What would you take?

[pegkerr]

Since there has been nothing to do at work, I have been following the Hurricane Katrina coverage obsessively. Still worried about dreamflower02, of whom there has still been no word, even second or third-hand. Understandable, yet difficult.

What if I were in such a situation? I read about all those miserable frightened people huddled in the Dome and can all too vividly imagine myself and my family in such a situation. (That's the trouble with a writer's well-developed imagination.) How would I do holding my girls together in a situation that starts our like a surreal adventure and turns into something like a nightmare, and you're trying to push away the thought, is there a chance we might actually not survive this?

I looked at Poppy Z. Brite's entry here and wondered what I might do? If you got the weather disaster evacuation order, and you had only fifteen minutes to a half an hour to grab what you could (it has to be able to fit in your car), knowing that everything else you leave behind might be destroyed--what would you take?

Me:

My thirty years of paper journals
The family history/geneology box
Photographs, photograph albums, negatives
Both computers
Jewelry
A suitcase of clothes (very small; I'd depend on the Red Cross for the rest)

Edited to add: Oh yeah. And I hope it would occur to me to take our camping equipment. Tent, sleeping bags, and propane stove would come in very handy. Duh.

The girls I imagine would take:
Their Kit and Kirsten dolls
Their treasure boxes (filled with their favorite childhood keepsakes)
Delia would take her bunny blanket

After that, I'm not sure what they would try to save.

Rob? Not sure.

And you?

Comments

[charlietudor.livejournal.com]

I'm worried about dreamflower02, as well--every time I hear Gulfport mentioned on the news my belly knots up. *frets*

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I don't know her real name, or who might have any contact information for her (assuming that she is alive and gets someplace where she can use a cell phone).

[charlietudor.livejournal.com]

I didn't know if you'd seen this: Dreamflower's found! (http://www.livejournal.com/users/marigoldg/150467.html)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this! I have been so worried.

*Holding out hope for marigoldg's mom.*

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I just can't get over the thought that thousands of people were stuck in NOLA simply because no transport was provided for the 'mandatory' evacuation. Was there no mobilisation of buses to get those without cars out?

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I guess not. I hate to think they were stuck in NOLA because they didn't have cars or couldn't afford to get out otherwise (no place to go or perhaps the car wouldn't make it or they couldn't afford the gas). That's just so wrong, you know? Your economic status shouldn't determine your ability to be safe.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Seriously. I can't believe they didn't just commandeer every bus company in a 100-mile radius.

I was talking to someone on Monday who said, "If this happened here, with all those people stranded, Romney would be lynched."

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why they didn't provide buses and such to get everyone out. One would think it would be less expensive then trying to rescue people.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Definitely my cats and food/litter for them. My computer and a box of old pictures and keepsakes. My jewelry and any clothes that I could grab and as many of my CDs as I could. Buddha's ashes. Two stuffed animals I've had since I was a baby--a Snoopy and a stuffed tiger.

And I pray to whatever deity might be listening that I never have to do this.

What do the girls make of all this, by the way? They seem to be really caring individuals, and I'm curious as to their reactions to the devastation.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

My wife.

All three cats. Even the semi-feral one who would hide. And I wouldn't leave without them all.

Both laptops.

A single box of the most valuable and best loved books in our vast scad of books.

The tub of family photos I'm slowly scanning.

A small box of ritual items, jewelry, and other small irreplaceables.

The cat food. Food for us. Water filters. Our tent and camping mattresses. A few paperbacks to read. Bowls and silverware. Paper notebooks and pens. My full complement of atlases and maps.

I'm a "stuff" person, so it would be hard to leave the rest, but I think that my parents' instilled in me enough of the lesson of "the most irreplaceable things are living things" that I could let it go.

And I'm sure I'm forgetting something. :}

[channe.livejournal.com]

I would take my grandmother's rosary, my mother's ruby necklace, the two boxes of photographs in the closet, my violin, my laptop, my copy of the Book of Christian Prayer, and -- of course -- clothes and toothpaste and ibuprofen and the like.

I would be quite all right with leaving everything else behind.

...which scares me.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

K did this same thing in our LJ.

I don't have my irreplaceables in my life. My data is already backed up offsite, but it's generally a couple of months old. So I'd grab my backup drive, and laptop if there's time. Then cash and financial instruments (although I generally have what I need in my wallet). Then the stack of recent financial papers (although honestly I could do without them). After that it gets sloppy. I don't have many photographs, and I won't really miss the ones I have. I don't attach sentimental value to things, so there's nothing along those lines. I don't know; I'd probably grab K's Minnehaha Falls collection.

