This is the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office. This is your final notification. You are under mandatory evacuation and must leave your home immediately. It is not safe for you to remain...
---- Third and final automated phone message received at 0720 PST, Oct 22.
Have you ever thought, “If my house were on fire, I wonder what I would take with me?”
The fire was not torching my home, but I had to get out right away. Only an idiot would have remained up there on the mountain. The increasing smoke was drifting up our street and beginning to sting our eyes. We definitely had to evacuate. But, for exactly how long we would be gone, or if we would even have a place to return to, was completely unknown.
In that tiny reality millisecond, my mind suddenly went into ‘emergency mode’. I’m sure it’s similar to what would happen should you ever be faced with, say, a real-life cabin prep. Those R.E.T. action items and the five or so questions that you're supposed to remember to ask the cockpit will all abruptly but very nicely kick in. You shift your thought process very, very quickly from “Dammit! I can’t believe that this crap is happening to me!” to “Ok, the clock is ticking---what do I need to do first?” Item #1, Item #2, Item #3, etc... Disbelief becomes acceptance. Shock becomes action. Stubbornness becomes accepting reality.
Before that early morning greeting from our friendly police department, I would have probably considered a very different evacuation item list. It would have been a list mostly based on what I thought I might need to take with me. But that was then. And back to that morning, I had about fifteen minutes to run through the house and grab whatever would quickly fit in the car. That is, I had:
Looking back at this list, I find it extremely telling and interesting. Remember that it was compiled in five minutes, while running though the house. It was limited by what I could carry and actually fit into the car, as well as sort through in my rushed haziness at the time.
Compiled between 7:20 – 7:25 am, Oct 22, 2007
Quantity | Item |
---|---|
1 | Wife, seven months pregnant |
2 | Pets (1) Shetland Sheepdog (1) African Grey Parrot |
1 | Wedding Album |
3 | Photo/Memory boxes. These contain travel photos, souvenirs, memories, etc. One of them has a bit of sand I scooped up from the Sahara Desert, a colorful dagger I was given in Nepal, a train ticket stub to Leningrad in 1988...you know, an odd assortment of travel items that carry interesting memories. |
1 | Electric razor. I forgot to bring the darn cord to plug it in. Thus, a few good shaves, and then its Grizzly Adams time. |
1 | Toothbrush. This one was really dumb, because you can always buy another toothbrush anywhere. But, that’s what I grabbed—go figure. |
1 | Jacket. |
1 | Laptop computer |
2 | IBM web server computers (contains all my graphic source files, software, and everything I’ve ever done with JSN). Yeah, like I’d leave that behind. |
1 | Roll of paper towels. Also dumb. Why the hell would I bring that? See toothbrush above. |
1 | Digital camera |
1 | Pack of prescription contact lenses for wife. |
1 | Baby heart monitor (so we can still hear Keira’s heartbeat while stranded at hotel/motel). This was already in the car, so I guess it doesn't count. |
1 | Dog carrier (not necessary but taken nevertheless) |
3 | Removable hard drives (all our financial info, email, etc) |
2 | Cell phones |
2 | Undeposited checks. Total $40.00. Gee wiz. |
1 | Wallet (credit cards, ATM cards, and that sort of thing) |
1 | Insurance policy and paperwork (may be kind of important if house reduced to embers) |
10 | Cords and annoying tangled power adapters to plug in computers, hard drives, web servers, etc. |
1 | Phone book yellow pages. |
1 | Cash. Total $11.00. Change was left on dresser. |
5 | Small bottles of water. Yeah, well, I might get thirsty! |
2 | Towels. They were used to prop up the bird carrier in the car---and cover it so Simon would not have to breathe as much smoke. |
4 | Breakfast bars. Hey, have you ever experienced a pregnant wife? No? Than, trust me, this was an important item. |
Nothing else was taken. No crew ID, no passport, no birth certificate, no other paperwork of any kind. I really didn’t care about that stuff and didn’t want to spend the few minutes I had trying to find those items. I know you are supposed to bring that paperwork, but “supposed to” and “actually having to make that decision” are two different things.
What I wished I’d remembered to bring:
And so, that’s about it. This is the list of what I brought and remains an interesting window into the balance of what is important vs. what is practical vs. what was actually taken and carried out.
That’s enough for now. Back to the waiting...