Emergency Plan - for Pets

A tornado watch in my area got me thinking about how I would get Princess out with me and into the basement if I had to.

I have a carrier for Princess, which I dug out of the closet and put near the door once I heard about the weather, but I wondered if we had to stay in the basement for hours how I would care for her and realized I had nothing ready other than that!

I do have a couple bottles of water in my fridge at all times, but I wonder if I should keep a small bag of things for her.

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I was wondering..what do you guys have ready for emergencies like that where you'd have to evacuate your pets and family?

I don't really but I only have one cat and myself, so I'm thinking it wouldn't be that hard.

That is a very good point indeed, we dont have those sort of problems in Spain, but we do have earth quakes and have suffered the odd rumble where I live.

I have thought about this sort of thing, especially after watching something like The Day After Tomorrow what would you do, supplies we have in the house at the moment are meek to say the least and I certainly dont have enough cat food for 4 cats that would last more than 3 days
I also think about securing our house to protect us all from the elements or whatever the disaster was, would we stay in one room or use a few..........oh heck its one of those things you certainly don't like to ponder on too much.

I certainly agree with you, if you live in areas and countries where you can get extreme weather, making sure you have supplies etc is a must !

of course theres always the issue of cost........

I think you have an excellent plan. I learned the hard way a couple of years ago when our area was evacuating for hurricane Rita, right after Katrina. Everyone was running around like crazy trying to find supplies, pet food, water, gas, etc, including me. The stores actually ran out of water. I ended up not evacuating due to the traffic nightmare on the evacuation route and thank goodness our area sustained only minor damage. Now, at the beginning of hurricane season, I stock up on supplies for my cats as well as myself.

Having grown up in Tornado Alley, and having several of them pass within blocks of my house, we've always had a plan in place since we were kids. It's not a huge deal, just part of what you do.

Grab your purse or billfold cell phone & keys
Pet carriers or leashes, they already have their collars & tags on
Case of water (we switch it out annually)
Travel bag for the pets (bowls, dog food, cat food - ziplock bags with the brand name & variety listed, change out weekly)
Laptop with a file on insurance policies and contacts, family contact info
We always take in blankets and pillows for protection.
DVDs containing copies of pictures.

We have family in the area, so we have a place to go if our place was destroyed. Even if our immediate area was destroyed, we could find food and water within 30 minutes of our home, so more supplies aren't necessary.
Cash is nice, but we use a national bank so our funds would be available from another branch.