What's Your Emergency Exit Plan?

[gloriajh]

So, here I am, FOUR YEARS LATER, and my dilemma has become overwhelming.

We now have 8 INSIDE cats - some with special needs and one needs to be kept away from all the others, some that are still very afraid of humans, and some that are our first furbabies.

I'm thinkin' if we have to evacuate that I'll just ????

 

[piikki]

I realize this is an old thread but it brought some of my fears to the foreground. I always wondered how to decide where to put the carriers. Luckily, I do not live in disaster area but I worry about fire. However, close to front door does not sound so helpful if you are in bed and can't get downstairs! I am tempted to have carriers somewhere where I am but can't keep carryingt hem around!

I don't know if this was mentioned but one of my worries is what happens if there is a fire when I am away. The sticker is of course great and making sure your neighbours know you have pets. I have also made a getaway window in basement. I know boys run to basement when they get scared, and they like to hang around around one 'chipmonk' window. I piled stuff there, so that they can always make their way to that window, and let my pet sitters know that this is the place where evacuation could be attempted in case of arriving at the house (fire/gas leak etc).

I am thankful that one of my pet sitters has a friendly firefighter friend who will often call her if there is a local house on fire, and inquire whether the pet sitter has any customers in that house.

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by GloriaJH

So, here I am, FOUR YEARS LATER, and my dilemma has become overwhelming.

We now have 8 INSIDE cats - some with special needs and one needs to be kept away from all the others, some that are still very afraid of humans, and some that are our first furbabies.

I'm thinkin' if we have to evacuate that I'll just ????

I was wondering that when you popped the old thread back up.

I have seven inside, so I know how you feel.

I'm a bit lucky in that while not all of mine get along perfectly, they can all be allowed to mingle. One thing I've drilled into their heads is that when I say BEDROOM they all run to the bedroom. (this is great for when needing to bring in items that leave doors open - like furniture) They also associated the bedroom with their comfort area. If you can get as many of your cats as possible to do this, try it.
Because of this, the carriers are in the bedroom closet. Though in a bigger emergency I would wrap them in blankets and go out the bedroom window if need be.
My plan for fire, since it would most likely break out on the opposite side of the house from the bedroom, is to secure the cats and take them out the east facing window to the far end of the backyard (which is cat fenced in).
If you need more carriers, get some soft sided ones to be used on the more docile of cats. That way you can fold them up into taking less space than a hard sided one. (I can also cram two tiny soft sides into a couple of the larger hard sides.)

I'm still a bit stuck on exactly what we'll do for a tornado since we lack a shelter, basement, or even an interior room.

 

[ldg]

We have that sticker on the outside alerting that there are pets inside, and a paper taped to the inside of our front door that says

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

THERE ARE 8 CATS IN HERE

PLEASE GET THEM TO XXXXXX VET FOR CARE & BOARDING
ADDRESS
PHONE NUMBER

and our cell phone numbers and emergency family contacts (names and numbers).

The vet knows we've done this and has instructions and the contact for the foster network we work with and family contacts on file.

Being in the RV, we can move ALL of us if the roads are open and there's notice. That's handy.

But we've always made sure we know how to pack all the crates in the car.

But we keep folding crates or soft sided crates - we have 7, but the large crate fits the two little ones. We also have a large soft-sided folding like cage thingy - we can't lift it up and carry it with cats in it, but we bought it so that if there were an emergency with the RV driving, we had a place to contain them outside of the RV if necessary (though we can put them in crates in the car too).

Thank goodness when we start the engine, they all run to the bedroom. If there ever is an emergency (knock wood), that'll make it easier to to crate them.

 

[ldg]

I should add.... we have backpacks ready to go. We have tents, sleeping bags - you know - everything you need to go camping. We have at least two months of dried food (camping) meals, emergency medical for people and animals (only need some type of anesthetic to be able to do minor surgeries, got everything else). We have absolutely HEAPS of those fold up gallon jugs ready to be filled with water, and lots of salt (the only thing we can't get naturally around here). But we've discussed this with the Docs/vets - and a LOT of people, so if a Nuke goes off in NY or some kind of massive terrorist thing or chemical release happens or something, and things are really falling apart, everyone will converge here. We've already mapped out who does what (in terms of breaking into places - if necessary - and getting what needs to be gotten). We also have those camping filters that have a fine enough filter to basically turn a rotton, giardia-filled mud puddle into drinking water, and lots of extra filters for them.

RV Parks are great places to use for total social breakdown, because most RVs have generators, most parks have some kind of storage place, so there's (generally) lots of trailers and RVs to use for shelter for lots of people, and most have giant propane tanks with which to fill the portable ones, so there's at least one kind of fuel for cooking, at a minimum, and running some generators if needed.

Hopefully, we'll never need any of this.