This isn’t a hypothetical for me. I had close to this exact situation happen to me when the floods came thru in June. The police officer was pounding on my door, I opened up and was shocked to find water right up to the steps of my apartment.
I grabbed my wallet, my cellphone, medications, a change of clothes and threw them all into a backpack. Then I spent 10 minutes throwing all my computers and electronics up onto desks, the bed, and the couch hoping they would survive. I had to wade through about three feet of fast flowing water to get to dry land.
I got lucky and the water didn’t get into my apartment, though my car got drowned.
Having lived at various times in earthquake, wildfire and flood country, we’ve done this drill. It’s one of the reasons one of our vehicles is always a small truck with a shell.
If we can load the truck, cats, with food, water & catboxes, harp & laptop - that’s what my husband loads. I grab one large duffel of clothes, a photo album, toiletries, and a couple things that are irreplaceable.
If we can only take what can be carried, it’s cats (me), harp (him), and a daypack with cat food, underwear, toothpaste, toothbrush & deoderant, purse & wallets (both). Bunging five cats into two large carriers promises funa and excitement for all.
Cats, handguns, wallets/purse, hard drives, any spare cash we might have. In pretty much that order (in other words, the less time we had, the fewer of those we’d grab.) The cats would only be abandoned in the most dire of circumstances, and I’d hope I’d be able to put them down first to keep them from suffering.
Like Scumpup, I’d take the guns mostly because they’re expensive and easily portable, not because I expect that I’d need them. They’re also loaded and bedside, so they’re easy to get to.
Computer hard drives for the photos and personal info.
Travelling ditty that always has my toiletry items, plus asprin, sewing kit, etc.
Spare check blanks - don’t want to leave them around the house.
A couple of changes of cloths.
If there is still time, there are 2 paintings and a couple of pieces of pottery I’d love to save, but I’m not risking anything to get them. The rest of it can all burn.
Laptop, CC’s, cellphone, wallets, folio-sized notebook, pens case. I’d pile up the clothing on myself (although wearing my German coat in August might cause fainting, it’s more efficient than putting it in one of the pillowcases and it doubles up as a blanket) and then fill up the rest of the alloted space with another pair of jeans and as much small clothing (T’s, underwear, socks) as fitted.
Can I bring one pillowcase and one computer bag? Carrying the laptop and all that other rigid stuff in a pillowcase doesn’t seem like a Good Idea. My computer bag makes a decent pillow (yes, I’ve used it in such a fashion).
Like Kyla, I move very often. The most expensive item I own is my house in Spain, the second most expensive my car, but the most valuable my laptop.
Hard drive, toiletries, medicines are the first things that spring to mind. My Garmin Forerunner runner’s watch, simply because it’s a) great and b) the most expensive thing I own in terms of money per volume. After that, I really don’t know. Set fire to my house and we’ll see.
If it is a kingsize pillowcase then all three cats would fit in one. They wouldn’t be happy, but they’d be alive.
Some pictures and all the important documents in the other, plus the candy dish I have from my grandmother. I’d leave behind ID and papers before I’d give up that dish.
As a woman I’m assuming my purse will be on my arm. That will have my wallet, with all the usual cards one has, plus my prescriptions. If I don’t have the purse, I can probably fit it into the second pillowcase.
I had this EXACT scenario happen to us in 2003 with the Cedar Fire as I live in Scripps Ranch here in San Diego. The fire started coming over the hill and we were told by the police we had 20 minutes to evacuate over their PA. This was before they had the reverse 911 thing they do now. Thankfully, our house was spared, but less than a half mile away, everything burned.
My wife and I worked as a team and took:
All our photo albums
the computer and laptop
my antique guns
all important papers for the house/cars (all in one file anyway)
a painting on the wall
some autographed photos and DVDs
each of us grabbed a random pile of clothes from our drawers
the dog and cat
our digital cameras, which both of us then used to quickly take pictures of every room from at least two sides to show all the stuff we DIDN’T take for the inevitable fight with our insurance company that thankfully never came about what we lost.
That took about 17 minutes.
The only delay was once they announced the evacuation of our area on the news, the phone started ringing with people offering to help and wanting a personal news report. One of my wife’s friends had the audacity to get pissed off because we ‘brushed her rudely off the phone’. WTF? After the first two calls, we let them all get answered by the answering machine. I’d estimate there were 15 such calls. It was nice to know in retrospect that we had so many good friends and family who cared (less the one bitchy friend, of course)