I guess the moral is that if someone called me, today, here in France, and told me that my home was demolished, that there would be nothing I would wish that I saved.

B

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The kids and the laptop are all I can think of that's easily portable. The cat, if we could find it. Legal papers.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, we have a mini-van and my husband is a very talented packer. He'd probably leave his computer behind, but I'd at least want the hard drive out of mine, as well as my laptop (even though it's almost too old to be useful). Our wedding photos, though I might be able to leave the rest of my photos behind. Four big dogs and three cats. And I would not leave them behind to drown; I already have nightmares about my pets being killed in some disaster (usually a fire) while I'm away, there's no way I could just leave them. So, food and litter and carry boxes for the cats (which reminds me; I'd better get a carry case for the newest cat). Probably the digital camera so we could document our flight. Some of my most irreplaceable books. Some of my jewelry. Some CDs and Discman. Batteries, food, toiletries. Clothing, but not much.

If necessary, we could probably load a bunch of stuff in my car and take both vehicles. And sell one later for a little bit of cash.

But honestly, if we only had fifteen minutes to half an hour to get out, we'd probably leave with the animals and their supplies and the clothes on our backs.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing about folks on one of my dog lists a few years ago who, when Florida was being evacuated in advance of a hurricane, loaded their dogs in their minivan and just drove -- because they knew that no shelter would take their six dogs. They drove pretty much all day, then managed to get in touch with some dog friends on the west coast of Florida and, I think, stayed with them until they could go back.

I think in the same situation, I'd do the same, because I would SO not leave the animals behind.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

All four cats, crammed protestingly into our two cat carriers. Ura and Nickel in one, Velvet and Taikyo in the other.

The cats and my laptop are all that really matters. A few books, just to keep me sane. Some clothes. The silver-and-amber earrings Arne gave me two Christmases ago.

The rest is replaceable.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

The really sad thing is that I can pack my life into my car in 30 min and not leave much behind. I do it on a regular basis.

Base-tent, bed, tarp, chairs.
then:
tub 1: clothing, mostly medieval. Packs 2-3 times as well as modern, esp. jeans. Added benifit of easy layering for warmth. Modern clothing in this tub is clean socks and underwear.
tub 2: random misc. The stuff I need to set up camp with for a month. This tub never comes unpacked because I have doubles of everything in it. it is also only about 1/2 full, so things like my jewelry boxes, the yarn bags, and a coat fill the rest of the space nicely.
tub 3: dry goods. throw in everything not in glass from the pantry.
cooler: everything from the fridge and freezer that can 1) be used quickly or 2)last outside cooling. Include the 2 half-gallon ice jugs. 4 days of your own water means that they don't have to bring it in for you.
mini-tub: tea kettle, tea, dry soup mix. (this tub is also always packed)

top layer:
Coats and shoes and blankets.

My normal packing time for all this is about 20 min, because I've done it so often. THe only thing that will throw off my timing is the food, because I usually think and plan the dry goods tub and pack it carefully after the grocery run...so I don't know how long it and the cooler would take me.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I have already decided what I'd take, and written down a list of where it all is so I can grab it fast. (I've been doing this for years, ever since I did disaster relief at the Red Cross.)

Cats in cat carrier

Laptop in laptop case

Purse

Cell phone with charger into purse

In rolling suitcase:

Photo albums

Antique daggers

Jewelry case

Framed photo of my grandfather

Framed "Adventure Dog" drawing a friend made for me

Any medication I'm taking

Hanten and other nice jackets to fill the suitcase

I already have a pack of disaster supplies in the car, so I don't need to assemble any of that at the time.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Family, laptop, make sure such necessities as ATM cards and passport and shades* are in jacket, then probably spend the remaining time agonising over which books to save and end up not saving any.

*on rereading, that may give the wrong impression. I'm an ocular albino; without shades, normal daylight is too bright for me to be able to function in.

[sraun]

Three dogs, four computers (maybe only three - two laptops and the Linux box, the one semi-active desktop may be fully backed up), MP3 player, PDA's, digital camera, power cords for all of the above. Note: practically all of this is already reasonably well-grouped to be just grabbed.

Food. All the non-alchoholic drinkables in the house, maybe a pitcher or other container - something that would hold water and seal.

Prescription meds. Hope we aren't nearly out of anything - otherwise, plan on finding a Walgreens at our destination for refills.

