For anyone who’s not aware, there has been a huge fire here in Arizona. The Rodeo-Chediski fire in north-east Arizona has burned 375,000 acres (500 sqaure miles) and has forced about 30,000 people from their homes. The only positive thing is that there have not been (to my knowledge) any deaths caused by the fire. Not enough praise can be given to the heroic efforts of the firefighters who have managed to save hundreds, if not thousands of homes and who continue to fight to get this monster under control, or at least save what they can.
When the fire began threatening homes, evacuations had to happen quickly. In the town of Show Low, residents were told that they would be given an hour’s notice if they were told to evacuate and have since had to leave. This got me to thinking - in their place, what would I do? If given a short ammount of time and the limitations of my transportation, what from my home would my wife and I choose to save? We’d pack up the cats, of course (don’t think that questions of animals are obvious - some people in northern AZ had to set their horses free and hope they would survive to be found) and gather photographs. We’d probably throw some clothes and personal hygene items in just to get through the nest few days. But what else do we take? Important paperwork? Do we take the hand-blown candlesticks I bought for my wife on our honeymoon? They’re fragile and awkward. And my wife has a large number of breakable collectables as well, some with great sentimental value. And my books! I probably could fill all of the available space in our cars with just the contents of our library. I’m really not sure what I’d do.
So here are the ground rules: The authorities have given you your one hour warning - you have to get out. You may only take what you can fit in whatever vehicles you have and you only have an hour to decide and pack them. What do you save?
Hmm Interesting
Cats x 2
Husband x 1
Photo albums & Photos - all
Wedding Certificate x 1
All other forms of identification (drivers licence / passport etc)
Bank, Legal & Insurance papers
Wedding Quilt with signatures of family and friends present of the day x 1
Clothing and personal hygene items x 1 suitcase each
Cat food - enough for 1 week
Laptop Computer x 1
Other Computer x 1 (more for the harddrives contents)
Food (tinned and packet)
Posters and stuff from Leechboys plays
Books - all of my fantasy stuff (Lord of the Rings gets packed first)
Videos/DVDs - Leechboy has hundreds of these but I’d just pack the Buffy stuff.
CD’s - Leechboy has thousands of these so we would have to take some but I’d let him choose.
Giant framed poster of “the Conversation” just because leechboy would insist.
Thank-god the Commodore has a huge boot and plenty of back seat room. And with no-kids we can pack more - just another good reason to be child free
Assuming the family members are all okay, I can easily grab all the irreplacible stuff in my house and pile 'em into the hatchback in an hour – computer (or backup files), important papers, jewelry, rare videotapes, photo albums, a good portion of the wardrobe…
Hey, I’ve got another 30 minutes left, might as well grab some more stuff.
Basic personal info including Marriage cert.,Birth cert’s, and Passports
Enough clothing and toiletries to last a week or two
The Game Boy and all games (lots of time to kill)
Anything expensive that can easily fit into the car. (Jewelry, DVD’s, small electronics, etc)
Then, grab a shovel. I might (if I have time) bury things like your candlesticks, that you might come back for but can’t take for some reason.
…actually, they had quite a bit more than an hour. If a fire of that magnitude is heading for your area, people are already thinking of what to take, if not actually packing up. A number of people were nearly ready to roll when the call came.
Anyway, my list stands (from the '78 or so floods, when we almost had to evacuate). Irreplaceables/small expensives, and clothing/toiletries according to remaining space.
Poor folks…I’ve been to Show Low, it’s a nice place. (At least it used to be…)
I thought about the shovel option, but I don’t think you’d have time to bury anything that would be too large to bring with you. I also know that the people of Show Low had more than 1 hour - a couple of days, really; they were warned a day or two in advance that they would be getting an hour notice. But not everyone in the path of the fire had that much notice.
I do notice that everyone mentions pictures. It’s funny; even if we rarely if ever look at them, we still think of saving them.
I remember the mid/late 70’s floods. I always found it somewhat amusing that we had (IIRC) two 100 year floods and one 500 year flood within about 4 years. I found out many years later that those terms mean that that’s the odds that it would happen in any single given year. Ironically, we could use some of that now - the extreme drought conditions are what’s causing this.
