shoes by our main exit point, the front door, worked out great, and we needed all those items! The money and debit/credit cards in our wallets allowed us to drive to a hotel, pay for a room, and buy food and other necessities during the days initially following the fire. Keeping our dogs in kennels at night is something I still do, both for their safety and my comfort. Our established meeting place allowed us to quickly confirm that everyone was okay and what each person had done, e.g. call 911, evacuate the kenneled dog, etc. It also gave us a primary goal to focus on: get to that meeting place! It was a huge relief to know that we were all safe.
The mistakes that we made included not having all the dogs kenneled earlier. I opened the bedroom door without thinking. I honestly did not initially consider a fire, but my biggest mistake was not accurately assessing and understanding family members’ strengths and limitations. My son did everything he was trained to do. My husband, not so much. As a RN, I knew panic often sets in when there’s an emergency, and this was a huge one! I’m trained to assess and give firm direction to those who cannot function, but when I needed to put that training to use with my own family members, I failed to remember this danger or to recognize it. Because of that, I was unable to give firm directions, which may have helped us get out more quickly, stopped our dogs from exiting a very dangerous doorway, or possibly salvaged more of our belongings at the last minute.
In our panic mode we forgot to assess doorknobs for heat and smoke. We lost two dogs and a cat and if I hadn't intervened quickly, we would have been dealing with the death of my husband, who was standing directly in front of a mass of fire and smoke. I now realize, more than ever, that not everyone can handle major crises like this one. If you recognize signs of that tendency before something happens, you can provide specific, verbal directions and, potentially, avoid some disasters.
