My purse.
My computer and peripherals.
My blanket (it’s irreplaceable, insofar as I’ve never found another blanket like it and I can’t sleep without it).
If the house is on fire, I’d also try to grab my roommate’s laptop, after my own stuff is out of the house.
Brilliant. That’s my weekend project sorted.
Wow! I am shocked by the number of people who have a bag packed for emergencies.
I thought I was paranoid. I may have to change my name…
…And that’s the only thing I need is this. I don’t need this or this. Just this ashtray… And this paddle game. - The ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need… And this remote control. - The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need… And these matches. - The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control, and the paddle ball… And this lamp. - The ashtray, this paddle game, and the remote control, and the lamp, and that’s all I need. And that’s all I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one… I need this. - The paddle game and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches for sure. Well what are you looking at? What do you think I’m some kind of a jerk or something! - And this. That’s all I need.
When you live in an area prone to wildfires, earthquakes and the random race riot, you learn to be prepared. 
I was going to say that it depends on why we’re evacuating, but on review I guess it doesn’t matter.
We have emergency preparedness kits in both cars and in the house. The ones in the cars include extra clothes, so I’d probably grab the house kit and put it in the trunk so as to have extra food, money, ammo, medicines, and such. I carry that and get my handgun; my wife carries baby, diaper bag, and so forth.
Leaving without wife and baby is not an option.
Pets then purse.
5 mins is longer than you think but assuming I’m starting from a sound sleep it would take about a min to dress and grab shoes 2 mins to harness and leash the dogs. In the last two mins I would grab my purse, iPad phone and wallet and keys are already in it, swipe my arm along the meds shelf to dump them inside. Passports are stored together with emergency cash in a travel wallet thats also easy to reach. My husband would be pulling the drives out of the server (hot pluggable aren’t really but at least they’re fast for emergencies) and we’d be out under the wire. If either kid was visiting they could gather food.
We’ve got cats, and the same considerations would hold for us. If flood/fire/fear/foes/flee!, we take the cats with us; if we’re running for our lives, I leave the door unlocked, and call a neighbor.
Other than that, wife, kid, wallet, cell phone (unless we’re on the lam from the government), laptop, change of clothes.
The important documents are in our safe deposit box at the local bank, so no grabbing them in a hurry. Either we can get 'em later or we can’t.
I’d grab my purse, both cellphones, laptop, my son’s pictures and navy certificates and his dolphin pin, my dog and my husband.
I stole the idea from a guy that had to bail out of New Orleans for Katrina and ended up staying in Houston permanently. He had a great list of documents that I wouldn’t have thought of, such as copies of resumes. I’ll see if i can find that list for you.
That little bit reminded me to do the annual back-up of the computer. Thanks, AW. It fills a couple of large flash drives, but now all my porn is safe.
Great thanks! Need answer fast. . . . LOL!
In the Air Force, we have these things called NEO Folders. NEO is an acronym for “Noncombatant Evacuation Operations”. At my first two bases, the only folks required to maintain these folders were civilian employees and folks with family members. Military folks were presumed to be taken care of by the military or not going anywhere in a hurry if stuff went down.
At my current base, we’re all required to have them, but whatever.
Basically, it’s a six-part folder, with each part having a list of items (or copies of the items) pinned in place. Things like maps with directions to get to your pre-planned evacuation point (if we have to evacuate a base overseas, we’re typically going to evacuate directly to another base or out of the country entirely, so they just have the evacuees rally together and hop on the bus/plane/Army-helicopter-with-the-hotdogging-pilot-trying-to-make-me-vomit-over-the-Yellow-Sea-that-one-time/ship/whatever), paperwork for having the rest of your belongings packed up later, change-of-address info for the USPS and the Red Cross, payroll paperwork if you want to get an emergency advance on your pay or have your paycheck diverted to evacuating family members, etc. Idea is to grab the folder, stuff it in your bugout bag with whatever few things you are packing in addition, and heading to the pre-designated evacuation point to be processed and shipped off.
I’m in an engineering unit, so I figure if things go south, I’m probably stuck here for a while trying to fix it, and I have no kids, so I kind of put the minimum required effort into my folder (I put my name and address in the blanks on the paperwork) and placed the folder on top of the lockbox with my passport and my wife’s jewelry. I really do need to put together my 3-day supply cache and my bugout bag. I’ve always been short on preparation skills and high on improvisation skills.
The bottle of accelerant and any other evidence.
kid, documents folder with birth-certificates and other important “life-long” papers, my laptop and probably my favored cofffe-mug
computer, turtles, pocket stuff, important papers file
Kids (give them 3 mins to grab their stuff while I throw things out the door, then I need 2 mins to shove them out the door while they argue with me)
CD jukebox
External hard drive
Box of home movies
Maybe a couple of my drawings & paintings, depending on what’s easily accessible
Here’s the link The main website is sort of “survivalist”, so tread with caution. But the list is good.
Well, shit happens sometimes.
I live two blocks from a major railway line running through the suburbs and into Chicago. Rarely, trains somewhere that are carrying hazardous or explosive materials will derail, requiring evacuation, like this train in Ohio carrying ethanol just a couple of weeks ago - houses for a mile around were evacuated. Around here, there haven’t been any spills/explosions yet, but one never knows.
That’s not to mention fires, tornadoes, floods (rare here, I live in a “100 year flood region,” but it could happen), blizzards, prolonged power outages, and so on.
I did have to evacuate a building once, due to fire. The last apartment my husband and I lived in, we were woken up in the middle of the night by the building (not apartment) fire alarm. The apartment next door - separated by a cinder block wall - was on fire! I felt the wall with the back of my hand and it was cool. No smoke in our apartment. We tossed on simple clothing, grabbed our keys/wallets/phones, moved the ferrets’ cage to the back entry of the apartment (the fire was in the room next to the front entry of the apartment, on the other side of the building, and we figured the fire department was two blocks away, things should be OK), and got out. It was confined to that unit, and we got back in the same night. If it had been a different place or across the hall (where smoke could come into our unit easily, under doors and such), we’d have taken the ferrets out immediately.