Imagine you suddenly find yourself with just seconds to look around you and decide, with no time for careful debate, what to grab before you run out of the house, desperately fleeing from whatever disaster has befallen your abode (fire, flood, meteor strike). 😮
Maybe you’ve been in this situation already and know exactly what you’d do. Would you do things differently next time?
Way back when the kids were little, the year Princess Diana was killed (’97 I think?) we lived up at the border of Montana and Canada in a little Amish community deep in the Kootenai National forest and the house we were renting with my sister was Amish built.
Which meant it wasn’t up to code because there were no codes. 😄
There was a big, magnificent, old wood stove in the downstairs, where we lived, which heated the entire place which had to be at least 3,000 sq ft. It was huge and drafty and frankly, quite wonderful. What an experience that year was, like traveling back in time! I’d do it again in a heartbeat, except…
Three weeks after we moved out and headed back into civilization and the modern world to be “proud monkeys” (see my last post lol) the place burned to the ground in a matter of minutes! My sister barely had time to grab the cat, her computer and a few papers and things at hand that she made it out with. Otherwise she lost EVERYTHING and we may have, too, if we’d have stayed just a handful more days there. The fire started in the wall upstairs, where she lived, because the stovepipe had been eaten through from years of use and because it was Amish built, it was like a pile of match sticks anyway.
I’ve never forgotten how lucky we were to come so close to that so I’m extra super cautious but things do happen. You can’t control for everything, obviously, like the house in California hit by a meteor recently. But usually you have time to grab things as you run out the door, so what would I grab, I wonder? 🤔
I mean besides the dogs, who would hopefully alert me to any disaster to begin with and save me! They owe me for what they put me through, believe me…
I wouldn’t have to grab any of them, though, just opening a door and a gate and they’re gone like lightning right now. They don’t need an excuse to escape on the best of days! 😄
Anyways, we bought a fireproof safe a while back that has our important papers and sentimental things in it, so I’d probably leave that and worry about it later if there was a fire since it’s heavy. I’d probably try to save some antiques, knowing me. Unless we had to evacuate to another area and there was a risk of looters, I suppose, then I’d focus on the safe.
Dang, it’s harder than I thought to answer this question so I’ll leave it to you.
WWYT?
Empty Nest Homesteading 
Thank you for sharing your story. I’m glad you weren’t harmed.
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I would grab my children & yell squirrel so my dog would get her lazy bum up and run out. we have a fire lock box with documents so I would leave that unless I was right by it. At one point we had bug out bags prepped in the garage but we don’t anymore. I need to get back on that. What else I would grab would be based on the situation. For fire, most things are replaceable, but for running from something I would grab firearms, knives and hopefully updates bug out bags.
I feel for your sister losing everything that way. It’s truly a scary thing and I’m glad you were spared that.
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Thank you, it was awful to know she went through that right after we left! The ironic part of it was next to the house in a big, old barn there was a gorgeous antique fire truck, all restored and in perfect working order, which was spared. Otherwise there is no fire service up there to speak of, it’s so remote, so by the time the fire fighters arrived it was just a smoldering ruin.
The only thing we have for a bug out bag is our dog sled backpack, which has pretty much everything we need to survive for a few days and we keep it away from the house out in the shed with the sled. I should probably make a second one with extras and keep with it.
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I live in the Pacific Northwest and am waiting for the Cascadian Subduction zone earthquake (known to most folks simply as the “BIG ONE.”) I’m a FEMA-certified Community Disaster Emergency Response Team trainer and I’ve written multiple Disaster Preparedness manuals for local government depts.
I’d just grab my CERT bag from the hall closet. Everything else is in a locked storage cabinet hidden out back. I cycle through shelf stable food and medicine annually. I have my whole cul de sac of 48 homes on board with a basic cross-survival strategy. I’m proud of how we look out for each other. Everyone is autonomous, but we get along well and help each other out as needed. When the pandemic hit, we were ready. If you were quarantined, you could text any neighbor what you needed, and they’d have it on your porch in an hour or less. Payment (if accepted) would be sorted out later.
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You are the best neighbor anyone could ask for! I will admit, living in such a heavily dense LDS area, our Mormon neighbors are like that but I don’t know if they’d treat non-believers differently during a serious emergency so that’s my only reservation. I’d like to think they wouldn’t. I need to look into a CERT bag, is that like a bug-out bag?
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Thank you for saying so! There is an LDS church not far from me as well. They do a lot of little things for community service, but I do wonder if they would share their resources with non-members. A bug-out bag is for the family use only. My CERT bag is a 1st Responder bag for going off to help others if my family is okay. Most people don’t need to run around with five torniquets, triage tape (for tagging mass injuries), etc. Here is the link to the program, you can take the two online courses for your own use and decide from there if you want to level up or not: https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/individuals-communities/preparedness-activities-webinars/community-emergency-response-team
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Oh, thank you! I definitely want to do this! 🙂
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I’m loving your husky Chelle, they don’t need any help escaping do they? (And a lot of help not to!)
After the usual kids, husband and the dog I would grab an old night-shirt that I’ve slept with since I was a kid and my laptop. I’d probably leave my phone as I’d like to know what life is like without it but I’m too afraid to try.
So glad your sister was ok. I don’t know much about Amish communities as I’m from the UK so only what I’ve seen in movies but I bet that was quite an experience, I’ve always fancied going back in time.
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Thank you for sharing! Your comment about the nightshirt is so sweet, what a wonderful sentimental thing to have such love for that it would be first on your list. 🙂
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