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Emergency Situation Evacuation/Re-location Plan

Preparing an Evacuation Plan 
Your average evacuation plan consists of two parts: evacuation from your home, and evacuation from your region/town/city/neighborhood. An evacuation plan for your home is useful not only for disasters, but for any situation where lives may be in danger.
Important points to remember when creating an evacuation plan for your home are:
•	You should have at least two (2) escape (egress) routes from each room.
•	Indicate the locations of any escape ladders, or other special equipment.
•	Indicate the locations of fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, first aid kits, Emergency Readiness Kit.
•	Indicate the locations of the shutoffs for gas, water, and electricity.
•	For people with medical conditions or other disabilities, indicate their location as well as the location of any special equipment they will immediately need.
Evacuation Inventory and Logistics
If you have to evacuate your house, you may have as little as 10 minutes. Under these circumstances, trying to think of what to save is very difficult. Take some time now to think about what items you would try to take with you.  Write down a list of the high priority items you would take if you only had 10 minutes to evacuate your house. Remember, you may have to carry everything.


Evacuation Procedure
If you have time during an evacuation event, you may want to take measures to secure your place of residence. Give some thought to what things you need to do to secure your home. Record your plans and keep them in a secure and readily accessible location.
Household Evacuation Plan 
•	Draw your home’s floor-plan to the best of your ability, then sketch your evacuation routes and a rally location for all people involved.
•	Be certain to sketch each floor of your home, and make copies for each member of the building.  Have them keep them in a secure location and review often with your family and any other live-ins of your building.
•	Have maps ready for the following:
•	Closest evacuation centers or shelters.
•	Main and Alternative routes for leaving the city in North, South, East and West directions.  If you want, plan tertiary routes on lightly-traveled service roads.
•	Rally spots outside the affected areas. For example: I live approximately 20 miles east of a chemical factory. Should there be an accident or an attack upon that facility, and the wind is blowing in an Easterly direction, our plan would then be to head north and meet up in a town approximately 30 miles north of my home.


Choosing a Remote Contact:
During an emergency situation, your local phone service may be limited or non-functional, so you should be certain to make arrangements with someone outside your local area to be your family contact.
Your contact should have voice mail or an answering machine, or some other effective means to make short-notice contact without warning.
Be certain that every family member is aware that they should monitor the radio or TV for emergency information and instructions.  They should then phone your out-of-area contact person to say how and where they are and what their plans are.
Keep all phone calls short, and if possible, make arrangements to call your contact at a specified time for another check-in.


Choosing A Location to Meet:

At the time of an emergency situation, your family may not be all together. It is very important to choose family rally locations.
Remember that bridges may be out and roads may be blocked by debris, so choose your meeting places carefully with access in mind.
Choose locations that are easily identifiable, and that can be accessed on foot if necessary.  It would be beneficial for that location to be in an accessible, open area.
Take into consideration where each of you will likely be at different times and on different days.
The evacuation plan for your local area can be useful in a large disaster situation. By plotting potential egress routes on a city map before the disaster situation, you will be far more prepared than if you were to try to plot something on the spot, during the emergency situation.

 Things to consider when drafting your local area evacuation plan include:
You should plan at least two (2) possible egress routes for each direction. (North, South, East, West.)
Avoid egress routes with obvious hazards, or routes which would likely be impassible in a disaster situation. (You probably will want to test-drive the routes before picking them.)  Avoid common roads that may be heavily congested during an emergency.
Create plans with other family members for rallying outside of the area to be evacuated. Make sure each family member is aware of the location of the established rally points.
Have a phone list of 3 reliable contacts outside of your area.  Each family member should carry their own personal copy of this contact list.  In an emergency, communications may be down in your area.  Family members can contact the persons out of the emergency area to relay messages and to check on the status of other family members.
Be certain that every family member has a copy of the evacuation plan, maps and contact telephone numbers.
You should also consider an evacuation scenario from your work.
Maintain your evacuation plans in a secure location with your Emergency Readiness Kit.