Everything I Know About Evacuating

 

EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT EVACUATING!
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, October 15, 2024 

No one ever wants to evacuate their homes!  That is a given.  But when someone in authority tells you that you “need” to evacuate, I would not wait for further confirmation – evacuate!  The following are my thoughts and tips regarding an evacuation that you may or may not ever have to do.  The first thing everyone should do is have a plan to evacuate, so with that said, here we go.  I write this because I live in Southeast Louisiana and have had to evacuate multiple times the worst case was for Hurricane Katrina so I know a little about the process.

Voluntary vs. Mandatory evacuations.  It is very doubtful that the government will REQUIRE YOU (Mandatory) to evacuate.  I was told by a reliable source before Hurricane Katrina struck the area where I live, that IF the government ever MANDATED an evacuation, they would take on FULL responsibility for that EVERY resident had the means by which to evacuate. That obviously presents a problem because few if any local or even state governments have the resources available to help people evacuate and enforce a mandatory evacuation requirement.  Therefore, the vast majority of orders to evacuate an area are usually VOLUNTARY EVACUATIONS.  They are recommendations, suggestions, all with strong emphasis on the decision to evacuate being YOURS and YOURS ALONE!

WHEN SHOULD YOU CREATE AN EVACUATION PLAN?

Don’t wait until someone tells you that you “should” evacuate your area to sit down and create a plan for you and your family.  You should create the plan, outlining what you will do should you ever receive such a recommendation.  That time is when there is ZERO pending disasters on the horizon such as a hurricane, earthquake, flood, or even a volcano.  You should create the plan when the weather and environment is calm and again, no threat on the horizon.

MAKE A LIST!

I strongly suggest you begin your list by asking and answering questions that only you and other members of your immediate family can identify with.  Here are some questions that I would strongly suggest you consider:

1.      Where will we evacuate to?

2.      How will we pay for a short or long stay away from our home?

3.      How will we create a communication plan to keep family/friends informed of our whereabouts and safety and how to reach you?

4.      Create a list of people/organizations/businesses contact phone numbers and websites that you may eventually need to contact to ascertain your next step.  Local police department, insurance representatives, neighbors that might know the status of your property. You should get the idea.

WHEN DO YOU LEAVE?  I feel very strongly about this because I have seen the consequences of the actual time of the day you depart.

The time of your departure is important, I know this because I experienced it first hand what actually happens.  The first thing “most” people do is determine a time to leave.  Ask yourself, when you are leaving for an appointment or for work, what time do you leave?  Is it not usually at the top of the hour like 8:00 or on the bottom of the hour, like 8:30?  When I was commuting to New Orleans, I realized that it appeared everyone left their homes about the same time of the hour, either at the top or at the bottom.  That means there is a huge bubble of people all going in the same direction at the same time.  In between those departure times, less people are leaving their homes.  That is the best time in the hour to leave, like 1:15 or 1:42.  The second most important thing to consider is when would most people depart?  I discovered that most wait until the sun rises, or, right after breakfast or lunch or supper.  Very few people leave at 2:12 in the early morning hours.  In other words, do not do what MOST people do, do just the opposite and you should find less traffic on the highways.

DRIVERS

As stated, we evacuated several times.  During each evacuation you could not help but notice the length of time to get where you wanted to go was significantly longer than it would normally take under ideal conditions.  For example, you can usually drive from New Orleans to Houston in about 7 hours.  New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama in about and hour and a half; Birmingham about 5 hours.  But with all the cars on the road all headed in the same direction, out of New Orleans it took people hours and hours like 14 hours to get to Houston, Texas.  My advice is that hopefully you can have more than just yourself capable of driving because such a drive under extreme traffic conditions is both physically and mentally exhausting.  With multiple drivers you can take turns behind the wheel.  Don’t take this suggestion lightly, it is very exhausting and you cannot appreciate the level of the exhaustion until you have gone through it like I have.

PETS

Don’t be a moron and leave your pets behind.  Your plan should be to include accommodations in your vehicle(s) for your pets, all of them!  Leaving your pets behind in a closed up and locked home is NOT an option.  I am NOT saying what I am about to say but it needs to be said.  If you have no choice but to NOT take your pets with you, at least set them free or make an effort to have someone take responsibility for them.  This should not have to be said, but think about how many people leave their children in a parked car in the heat of the summer months?  Enough said? 

MEDICATIONS

Medication ARE a problem and I do not have a good solution.  Most pharmacies will give you at least a month supply of medications, some three months.  Hopefully you are on the three-month plan.  Yet even with a three-month plan, you may be at the end of the plan when you have to decide to evacuate.  What do you do?  You can always ask the pharmacy if they would give you an extra refill and explain why.  Keep in mind, you will not be the ONLY ONE in this situation and the Pharmacy may be swamped with customers or they may even be in the process of closing up in anticipation of the approaching storm.   But if you are like me and get your medications through the mail, that will not be option.  The best you can hope for is to always refill your prescriptions as soon as the pharmacy will permit you to do so.  Keep in mind that each member of your family including your pets may be on prescription medications so plan accordingly!  We were on the road for 4 weeks immediately following Hurricane Katrina.  Use that as a guide in making your plan.  There may be a time when there is nothing left to return home to!

