i live in an area prone to wildfires, so my family has put together a backpack with some essential stuff; our ID papers, two days worth of food for the cats, a basic water filtration system, and a power strip and chargers for our vital things like phones, etc. i also have a small generator for my CPAP machine so if we have to spend a night or two away from home without easy electrical access, i can still sleep.

other than that, we don’t have much prepared. this is a good reminder to look into that some more!

I’m always prepared to run. Being Mizrahi and not a Zionazi means this can happen at any time, in any country since we are defined only by our otherness, even inside white mainstream Jewish communities. Some of these tips are harder reaches than other. I don’t think you need to hit every one of these in order to be successful but evaluating each for yourself and making preparations for them will put you ahead of almost anyone.

• Always have your paperwork in order. This means your local ID, your passport, birth certificate, medical insurance and information, state benefit cards, banking information, emergency contact information and anything else you can think of (car title up to date etc). You should always maintain hard paper, non digital versions of these things. This is the number one thing that can hold you up at a border or in an emergency.
• Make friends and contacts in your local area. You are only as strong as your social network. It is hard and we are all alienated on purpose to be isolated but you must resist and fight this. Sign up for pot lucks, volunteer to help people at food banks, do anything you can to get out of your house and make connections. Even if these people aren’t your friends, save their names and numbers in phone book (preferably non-digital).
• Work towards being as physically fit as possible. I am disabled in the sense I have out of control autoimmune disorders and have had arthritis since I was in my 20s, and I have a blood disorder that makes me permanently anemic, but even within my limitations I work hard on being as physically fit as possible. I eat a healthy diet and I do as much exercise as I can manage. I will never be able to go bike touring or run a marathon and that is OK, I just need my health to be good enough to get through a disaster.
• Learn medicine and stockpile any drugs that you are dependent on. You should be maintaining as much of a supply of any drug that you can’t live without, within expiration and financial limits of course. Learn about other suppliers of any drug that you are dependent on beyond where you are getting them now. Learn how other people with your condition treats it in other countries for ideas.
• Save some amount of cash, your local currency is a good start, depending on your situation and ability try and keep some in other denominations. If you are in the US keep some Euros and Yuan. You only need a few hundred dollars in each.
• Do not take on more responsibility than you can reasonably plan for. If you believe, as I do, that you may need to run from brown shirts where you live one day then (for example) do not adopt animals and things you are responsible for unless you can plan to take them with you some how. In an emergency you may need to leave them behind.
• Learn another language. It is never too late.
• Have a social network that goes beyond your local area. We all have the internet, use it. Try and make friends in other countries and be honest with them.

That is all I got for now. I’m interested to see what other people think and other disaster prep scenarios that involve not running as AP has mentioned in their main post.

I’ll start this off by saying I am probably a lot more prepared for emergencies than most people I know, but I have such a long way to go, even to hit all the items on the list above.

Types of Emergencies

I think there are three emergencies I am trying to be prepared for: non-weather related utility outage, extreme weather (wind, rain, snow, ice), and fire. I have a lot of ground water, but I am not on a flood plain. Hurricanes don’t really make it this inland and north, but we have had extreme storms from previous hurricanes. I am near a fault, but earthquakes are not common. When I say fire, I mean like, a house fire. I’m farm rural not forest rural and while I know farms burn too, wildfires aren’t common here at this time.

Main impacts of these emergencies

• If I don’t have power, I don’t have water, back up heat, light or a way to cook foods. I will not be able to operate my sump pumps so my basement may flood. I won’t have A/C, and the food in my fridge/freezer may spoil.
• If I don’t have propane, I don’t have my main source of heat.
• If weather or debris after weather makes it unsafe to drive, or if our car has been damaged, we may be stuck at home for a few days and be without utilities at the same time.
• If there is a fire, we will have to leave quickly.
• If I am at work when this happens, it may be hard for me to get home.
• If I am helping with disaster response (it’s part of my job) it may be hard for my family to contact me.

News

We did get a wind up/battery radio last year after the tornados. There is a weather broadcast channel that is highlighted on the dial. It helped us know when the tornado warnings and watches were going on.

When we had major storms about 3 years ago I had a really hard time getting information. There didn’t seems to be too much on the radio. We had no power for 3 days and roads were impassible, but the outside world seemed to be going on just like normal! Cell phone and internet was disrupted for a long time too, so local groups or news sites were not accessible.

Stay or go

This is something I need to work on with my family. For most of the likely situations we are thinking of, being at home is the best option. Fire is not (lol) but there may be others. We will need to plan where we would meet up if going home was not an option or where we would head to if we had to GTFO.

Accessibility and medications

This is a weak spot for us too! Like Hamid said, it’s important to have whatever consumables you need and to understand what would happen if you stopped taking them (i.e. if you are running out, do you have to taper off? Are their certain foods or activities you need to avoid if you stop taking something?)

Utilities

I do know where my utilities shuts off are, yay! I have a general idea about my fuse box, know where my propane is, know how to isolate that from the furnace, know how to drain my water lines.

Documents and contacts

I also need to improve here. I am generally The Holder of Passports and Birth Certificates for the household, but I do not have a good idea of where my insurance policy is lol.

Realistically I should be more prepared. There’s one road and one train line that share the same ridge in or out and this house burned down in the 60s. Bushfire happens every year and we usually have to evacuate at least for a few days.

I don’t really have anything ready, it’s the sort of thing I really should plan for but I do that ‘if I don’t think about it it’s ok’ thing.

I’m lucky enough to have family to stay with in this city, but given that frequency and severity of the fires is increasing I should make a better plan.

I think I should make sure my important documents are stored in a drybag ready to throw in the car. And have a checklist of what to grab/how to pack it so in a panic nothing will get lost and we will all fit in the car. Stuff like ID, insurance docs, computer harddrives, meds/water (in case of delays), dog leashes/food/meds, phone charger.