Ever wondered what you would grab in the event of a fire? Well, now I know because at 11pm last night my area was accidentally sent an emergency evacuation notice.

Let’s see what made the cut!

Things started out pretty good. I grabbed our emergency kit which we made while living in earthquake vulnerable Seattle. It’s got medical supplies, tools, MREs...it’s a basic disaster kit. We also had a case of water leftover from an event so I grabbed that.

Next the pets. The dog was thrilled to be going on a late night car ride. The cat was not. Since we travel with the dog often her things were easy to pack up and I think we got it all (bowl, leash, collars etc.). I grabbed the cat’s bag of food and nothing else. Sorry kitty.

Because I’m a SCIENTIST who collects DATA I grabbed my computer and hard drives next. I was not going to lose this jay paper I’ve been working on. Yes I know cloud storage blah blah. Ill do it!

At this point I shifted to extras/sentimentals. This is where things get a lil

I grabbed a bag & threw in...sweatpants, a sweater, my contacts, tooth brushes/paste, my toner? My face oil? And my Chacos. Ok well some of that makes sense I guess. Underwear would have been nice.

Next I grabbed the fire extinguisher that’s in the kitchen. You know, so that I am prepared to battle against a wildfire apparently so uncontrolled it’s over taking my city. With a single fire extinguisher. I’m clearly panicking now but trying my best.

We’re probably going to sleep in that car (remember it’s 11pm) so a blanket would be good. My husband rightfully selects the feather quilt my childhood friend made me. No pillows. No other camping gear which, despite being conveniently stored in containers, neither of us packed.

Ok last things. I grab the box with my old flash drives in it, including the one from our wedding photographer that has all our wedding pictures. IMPORTANT. VALUABLE. LOGICAL.

And then I grab-and this is real-a swimsuit. A mf SWIMSUIT. Because hey it’s still summer right? Or something? I CANNOT EXPLAIN.

Now at this point it’s really hitting us that our neighbors don’t seem frantically throwing things in their car as we are. Or doing anything really. And we’re close-ish with our neighbors and they have young kids so I start calling them. And calling them.

Finally they answer & that’s when I make the biggest u turn from terror to relief/embarrassment in my life. See, they have been monitoring the fires all day. They also read the entire EM alert & not just the “Evacuate.” part so they know that the fires r actually still pretty far

So we get online and start looking and sure enough, the fires are still a couple towns over from us. There’s no current threat or evac orders to our area. And then a second EM alert pops up saying there was an error and that our area was not supposed to get that message.

So with that, we unpacked the pets and attempted one of the most fitful nights of sleep of our lives.

Really I’m grateful though. This exposed some holes in our preparedness that most people never get a second chance at.

So please, have an emergency kit and a bug out bag ready because you just never know. Also panic is wild and your brain might be unpredictable and do things like decide that swimsuits are important but socks are not.

Think not just of preparing yourself but your pets too. Have your precious docs in a fireproof safe, and make copies to keep in your disaster kit. Speaking of kits here’s some tips on how to build one: https://www.ready.gov/kit 

And make friends with your neighbors. Communities are safer when we work together. And they might keep you from panic driving into the unknown in the middle of the night for no reason