It's hurricane season (house, water, good, light)

[Countrysue]

It's time to get my bug out bag ready for the season. Can anyone think of anything else I need? This is the list that my friends and I came up with.

Birth certificates
Marriage certificates
Social Security cards
Title to car
Insurance policies for auto, home and health
Copy of property description for our home
Proof that our house has no liens or morgages
Two week supply of meds for people and pets
Important parts of our medical records (our doctors will supply this)
Clothing for 1 week
Dog food for 2 weeks
Extra gas
3 gallons of water per person, 1 gallon per pet
Extra pairs of glasses
Snacks
Maps
Games to play and books to read
$500 in 5s, 10s, and 20s
1 roll each of quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies
Portable radio (mine runs on solar cells or can be hand cranked)
Camp stove and fuel
Small bottle of bleach
1 gallon jug and 5 gallon bucket
Sunhat and work gloves
Freeze dried food for 1 week
Mosquito repellent
Extra motor oil, belts, radiator hose
Tent, sleeping bagsand Mom's sleeping cot

Thinks to check:
Check spare tire to make sure it is good and properly inflated
Check oil, transmission fluid, windshield wiper fluid, antifreeze, headlights
Make sure tool box is still fully equipped (hand drill, screwdrivers, hammer, etc)
Make sure hatchet is sharp

And put in the car the stuff that should already be in but never is:
Tarp
12 volt tire inflation pump
Compass, rope, spool of wire and rolls of duct tape
Machete and folding shovel
Cooking and eating equipment
Fire starting and fishing equipment

On thing not to take because it was totally useless:
Portable battery run TV

The last time we bugged out, instead of trying to find a hotel, we were able to get a place in a state park. We took the back roads out of our area instead of the interstates. We sat at the camp in Arkansas and listened to the radio accounts of people moving by the inch on the interstates.

We take a cot for my mother. She is 90 and has trouble getting up from the ground! During Katrina she helped restore our sanity. She went to the back door, looked at our destroyed backyard and commented 'I didn't like the landscaping anyway!'

[SCGranny]

Good plan.
The only thing I might suggest in addition to a property description would be a video or lots of room-by-room pics of your home and its contents (those for which you are insured and would like replaced). SAYing that you had a widescreen TV or an HE washer and dryer is one thing; pictures speak louder. You could store them on a thumb drive or CD in with your insurance papers - or put it on a Photobucket or similar offsite page, accessible from any computer. I also took pics of the kids every year with a large piece of cardboard under their chins, with their name, birthdate, height, weight, and a description of identifiable marks printed clearly on it. This can prevent confusion if things get hectic and you get separated.

I didn't see a med kit included, although I did see meds. You know as well as I that cuts, scrapes, are no big deal but seem to happen more when people are stressed, and immediate access to medical care may be limited. Sterile 4x4 bandages, medical tape (although duct or packing tape work in a pinch) rolls of 2 and 3 inch kling, and even triangular bandages for slings and to tie down splints are absolutes. Splints of course can be made of anything - even tightly rolled and taped newspaper - but they should be padded and be able to immobilize the break above and below. Then the inevitable box of bandages for the little stuff, and a fresh clean tube of antibiotic ointment. Like Mac says, tampons and women's pads can be used in a pinch, of course; but we (as emergency workers) like sterility. We even keep a sterile abdominal pad (5x9) and a sealed OB kit (has small clamps, sterile sheeting with plastic on one side to prevent soaking through, and even a sterile scalpel) just in case!We keep our sunscreen and our 'after-burn' lotions there too; the only post-sunburn treatment we buy has 10% lidocaine in it, which is a handy topical painkiller for everything including pulling out a splinter (although it doesn't work well on larger wounds).We also keep a plastic bottle of Nyquil, a bottle of tylenol, a bottle of anti-diarrhea pills, a bottle of ipecac, and a bag of cough drops, even a small bottle of Tums, in our medical bag...

