Typical photo pulled from the AP. Here a National Guard truck drives through a flooded area. Take a good look at the trailers - every one of them are sitting higher than the water line. Power and plumbing will need to be addressed, but these units will remain intact and in place.
As sunlight creeps across the land, the actual damage and devastation from the Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Freaky Weather known as Sandy is becoming apparent. Current news reports are showing at least 35 people dead and up to 8,200,000 people without power. The damage is spread over 2/3 of the East Coast. Certainly this must make me rethink my earlier post that Bug Out Bags are folly?
NO! In fact, this disaster reinforces the issue of a good Get Home Bag, Evacuation Plan, and Shelter In Place kit.
Let’s look at the actual damage. The homes that were actually destroyed were generally right on the coast or in low lying areas that are naturally prone to flooding. Let’s note here that I grew up in the North East. Multiple times a year I had to make adjustments to my daily commute because seasonal heavy rains caused localized flooding of creeks. During a larger storm you just knew to take a different route. The same understanding applied to underpasses and lower sections of highway. The news delights in showing some dippy reporter standing in water up to his calves to build the drama of the disaster. Yet, when the camera pulls back, you can see curbs and dry land within a few feet of where the reporter is standing. Yes, the impact from this storm is large in scale, but don’t fall prey to the media display.
With widespread pockets of localized damage, there are much larger areas that remain intact. Adjacent areas. This is not like the tsunami that hit Japan! A good Evacuation Plan remains the most critical element to have in place for a disaster of this type. Have your hard drives, important documents, photo albums, etc, very accessible and ready to pack quickly if any type of disaster is heading your way. Hurricanes and wild fires are the perfect disasters to build your Evacuation Plan around as you generally have a few hours, if not several days, to get packed and out.
Aside from basic needs for your family, you will want to have a couple destinations preset. The destination may be the homes of family and friends or perhaps a hotel. If you are in a fire zone you will want to choose a location that is less susceptible to fire. If you live in a low lying area that is subject to flooding, choose an evacuation site that is higher. Common sense is really important here. Take 60 seconds to note what dangers your home is most subject to and find a site that does not share those qualities!
Now about your Get Home Bag. I am thinking a slight revision is merited. While I have not addressed these kits in detail yet, I do believe you need to have good maps – street and topographical – to connect your work, home and school locations. The new revision is to add a map to a designated evacuation location with some means of communicating to family members that the secondary location is the new primary. This type of issue really doesn’t apply to the Sandy situation since there was so much information available ahead of time. Sorry, but if you were not where you needed to be when Sandy struck, the best kit in the world would not have helped. Sometimes we just have to accept Darwin at work. That said, the maps I am suggesting for your Get Home Bags would be valuable during evacuation also.
Above all else, the current storm aftermath reinforces the need for a good Shelter in Place plan. If your home was not in an area that was actually destroyed, you are probably sitting there without power right now. And we did see the shelves in the food stores cleared of critical supplies within a few hours yesterday morning. Get your goods in place – both at your home (primary shelter) and at your secondary location if possible. This is actually a great time to open dialogue with friends and family who may have a residence that is geographically different enough from yours that they would be perfect reciprocal escape locations. For example, someone near the shore that is subject to flooding may be a great partner for someone whose home is in the mountains where they are subject to forest fires. Each of you build a good Shelter in Place plan with adequate supplies for both families.
You can choose to sit there and feel sorry for the folks whose lives were forever impacted by this current storm. Or, you can use this as the impetus you need to get your family positioned so they will not be victims of the next storm. Either way, you still don’t need to start with a Bug Out Bag!
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