Do you have an actual plan if you really need to evacuate due to the fires?

Do you have an actual plan if you really need to evacuate due to the fires?

It hit me. We didn't have an actual plan.  We live surrounded by giant pine trees, and most of the road sides have grass over 2 feet tall on the side of the roads.   If we have to leave, if we turn left... we have almost no chance of getting out.  That direction has more than three miles of solid trees on both sides of the road. If we turn right, it's less than a mile of trees and the high school is less than two miles away.

Stupid last second decisions can be deadly.  So, I made an actual plan and made sure my whole family knows.

If we have to leave we plan to go to an extended stay hotel, quite far from any active fires, and a back up hotel or two in case they are all full. Some of them even take pets, so that's our plan. Plan to stay for five to seven days, put away some extra money for this and check prices in an incognito window. 

For those of you who don't know, when you search for things on the internet like airline tickets.. each time you search the price goes up and it says less and less tickets are available so you finally panic and end of buying them at three times the regular price. This won't happen in an incognito window. To get to one, open a new tab and in the very top right corner you'll see the X which closes the window and right under that you'll see three dots. Click it and you'll see the drop down. Just read down till you find it. 

My car is loaded and ready to go as there was already a fire less than 3 miles from our house. Thank God that as soon as we got the alert, we also got the 100% containment alert so we didn't have to leave. That scared me enough to do something right now, not tomorrow or next week.  I've heard on the news that some people haven't gotten even a 10 minute warning to evacuate. It was an emergency leave right now, right now. .. so we are ready. Make sure your phones and tablets are charged, go ahead and download your favorite movies and make sure you have charger cords and battery banks and they are charged. 

Please get ready, right now. Right now. 

First of all, make sure you have quite a lot of masks.  I made a game of putting one on each of our pets, while I wear one too.  If the smoke is really bad and somehow we missed it. Everyone will need several masks. We tried the ones made for pets, got several different types, and they were all bad. Worst case, I'll grab them, cover their face with a blanket and get them in the car as fast as I can. 

Like a group of complete idiots, we thought we would run over to Costco. We were out for a short time the other day and when we got home, we all felt horrible. The sky had turned ugly yellow brown, our eyes burned and our chests hurt.  When we got in the house we turned on the cool air humidifier and our air purifier and began to feel a little better but it took a while. 

If you have to leave, make sure you completely turn off the car air conditioner completely. Do not run the inside air and cover all the vents with anything you have. Running the inside air is not going to be good enough. If it gets bad enough, you may pass out while driving. 

While you are sitting around today, make a list.  What are the absolute most important things that you have, that you can't live without?  Medications, any wound care items, breathing treatments and anthing else that might be special like CPAP and oxygen.

Start today, and trim trees and bushes away from your house.  Move any piles of lumber for firewood, mow any tall grass and take a fire mitigation class the first chance you get.  Take all the curtains off the windows and get rid of any flamable fluids you really don't need right now. 

Each person needs a bag with at least 4 days of clothes (7 days is better), shampoo, and all the personal items you will need.  Make a bag for your pets too. Make sure you have leashes, collars with their Rabies vaccines and vaccination papers. A water bowl, food bowl, treats, regualar food, toys, disposable pee pads and all of the medication they need.

Each person needs a few gallons of water just in case. There may be no hotel available, and no where to stop if there is tons of traffic. 

Then, make everyone a simple food bag or box.  Concentrate on nutrition and not necessarily somebody's favorite foods. Peanut butter is great, protein bars, foods that will taste good without actually having to cook anything. Cold pizza is amazing and can be shoved in gallon zipper bags. Chicken and tuna pouches, crackers, home made trail mix...  Try to gather foods for each person that will last at least four days. You really don't know if you are going to end up half camping on the side of the road somewhere trying to get to the next hotel. Gas station foods can get really really expensive. If you're lucky, you have time to fill a cooler with ice and take it with you along with some gatorade and bottled water. 

If you have the time and can't sleep without your special pillow or whatever, get an extra one and get it packed along with some blankets.

Please take this very very seriously. Tomorrow or tonight just might be too late. At least, have a plan of where to go and how you'll get there, a back up plan and a few places for everyone to meet up. Let everyone know you will reach them by email, or facebook, or whatever you usually use if phones don't work because you lost signal. 

AI says to do all these things and they sound pretty smart to me!

BE SAFE OUTTHERE!!!!   Please email with comments if you have anything you would like me to add.

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