At some point in my life I had to write a paper about the things I would take if my house were on fire. Didn't we all have to write an essay about something along those terrifying lines? I never fully expected to have to carry out the exercise. On Sunday night the mountain behind our neighborhood caught on fire. You may have heard about it, but if you haven't click here.
Many families were evacuated from their homes while the fire burned behind us. Since our home is very close to the early evacuation areas we packed some things. I decided that if I were to rewrite that essay from a long time ago, I would put the things I would take into 3 categories.
1. Family safety/survival. After making sure the kids were safe and sound at the neighbor's house watching a movie and eating popcorn, I grabbed the 72 hour kits and packed overnight bags with a change of clothes.
2. Important documents. This includes birth certificates, social security cards, life insurance information, wills, bank account information etc. Many of the important information items we need are on our computer, so we took our computer hard drive with us.
3. Irreplaceable items. I made sure I packed all pictures and the sentimental boxes I have put together for each of my kids.
We never did get evacuated and I unpacked the van yesterday. Three families in our city lost their homes and many others are cleaning up from fire related damage. I'm still in shock when I look at the black mountain.
I learned a few things about my own preparedness and would do things a little differently next time.
I took this picture off the KSL website. This was the view from Draper. Our house is right below that mountain.
