If you had to evacuate, what would you take?

Linda said:
Wow, tnthomas, I bet that was a horrible time. Did you get to go back to the same area or did you have to move away and start over somewhere else?
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My parents were in the midst of divorce, they sold the property and split the proceeds. My mom rented a house much closer to her work, so we moved about 35 miles from Chatsworth to Hermosa Beach. I ran up a $200 phone bill calling my girlfriend in Canoga Park(next to Chatsworth, in the San Fernando Valley); my mother was not happy with that. :shrug:
 

tn, my Uncle left Chicago, and wound up in Sylmar, early 1950s. Later, I visited him there on my honeymoon, 1965. He pointed out then how at the beginning, one could look down into the valley for miles and miles, and as we spoke, visibility was about 1 mile.

Sorry, I did not intend this to be a demeaning remark, little story about my youth. When "smog" was coined as a word, I was a little kid. When I left Chicago, 1972, visibility was often even less. Metropolitan Sanitary District of Chicago strained the leavings in the Sanitary & Ship Canal from 4 million toilets, and burned it! One reason I left. imp
 
Alice dog first after that I cant think of anything else that I couldn't replace - the two daughters and us have copied all of our important papers and we each have a copy - ditto to external hard drives we each have a copy of each others with photos and other important stuff on them - medicine perhaps but even that can be resourced from our pharmacy or local GP as they have all our records. If we had time we would rescue husbands accordion collection as some of them would not be able to be replaced - we don't own any valuable family heirlooms - There is probably more valuable stuff up in the shed as far as valuable is concerned like tools etc.
 

jujube said:
When I lived in Turkey during the Cold War, we were always on alert for evacuation. At the "new wives orientation" held every month, we were told that there was to be a suitcase packed and sitting by the front door at all times. In it, we were to have our husband's entrenching tool, a waterproof ground sheet, and a certain amount of bottled water for each person. Anything else that fit in, we could take, but only one suitcase per family. Then, they told us (off the record) that if, indeed, there was to be an evacuation, we would be the last evacuated - after essential personnel, equipment, documents, etc. We weren't essential enough. There would always be some wives who would go back home after that little piece of info. I kept that suitcase packed for 2 1/2 years. The entrenching tool and ground tarp did come in handy during the earthquake when we lived out in a field for three nights and had to make our own latrine arrangements.
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Jujube, you have really lived an interesting life! If you have an inclination to write, I bet you could write an interesting book.

 
tnthomas said:
My parents were in the midst of divorce, they sold the property and split the proceeds. My mom rented a house much closer to her work, so we moved about 35 miles from Chatsworth to Hermosa Beach. I ran up a $200 phone bill calling my girlfriend in Canoga Park(next to Chatsworth, in the San Fernando Valley); my mother was not happy with that. :shrug:
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Yep, those girlfriends will get you in trouble every time! :) My neighbor across the street moved to Canoga Park to a retirement park a few months ago. She is about 79 and she told me on the phone that she's gotten to know the man across the street from her. She said he's 93 but he gets around like he's 80. She is wishing they'd gotten out of these mountains and into that nice mobile home park while her husband was still alive.
 
jujube said:
When I lived in Turkey during the Cold War, we were always on alert for evacuation. At the "new wives orientation" held every month, we were told that there was to be a suitcase packed and sitting by the front door at all times. In it, we were to have our husband's entrenching tool, a waterproof ground sheet, and a certain amount of bottled water for each person. Anything else that fit in, we could take, but only one suitcase per family. Then, they told us (off the record) that if, indeed, there was to be an evacuation, we would be the last evacuated - after essential personnel, equipment, documents, etc. We weren't essential enough. There would always be some wives who would go back home after that little piece of info. I kept that suitcase packed for 2 1/2 years. The entrenching tool and ground tarp did come in handy during the earthquake when we lived out in a field for three nights and had to make our own latrine arrangements.
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When we were stationed overseas we always had to have that suitcase ready too. And keep identification documents, dog tags (the kind for people), passports, immunization records, etc. where we could grab them instantly and get out. The part I would have found the most difficult was that we were instructed NOT to try to gather other family members (like kids who were in school, etc., because they would be evacuated separately, and of course husbands would be on duty and not with us), because schools, etc., would be evacuated separately. Everyone would be just collected where they were and sorted out later. Scary. We had drills (sometimes we weren't told whether they were for real or only a drill) where we all had to comply, get collected or go to our meeting point, and so on.
 
Linda said:
I remember hearing about those fires in Australia last year, they were really bad. The most I've seen of Australia is the movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which we've seen several times. Have you seen it?
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Yes Linda , I seen that movie several times over the years,There is a new Aussie movie called Last Cab to Darwin in cinemas at the moment , it's a great movie ..well worth seeing ..allot of movie was filmed the outback town called Broken Hill N S W where I was born, it's a sad movie ( true story ) however it also contains some foul language ..but I over looked that fact even though I dislike swearing ..
 
Last summer, we were in an RV park that was on alert to be evacuated in case on of the Yosemite fires got going in our direction and one guy was complaining that it would take him two hours to get ready to leave. Two hours, hell! I could be out of there in 15 minutes tops. Throw everything on the floor onto the couch or bed, pull in the slides, unhook the water and electricity. Forget the bicycles, lawn chairs, etc. Hook up the camper and high tail it down the mountain. Anything left behind is easily replaceable. The same can't be said for my life.
 
Husband, daughter and son in law, med's, cell phone, tablet, the small notebook that contains all our passwords lol, passports, purse and wallet, car keys change of clothing, coats, good walking shoes or boots or hikers, and keys to our trailer and head off to our trailer.
 
Yes Linda , I seen that movie several times over the years,There is a new Aussie movie called Last Cab to Darwin in cinemas at the moment , it's a great movie ..well worth seeing ..allot of movie was filmed the outback town called Broken Hill N S W where I was born, it's a sad movie ( true story ) however it also contains some foul language ..but I over looked that fact even though I dislike swearing .. Kadee46, I wrote the name of the movie down to tell my daughter. She is the one who told me a lot of the Australian movies are "artsy". I don't mind the language at all. I don't like violence and children being mistreated but the f-word etc don't bother me at all.
 

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