Home Front: My Precious!

Photo yoinked from my Aunts Facebook page of the view she had

I have family in Colorado Springs who were threatened by the recent fires there and being way over this side of the planet, there was bugger all I could physically do to help, except offer some advice based on my experiences in the Black Saturday Fires. They didn't really have a lot of preparation time, and the fires were fairly unusual, where as here we have a "Bushfire Season"  so all I could do was give them some strategy to escape and avoid, and what to pack when they did.  My Aunt and her husband are no fools, neither is my Uncle, and I had no intention of teaching any of them to suck eggs, but this is kind of my schtick.

 
I recommended my Aunt pack 72 hours of clothes, food and supplies for her pets (if she was taking them), water, as well as extra fuel, her important documents, maps and phone chargers. Being what they were, fires are something you can "go back home, after" even if there isn't much left of home. Once everything is burnt, it won't burn a second time, which sets these events apart from floods or other natural disasters, which leave an area wrecked AND dangerous for a while after the event. Once they were clear of the fire-danger, life would have gone on nicely, and society carries on. You can buy nappies, pet food, and more clothes. Hotels are still open, Credit Cards and online banking still works.

 It reminded me though, of the need to know where all my own precious things were, in the event of a "bug-out, your home is about to go away" emergency. I know I have some difficult to re-obtain documentation: my passports (yes, 2), my weapons collectors permits, divorce papers, financial settlement papers, birth certificates for myself and my daughters. Fortunately, these are in a file that can pretty easily be grabbed and stuffed. It then occurred to me, as it did when preparing to evacuate from the Black Saturday Fires (and to some extent, from my home in Dubai in the lead up to Desert Storm) "What precious things would I hate to loose if all of this was destroyed?". This was not a "society ending" or "head for the hills" evacuation and survival decision, more a "this house may be gone tomorrow, take what you love" one. The list was something like this: my family heirloom American Civil War sword from Gettysburg, our external HDD farm, which holds a lot of our combined music and many of my photos, and my crocheted Godzilla, who's been with me since I was a toddler. Everything else could burn, and be replaced, or is already part of my EDC and/or bug-out loadout.

What about you?