Another thing we always seem to need is some small-point permanent markers and/or Sharpies. This way, no matter the distance, time, or separation, we always have our stuff clearly marked. We'll put one each in the glove boxes, one in the med kits, one in the foodstuffs, and DH always has one in his shirt pocket. We also will tuck small rolls of masking tape in these places as well (except for DH's pocket!). Why in the med kits? Because in case of injury, we mark on the tape the size/type of the injury as well as vital signs at the time of the occurance, and any meds received. By the time one accesses medical help, it is good for them to know how the injury has progressed over time... and if it is treatable or should be left alone. (Ex. you can't cast a broken bone immediately, but stitches aren't supposed to be done after 4 hours; and if you give any meds it is helpful for the treating doc to know in case he wants to prescribe something that might conflict.)

I HATED hurricane season. Either I was on duty or did as you, taking back roads to out-of-the-way places with critters and kids, while everyone else was collapsing from the heat or running out of gas in the lines on the interstates. You have my sympathies!

[Countrysue]

Those are small things that I can put in the trunk of the car. I prefer to leave for purely selfish reasons.

I don't want to refuse to help people. In past hurricanes, I have had people who didn't prepare ask me to share my supplies. I find it hard to tell them 'no', especially where children are involved.

I have been in enough hurricanes to know that some people live in lala land and will not prepare. During Betsy (in '65), people were pretty much self-sufficient. Camille (in '69) killed people who refused to admit that hurricanes were dangerous. We watched people go from store to store after the storm searching in vain for supplies. The basic supplies were gone. We lived in an apartment complex and the people in the complex shared with the fools living in the complex who didn't prepare. We all came through OK.

Now the unprepared are much more aggressive. Instead of asking, they demand. During Katrina, stores and homes were freely looted. We listened to radio reports while it was happening. Contrary to what we heard later, these people didn't take necessary supplies. Police reports talked about big screen TVs, etc.

After Katrina was over, we were berated for not taking in our 'fair share' of the 'poor and helpless'. Our church was full of refugees, but some idiots critized us for not taking people into our homes.

I still wonder what I would have done if a group of people, including elderly and children, had made it to our town and asked for help. I don't know if I could refuse. Yet I would not want the people I love to do without the basics in order to supply refugees. When do you start being selfish with the supplies you have gathered? I want to think that I would put family first, then friends, then neighbors, then the people in my home town, then the people in my parish, then my state, then everyone else. . . . but a part of me still hates to tell anyone 'no'.

Would I have the courage to back up my decision with force? I don't know. I hope I never need to make that kind of choice.

[Mac_Muz]

Decent folding knife? Not dinner ware. Sun screen? Yellow, green soap in case you get in poision ivy ?

Decent list.

Oh I know oars for the car....

Ah HA I have you!

The most important item missing is chocolate!

[zthatzmanz28]

Fortunately we are far enough inland to avoid serious damage. We have our 5er pre-loaded with the exception of chocolate!!

[SCGranny]

To me, "taking in our fair share of the poor and helpless" translates into the philosophy of the ant and the grasshopper... except the government and some social and religious organizations think it's OK for the grasshopper to move in, eat the ant's food, sleep under his roof, and take whatever he can without any feelings of guilt or recompense. I knew several folks who took in 'escapees' from the Floridian hurricanes, and every one regretted it, for different reasons. Either loss of money, loss of their familial time, even losses from theft were prevalent. Not to mention that the attitude of the escapees was a distinct 'entitlement' attitude - YOU have a home and I might have lost mine, YOU have food and clothes and fuel and money, and I have nothing. Therefore - YOU owe me.

I'LL decide who can 'evacuate' to my property, TYVM. And it won't be the people you might think; the only people invited are the ones whom I trust, who are responsible, intelligent, and can and will work, not be parasites. Which doesn't include much of my family nor most of my "friends". When we bought our place out here, one girl was going on and on about how great it was for her to have a place to flee to (my home) and I finally bluntly told her - "You're not invited. Ever." She was shocked and asked why. "Because you are a drama queen, you like to cause trouble, and you prefer to whine about how weak and feminine you are to get someone to do your work for you, rather than pitch in and get things done."