Luckily, I have many family treasures stored at my mother’s house–else I’d be trying to drag out an entire cedar hope chest out the door (was my grandmother’s). Here at home, let’s see: the laptop, my case of important documents, clothing and toiletries to get by for a few days, some of my more rare and irreplaceable books, family pictures, and all my notebooks and paperwork from culinary school. All the rest of it is just replaceable stuff.
My cats, the box of stuffed animals sitting in front hall prepped for next week’s move, some clothes, my wallet, and my boyfriend. It would make me cry to have to leave my library behind, though.
Cat
Favourite/expensive clothes
Digital camera and camera reader
Photos
Mobile
Wallet
Documents like passport, birth certificate
My portfolio (it has original copies of awards and scholarships that I’ve won, as well as high school/university results)
Photos
Computer hard drive
Mannequin (she’d be a bitch to pack but she cost an absolute fortune)
I would take my laptop, but I never use it, and I’d rather have the insurance money.
CDs first. I could pack them pretty quick even if there are 600 of them. Then my motorcycle stuff, it’s pretty expensive, suit, boots, seat. Then a couple of boxes of books that I know I want, hell everything is in boxes now anyway.
I could do all of that in 30 mintues easy, might get some broken CD cases but who cares? I know I’d be damn tempted to take the bike though and not the car, but then I couldn’t take my CDs and stuff with me.
I’d grab first any living person in the house (this includes the pets). Then I’d tell my MIL to keep an eye on the munchkins and the hubby to pack the kidstuff and some clothes for all of us while I grab the pictures, jewelry & important paperwork. If there’s still time/room, its the playstations, nintendo and the assorted movies and games.
Man, I could practically empty my house in an hour, with two pickups (one with a camper top) and my hubby and me properly motivated!
I could get my PC, digital camera, photo albums, wedding dress, photo disks, paperwork, jewelry, toiletries and most of our clothing and shoes into MY truck, then my hubby’s truck could carry anything else that we wanted. Of course, the 3 cats and 2 dogs have to go along, too. My hubby could take groceries and a cooler with some cold stuff in it, and some cooking stuff. Also any tools we might find handy wherever we ended up.
I’d have to leave behind my great-grandmother’s furniture, the rest of my antiques and other furniture, all my craft stuff, TV, stereo, china, appliances, craft stuff, decorative items and my book collection. That would be the heartbreaker, the books!
If my animals got out, I don’t care about the rest. It’s insured. My wallet would be helpful, so I could buy a toothbrush and a change of underwear, but I could replace it all except the pets.
I was really floored when I saw all the animals on the news that had been left behind because they said people didn’t have time to take them. (I’m not talking livestock, etc…I mean cats/dogs and the like.) Now hearing that they had several hours to days to plan I’m downright disgusted. They showed the ASPCA caring for hundreds of animals that were essentially left to burn (some of them WERE being treated for burns.) It does my heart good to see most of the people on this board are putting their pets and loved ones first ahead of “things.”
I couldn’t imagine not taking my pets in fact I’d rather let all my possesions burn than leave a living animal to burn. That said there is the possibility if this ever did happen that I might not be able to find my cats in time. If they got scared because of the fires and decided to hide it would be difficult but I would make every effort to find them before I had to leave.
2 Dogs.
Important Documents.
Computer(s).
Photos.
Artwork (several irreplaceable paintings)
Purse.
Backpack.
CDs.
Musical instruments /gear (2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 accordian, mixer, 4 track)
Change of clothes.
Toiletries (already packed in a travel bag).
Take some time to take pictures of valuables for insurance.
If I had any more time / room left I’d grab my (small) collection of handblown wine glasses, my copy of Neverwinter Nights , and assorted quirky, sentimental items (mostly knick knacks).
For those of you concerned about family photos, can I suggest having copies made and stored in another location, such as with a parent or sibling? That way, if your children ever want a piece of their history, they can have the duplicates, and you never have to worry about losing something truly irreplacable. The only photo I really care about is a studio pic of my parents taken the Christmas before my dad died. We were never a portrait family, so that I have that pic of my dad means a great deal to me. My 4 sibs also got pics, so I can get it replaced if I had to.
