- Preparing an evacuation kit. Generally, your kit will include enough supplies so a person could survive for three days minimum. Red Cross association strongly recommends to have at least one gallon of drinking water and 2500 calories meal per day/person. You will also need purifying water supplies, battery-powered radio, flashlight, clothing, bedding and first aid unit of course. It is important to keep all your important documents in one place so you could have an easy access to those, grabbing them as a necessary part of your evacuation kit within a few seconds. Keep in mind that there could be no established standards or unbreakable limitations regarding such a complex matter. Meaning that you should certainly consider specific health needs of your family members and make an adjustment to elderly people or children. Depending on your concerns and expectations you can also include nosebags, respirators, security gloves and goggles or other items for complementary protection. Meanwhile, there is nothing wrong with having irreplaceable items or even games and entertainments as a part of your evacuation kit even if it means some extra weight. In addition to your survival basics it is recommended to have a duplicate of house and car keys; and certain amount of cash in case credit cards will become temporarily unavailable during or after disaster. It also won’t be unnecessary precaution to keep a small disaster unit in you car, including tire repair and a pump. Don’t forget to go over your kit at least once every six months adding or replacing whatever necessary. Obviously you should keep your kit in most accessible area possible, considering most feasible types of disaster for your living area. For instance, do not store your emergency units in the basement if you live in a flood-prone area.
- First thing to do in order to prevent financial loss would be considering a proper insurance. There are many commercial and governmental plans out there. So we suggest you to have a professional guiding you through in order to make the right choice depending on your concerns and expectations. Second of all, you should make a notarize inventory list (including digital images and detailed description) of all your property, goods and personal effects. Do not hesitate to include furniture, clothes, jewelry even books and DVDs. This will make filing a possible claim much easier and may help you get a deduction on your taxes if you suffer a loss. It would be reasonable to make a few copies of such data, keeping those in security box, your friend’s house or on-line storage. You can also make a copy of all your important paper work, preventing a possible loss. However, by doing so make sure no one has access to this information. Regularly do a backup of your computer, keeping a copy in your evacuation kit.
- We decided to make a special note about care for pets during a disaster, even if it is not originally included in basic disaster preparations. Be aware that government and Red Cross shelters do not accept any pets, except for assistance animals. So you have to plan in advance and most likely plan on your own. You may want to contact possible hotel destinations to find out if they could take any pets, at least making an exception during an emergency. There are also special pet-motels, which could become even a better solution. One way or another as you probably understand leaving your pets behind would be absolutely the worst case scenario.