Clothes - we could probably toss all of the everyday clothes in the big suitcase in a couple of minutes. Might take two bags, depends on how we deal with the dirty clothes (options are leave or pack - depends on how recently what laundry was done).

Toiletries.

See what's handy to grab in the way of blankets and pillows - there are a number of pieces of fleece eligible to be grabbed, a couple of pillows.

Neither Irene nor I are picture people. I think we'd just abandon all the books. I can't think of another class of thing to be worried about - I think everything else is replaceable.

Order would probably be electronics, meds & toiletries, clothes, dogs, food, then grab stuff until time, space or interest runs out. Oh - I'd probably insist she spend five minutes supplementing / grabbing her hand sewing.

[naomikritzer]

Well, we have two kids and three cats and would be evacuating in a Nissan Altima. We just got back on Sunday from a week-long road trip. For this road trip, we completely filled the trunk with mundane necessities like clothes and Kiera's crib (she sleeps in a pack-and-play, so we just take it along when traveling). In an emergency evacuation, we would take fewer clothes and skip the crib, but we would have to bring the cats, and would want to bring a lot more food.

The net result is that we'd bring the laptop and we'd cram in photos wherever I could find a few inches of space. I would wear the necklace left to me by my grandmother. Nothing else would fit, and in fact we might not be able to bring most of the photos. Fortunately, we have regularly sent photos to all our relatives and could assemble a fairly decent album of lovely pictures of our kids, just from "backup" copies in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Ohio.

I have a good (online) friend who lives on the Alabama coast. They had to leave behind almost all the sentimental stuff (like the letters she'd saved from her now-senile grandmother) because they just didn't have space. She thinks her house is still standing and not flooded (based on what she's heard about other houses in her neighborhood) but probably has no roof.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Does everyone know Jim Macdonald's list of stuff for the ideal Emergency Kit?

http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/emerg_kit.htm

As you know, Bob, Macdonald is not only the fabled Yog Sysop of GEnie and SFF.net fame, half of the writing team of Doyle and Macdonald, etc., etc, but an experienced Nationally Registered Wilderness EMT-I, and he knows from Emergency Kits.

HLC in NYC

[cornfields.livejournal.com]

My dogs, my iBook, a Walkman with several sets of batteries, my photo albums, my late dog's urn, a notebook and pens, a sensible pair of shoes, and a least two week's worth of underwear (because, you know, the value of clean underwear in a crisis situation cannot be measured).

Pretty much everything else can be replaced.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Those of us with access to scanners might well think of making good scans of those very important family photos and other documents with high sentimental value and burning them to CD or DVD now, ahead of any emergency requiring evacuation, and socking a copy away in the Grab-and-Go kit (see post about Jim Macdonald's recommendations for such an emergency kit, above)

The world seems a fragile place, some days.

HLC

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Yes; I have a friend who lost a lot of family photos due to ordinary basement flooding. It seems like a sensible precaution even without imagining more wide-scale disasters.

[naomikritzer]

Not just a grab-and-go kit; you don't always have time to grab (in a house fire, for instance, you really should not stop for your valuables -- just GET OUT). Have an off-site backup of your important stuff -- you can easily leave a DVD or CD-ROM at your office, your parents' house, your best friend's house, etc., etc., etc.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I've thought about this before. You posted recently about having a prepared box for camp-outs; I'd want the same sort of thing for emergency situations, with preserved foods, portable cooking gear, etc., a radio, a tent, matches, blankets - basics for survival. (In a large-scale evacuation there might not be adequate housing available.)

- I'd take both the cats, if possible,
(Tigger would come willingly; Skipper might not be catchable)
- my mandolin & a few music books,
(maybe enough for a sing-along - sometimes we have to make our own entertainment.)
- laptop & backup drive
(on which I have saved high-res scans of my best artwork)
- and my emergency kit as above.
- I'd want a cell phone to check on friends, arrange meetups
- and I'd expand on that as time and space permitted - with preference for tools, software and materials that could be helpful in making a new start if necessary.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I think you chose well--it's the same kind of thing I'd take, along with important papers like medical not in the safety deposit box. Obviously family members. And my cats. I'd find a Motel Six, which generally will take pets.

I always thought I'd stop for jewelry or my guitar, but the one time we evacuated a dorm fearing a real fire, I simply dragged my deeply asleep roommate out of bed and ran for it.

You do, indeed, learn what is valuable in a true emergency.

