What would you do in a natural disaster

[ruffiangirl]

Where we live we have to really only watch for forest fires. Since there is only one way in and out of town, two highways south after 30ish kms. Still only one way north...and that end in a dirt road that is pretty much impassable. If a fire were to block the highway south again we would head north, there are places to stay out there if we had too. If they fear the highway will be crossed, or the fire will reach the city they give enough notice to evacuate, which we would. They also offer flights out for those who don't have the ability to drive out. We have a shadow population of about 50,000 people living in camps around here, few of them have transportation.

Because of the natural lay out of the community if there is a fire close to the north side of the city they evacuate to my area, as is marked, if the fire is on the south side of the city we evacuate to their side, as marked. They are also in the event of flooding, but we are way to high up for that to be a concern to us.

These big freaking rivers are what the city has been built around. The biggest one is the athabasca river. If curious the area at the very top that you can barely see is where I live.

[Southpaw]

Yeah we don't even have a plan for ourselves... let alone any animals...

But as far as weather goes, we don't get anything exciting lol.

[crazedACD]

Originally Posted by Southpaw

But as far as weather goes, we don't get anything exciting lol.

We didn't used to, but we had a major (major) blizzard in October 2011 that knocked all the trees down and power outages for weeks. Major tornadoes in our area earlier in 2011 that caused a huge amount of damage. We've had what, two hurricanes in the past two years (Sandy and the other one). The worst thing used to be snow here, it seems to have changed.

Hell, a few months ago someone called the police and said they had placed bombs around the school area (we are across the street) and they would blow everything up if they didn't get money or something. The police took it seriously and 'locked us down', we could leave but couldn't get back in. They didn't even tell anyone that was actually what was going on, the news was reporting a gas leak. We were getting ready to evac if requested. This was from my window.


So...point being, anything can happen at any time. Preparedness is definitely the way to go, and having a plan is absolutely necessary. I'd like to hope anything major I will have time to throw the dogs in the car and just go...even if it's a hotel somewhere.

[yoko]

Originally Posted by crazedACD

We didn't used to, but we had a major (major) blizzard in October 2011 that knocked all the trees down and power outages for weeks. Major tornadoes in our area earlier in 2011 that caused a huge amount of damage. We've had what, two hurricanes in the past two years (Sandy and the other one). The worst thing used to be snow here, it seems to have changed.

A couple years ago we got the worst snowstorm I've ever seen in my life. Shipments coming in and out of the state were stopped and I'd never seen stores that empty before.

I was lucky that my neighbors had a way to cook food and they shared with me since our power went out.

You just never know when something will happen.

[Brattina88]

Originally Posted by yoko

You just never know when something will happen.

We got effects from that crazy hurricane just recently, was without power for three days, I was going back and forth between my house and a friends to help her (and she had a generator lol) and I was glad I was prepared, even though that is a SMALL scale problem, in comparison.

[~Jessie~]

Our natural disaster here are hurricanes.

My parents live 10 minutes from the coast in South Florida, so evacuating to their house would be the worst idea.

Ian and I have had to evacuate when were in the beginning of college- his dorm and my student apartment building were forcing people to leave. We packed up his car and drove to Georgia. We called every hotel and all of them were booked, and we finally found a place with one room available for 2 nights. The hurricane was really, really slow moving, and we couldn't go home after those 2 nights- so the next available hotel we could find was in Tennessee.

It was a really fun trip. Haha. But, we didn't have any pets at the time.

Our "plan" right now would be to load all of the dogs (and the sugar gliders, who have a travel cage) into my SUV. If need be, we could all sleep in it since it's fairly large. We'd start calling all of the cabin rental companies we could find to see if we could find a place to rent. If not, we'd stay in my car until it was safe to return.

Our dogs are on raw, but we have freeze dried food and kibble for emergencies. Before hurricane season starts again, I need to put together a better "kit." As we've experienced, having to evacuate is a very real possibility. Our house is about 150 feet above sea level and isn't considered a flood risk, which is good at least.

[Flyinsbt]

I'm not all that organized, but I also only have the 2 dogs. We don't tend to get the natural disasters here, but there is the potential for earthquakes. Crazy serious earthquake is not beyond the realm of possibility.

I do pretty much always have dog gear in my car (crates, treats, etc), so assuming I'm here, I can leash them up, toss them in the car, and go. My plan, if I had to evacuate, would be to get the dogs and go as quick as possible, and count on buying whatever was needed, and probably staying in a motel. I could probably take time to chuck a bin of kibble in the trunk, and maybe a few clothes in my duffel bag.