A friend of mine was the head of disaster prep in Baton Rouge; the stories she told of the evacuees from Katrina were awful, dreadful, and simply disgusting. People practicing everything from open criminal activity to refusing truckloads of supplies because the caliber of the donations wasn't what the evacuees insisted that they deserved, descended on Baton Rouge like locusts. Stories I got from friends in New Orleans were worse - except for the young lady who evacuated early on, and came home to find her house still standing untouched by the storm - but the inside trashed by squatters. She did find a large garbage bag full of pot on the living room table; she assumed that the squatters were 'paying' for what they did!

IMO, fleeing a hurricane is best, especially if you have a place to flee TO, and insurance. The only thing that gets you is driving back, through miles and miles of destruction, rounding that last corner before home, and seeing that your house is still standing - and swearing and wondering why God didn't take that pile of rubbish!

[Mac_Muz]

SCG, I witnessed some of that in october after the storm. I was on the Texas/ LA border. I took a room at a INN which was hard up storm damaged, and the desk clerk told me it would be noisey.

It was all of that too. Then he asked if i know how to do any roofing. The room could be at a reduced rate if I could. I said SURE, and went to work, letting my wife set up our stuff in the room.

I mean bam I was up on the ladder with a borrowed hammer and a bundle of shingles.

I didn't even ask the rate of pay. When I found out WHAT that was it was like I hit a gold mine.

3 bundles is a square incase you don't know. A square is 10 feet by 10 feet. The bloomin rate was $270.00 a square, and the room was discounted on top of that! To say the least I was stunned.

And they couldn't find enough labor????????

I still had less than 8 weeks healing on my 3 broken ribs too. That job hurt hard, but the money was well worth the pain.

[Nighteyes]

One seemingly minor, but in my experience a VERY important, thing.

Be sure to include a LOT of one-dollar bills in your cash. Why? Because in the first five days or so if you need to buy a one-dollar roll of toilet paper and the smallest bill you have is a five, there's a good chance that it just became a five-dollar roll of toilet paper.

After a major natural disaster there is no electricity. This means the cash registers, POS terminals and many safes won't work. (There's a lot more, which I'll skip for the sake of simplicity.) Small-denomination bills, not to mention coins, are in short supply. Since most folks carry their emergency cash in larger bills -- most often tens and twenties --what little change there is quickly disappears.

Just my $0.02.

[Mac_Muz]

Originally Posted by Nighteyes

One seemingly minor, but in my experience a VERY important, thing.

Be sure to include a LOT of one-dollar bills in your cash. Why? Because in the first five days or so if you need to buy a one-dollar roll of toilet paper and the smallest bill you have is a five, there's a good chance that it just became a five-dollar roll of toilet paper.

After a major natural disaster there is no electricity. This means the cash registers, POS terminals and many safes won't work. (There's a lot more, which I'll skip for the sake of simplicity.) Small-denomination bills, not to mention coins, are in short supply. Since most folks carry their emergency cash in larger bills -- most often tens and twenties --what little change there is quickly disappears.

Just my $0.02.

Great point... I know many people who don't have cash on hand, and rely on cards only. No power no ATM, no card readers no nuthin.... And then cash won't work either sometimes. No cash registers..

[SCGranny]

Totally agree, Nighteyes and Mac_Muz.
Plus a lot of stations run out of gas, especially on the well-traveled roads. And even if the fuel is in the tanks, if the power goes out, you can't pump in most places any more... with cash OR a card.

I saw people attack gas station attendants who tried to close their doors once the gas ran out... and we were 300 miles from the projected point of hurricane impact... It's a bad scene when you have to have local cops yellowtape-off gas station driveways and stand guard. THAT didn't make the 6 o'clock.

People are crazy.