[perimyndith.livejournal.com]

In priority order:
- The cats (4), cat food, and litter
- Our two laptops, and the server
- All the photo albums
- The first hanging folder in the file cabinet, which has important papers like our marriage certificate, insurance info, and passports
- Our travel bathroom kits & all the medicines (prescription & otherwise) I could dump into a box or sack
- A can opener and some food
- Some clothing, probably whatever I could grab and dump into a suitecase
That might be as much as I could get in 15-30 minutes.
- The jewelry from my jewelry box (though possibly not the box itself, which would take up unnecessary space)

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to scan and upload all of my family photos to a disc, and you've just really kicked my butt into gear with this post. If I get started now and do a few handfuls each day it might actually get done :)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you find something that really works well for archiving, let me know? :-)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

My clarinets. After getting them back from the pawnshop, I'm not letting go easily.

Photo albums. This would be hard, because we have lots of them.

Hard drive from the computer. Why waste space?


That's probably all I'd take in a real emergency. I have no bleeding idea where the marriage certificate and my college diploma are, so they don't count. :-)

[guipago.livejournal.com]

In order of importance to me:

The boyo
Valkyrie, Loki, and Squeaker, (I'd assume the fish would have to make due)
My medication, puppy and keetom meds/food (loki's on a prescription diet)
Computers (laptop and Scott's mac)
Camping gear (including tent, sleeping bags etc, already assembled in garage)
Few books that are antique and favorites (aka irreplacable)

everything else can be replaced.

[elfundeb.livejournal.com]

It's a measure of our electronic age that the very first things that came to mind were the computers (all but one are notebooks and very portable), followed by our ipods. Next was camping equipment and food (for ourselves and the dogs), third was a selection of irreplaceable photos and genealogy information, and only then did I think that it would be good to have important papers, like our passports and my son's adoption and citizenship certificates. Then, if there was room, I'd include a few of our favorite books. I may need to reexamine my priorities.

Unfortunately, Bill's cousin who lives in New Orleans had to make these choices for real on Saturday. We know she is safe with her in-laws, but don't have any more details.

[elendorfrodo.livejournal.com]

I've thought and thought about this, and it just HURTS, which I guess means I'm too attached to my things, but. . .so many memories. So many.

I'm in the process of trying to get backups of everything off this desktop so I'd just have a soft hand-case of CDs to grab; fortunately, the novel itself, while I'd lose a lot of supporting documents, gets e-mailed back and forth w/a collaborating friend on a regular basis, and he lives so far away that the odds of both of us losing it to failure or disaster are tiny. Not to mention that if I can get to a computer in a public library, it's there; I keep sentmail copies in my Yahoo account. Otherwise, at this point, I'm seriously in trouble unless I take the whole darned computer. . .which, mind you, I could pull off if I'm taking my car.

My Bible and prayer book.

Our wedding albums.

My laptop computer and Neo.

My jewelry box.

A binder I have that's a photo album/journal-type compilation.

I still have a plastic tub of sentimentals packed from the move, and I've kind of kept them that way. . .would be easy enough to grab-n-go.

My meds and my husband's meds. . .imperative essentials. I'd have him grabbing bottled water and his toiletries while I grabbed mine. A few clothes, very few.

Oddly, I keep my LOTR DVD set with my sentimentals and would bring it. Don't laugh.

The "business box" of business paperwork that sits in my study. . .it's got our checkbooks and what we pay bills out of, so that would be important information to take.

If I was moving swiftly enough to swing it, I'd try to grab a few special books; fortunately, my books are organised enough that I could prolly pull it off. . .but that would have to be last thing, and I'd have to really watch myself. No time for hesitation. Just grab and go. If we were taking my car, I'd simply make a sweep of the front row on a shelf and half of another, plus a few odd paperbacks surrounding them. I know that probably sounds weird, but those are my most prized possessions that wouldn't already be packed, at least of anything I'd be able to save.

My husband would prolly grab our big CD binder and a Discman. . .yes, he's a music guy. Dunno whether he'd make a run upstairs for his guitar or no.

We have no pets. . .so that's that.

Y'know, I wish there were some way to create a kit. . .not the kind of kit linked, but the irreplaceable things. Almost makes me want to put them all in one single place, just in case, if that were possible. . . .

*shudders*

The sad thing for me, though, is that I honestly don't know what I'd take, because unless my husband and I made it out in time I doubt we'd survive. Between the two of us there are just too many medical problems. Even dehydration is a major problem for either one of us; D. has a seizure disorder as well, and infections are potentially life-threatening for me, so. . .I think as soon as I heard the rumour of a hurricane coming our way we'd have to haul it out of there. B/c I don't think I could bear the alternative.