Emergency Drill (aka Wake up call!)

On Saturday night some friends from our family home evening group surprised us with an emergency evacuation drill. They called at 6:00 and said we had to meet at our church building (which is 25 minutes away) in 45 minutes. We were to assume that all of the gas stations and grocery stores were closed and that our house may not be standing when we got back. We immediately went into motion grabbing what should have been consolidated in 72 hour kits and loaded the kids into the car. We were out of the house in just over 16 minutes. When we got to the church we gathered in the parking lot with the other families from the family home evening group and assessed how prepared we really were. It was a cold (for Georgia) night and it was a real wake-up call for most of us. Some of the ladies whose husbands travel a lot had been left to get everything together by themselves. We ate dinner from our 72 hour kits and had to cook by a makeshift campfire. Overall it was an awesome experience and really helped us to see what we need to improve in order to be really prepared.

The first lesson I learned was to get our 72 hour kits together. We had pretty much everything that would have gone into a 72 hour kit, but it took precious time to gather it all together.

The second lesson I learned was that I need to pack things that will help keep my kids happy. I need to make sure they like the food in the 72 hour kits, and I need to include some games, coloring books, and activities to keep them occupied. Some chocolate and gum will be essentials in our completed kit!

The third lesson I learned is that if the 72 hour kits would have already been assembled I would have had time to grab other items that could make us far more comfortable. We had plenty of blankets but forgot to grab chairs to sit on or a tent to sleep in. It would have also been really nice to have some kind of camp stove to cook with.

The fourth lesson I learned is to look at my kids before they load into the car. When we got to the church we realized that McKenna didn't have any socks on and that Summer was wearing a dress with no tights. Ideally those items would have been in our 72 hour kits, but since they weren't I should have checked to make sure they were dressed appropriately.

Overall it was an amazingly helpful evening and I would recommend that everyone particpate in some kind of surprise drill. It can actually be really fun! I would have liked to do some kind of 72 hour kit scavenger hunt where you get points for the different items you remembered to pack. (Toilet paper would be worth a lot!)

The real sobering thought throughout the night was that the idea for the evacuation drill was sparked because our friends parents were part of the fire evacuations in San Diego. They got a call at 2am and were given 30 minutes to be out of their house. We all think that nothing will happen to us, but if it does we want to be prepared. (And unfortunately our family has some things to do before we do feel really prepared).