January 11, 2008

I may have been watching a little too much Dora this week.  It got me thinking though about more evacuation procedures.  I already discussed what things to pack up when evacuating, and I wrote about how to evacuate your house… but I failed to mention how to evacuate your city!  Do you know more than one way out of your neighborhood?  How about out of your town?  Do you rely on a major freeway that you would be stuck if it was out?  These are things you need to think about when you talk about evacuating for an emergency. 

First, Get a Map – You can get a map of your city and state at a AAA. 

Second, Plan – You should plan out your first ideal route out of town, which direction will you head?  For us we would most likely head for California (since we both still have family out there).  Then plan a secondary route… what if the way to CA was mostly blocked?  Then we would head North to Oregon.  Things like that.

Third, Color Code – Now color the route with a highlighter for your first, second and third plans.  You also need mulitple ways to get to the major road ways, so make sure you plan at least 3 routes out of your city too. 

Fourth, Plan For Pit Stops – Make sure you can find where the gas stations and other things of that nature are along your route, so that if you start out with only a half tank of gas, and three of the gas stations nearby are out of gas… you know where there may be additional places to get gas. 

The more you have planned out before disaster strikes the faster you can get out of harms way!

What I’m Doing or Buying This Week to Prepare

• Since I completely spaced this very important item, I’m going to the gas station and picking up some maps, and planning our routes out of town!