CASH AND PRECIOUS METALS AND ANYTHING OF VALUE

You should always have some cash that you can immediately grab and leave with.  Remember, during severe weather and other disasters, the power will go down and you will not have access to ATMs, nor will most if not all businesses not be able to take transactions at an electronic register when you can only use a credit card.  You need to have some liquid assets that you can buy food, gas and lodging with if needed when there are massive failures of power over large areas of the country.  I would suggest that you purchase a fire resistant and water-resistant brief case with a lock on it to store your MOST valuable papers like insurance documents, wills, powers of attorney including a medical power of attorney, wait what?  Everyone should have a medical power of attorney that identifies the person that is authorized by you to make decisions that may be required about medical that you may not be able to make for yourself.  Papers such as these, if stored in a brief case that you can grab on a moment’s notice as you head out the door of your home, may be a priceless action to take.

As for precious metals, disasters such as hurricanes and severe fires may take everything including any precious metals, bonds, etc. left behind.  There are no guarantees that such items would be 100% safe in a bank deposit box as well.  Again, plan accordingly.

BATTERIES AND CHARGING CABLES/DEVICES

Just about everyone uses electronic devices.  Think ahead how you use the electronic devices and how will you keep them charged.  Some only use replaceable batteries so it would be wise to make a list of the size of batteries you need to take with you.  As for your computers, if it a laptop you can usually take it with you.  If you use a Desktop such as I do, taking a large computer with monitor with you is just impossible in most cases.  Ideally you have an automatic backup that stores your information at some offsite location or in the cloud that you can retrieve when you finally get setup wherever that may be.  If you do not have such a service, you need to somehow protect your hard drives.  One way to do that is have a detachable and portable hard drive to back up your important data including photos, bank records, etc.  When it requires you to leave your equipment at home, I would strongly suggest that you plan to use a strong garbage bag and TIGHTLY wrap your computer and seal it as best you can and then put the devices in a location within your home where it would stand the best chance of survival from both rising water, severe wind damage or the loss of your roof.

LOADING THE CAR/TRUCK

Clothes.  Take as much as a suit case(s) will hold, you may be gone a while.  Forget the formal stuff, take what you will probably be wearing that is both comfortable and warm if you will be gone over the winter months.  Each family member should have their own suit case and they should be instructed as to what to pack and what is not necessary to take with you in an emergency. 

What you load in your vehicle next is going to be determined by how much space you have left AFTER you load the suitcases.  In most cases, there will be very limited space so things like artwork, large photo albums, books, CDs, DVDs, old video tapes, lots of toys (you will need some if you have small children), etc.  DECIDE AHEAD OF TIME WHAT IS OF CRITICAL NEED FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS and then plan accordingly.

You may be on the road for a long time.  You will need some refreshments including bottled water.  You probably don’t need to have it kept cold so you don’t NEED to take up a lot of space with coolers and ice unless you actually do have the space to do so.  Medicines that are required to be kept cool may dictate that you take a cooler with some ice and my recommendation would be to purchase a small cooler but large enough to accommodate the medications you MUST take with you; Diabetic insulin comes to mind.  It does not take up much space so a small cooler should work nicely and take up very little space in your vehicle(s).

GAS

When you KNOW that something is about to happen and you can EXPECT that the power may go down, THAT IS THE TIME TO FILL UP YOUR VEHICLES, ALL OF THEM.  It is also the time to make sure you have also filled up any gasoline containers you typically have around your home.  Again, you may not be able to purchase gas once the disaster has passed, so again, plan accordingly.

INSURANCE(S)

While you are making up your plan, it would be a great time to review your insurance policies to ascertain what is covered and what is not.  Sadly, a lot of people who live in western North Carolina in the mountain areas probably did NOT have Flood Insurance.  I cannot speak for all areas of the country nor all insurance policies, only the ones that apply to me.  With that said, my homeowners’ policy DOES NOT COVER DAMAGE FROM RISING WATER (FLOODS).  Therefore, I was required to have Flood Insurance on my home as long as I had a mortgage on the home.  Once the mortgage was paid off, the decision to have or not have flood insurance was within my decision to make.  Application for Flood Insurance and for it to become effective usually takes 30.  Therefore, if a named storm were to enter the Gulf of Mexico, mortgage companies typically stop making home loans and it would be too late to have an effective Flood Insurance Policy.  I cannot say with certainty that all auto insurance policies cover rising water so it would be a great time to ask the question and research your policy specifics.

PROPERTY PROTECTION

If you have NOT made plans for a possible evacuation, it is probably too late to consider what you could do to best protect your home and property.  A lot of people in my area have purchased large sheets of plywood and cut them to fit as covers over the doors and windows.  You may or may not be in a position to do that yourself.  There are plenty of “handymen” around that you could hire to do it for you and then when a storm or disaster is approaching that allows you time to install the protections, the better chance you stand of NOT having damage due to broken windows.  Ensure that anything that could become a missile is properly secured.  This includes lawn and patio furniture, trash cans, etc.  As an example, we have a swing in the back yard.  If time permits, I can take the swing down which is not easy, so I tie up the swing to the frame to keep it as steady as I can make it.  These are the types of things you should do before you evacuate your home if time permits.

PASSWORDS

This could be a very serious situation!  Have you ever had to access a website or some type of online account and could not remember your password or words?  It is a pain!  You are strongly encouraged to make a list right now of all the most important websites and accounts you routinely access online.  Protect it with your most important papers.  If you do have to evacuate and then try to access an online resource from someone else’s computer, the computer will not recognize you and will not have the proper passwords.  The list will prove to be PRICELESS!

CONCLUSION

No one wants to evacuate their home.  Let me put it this way.  If someone tells you that they are going to kill you, I would take them seriously and do something about it.  Mother Nature may be about to be the person who is going to kill you – DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT TO PREVENT IT!  LEAVE WHEN TOLD TO DO SO!