Wildfire Season: Preparing to Evacuate

Wildfire Season: Preparing to Evacuate

02 April 2011

published by www.kktv.com


USA — With wildfire season raging in Colorado, how many of us would be ready to evacuate if our homes were threatened?

11 News put a Colorado Springs Family to the test, giving them 10 minutes to grab what they needed to survive for 72 hours. The Pitcher family proved to be among the minority, surprising us with their level of preparedness.

“Having a plan,” mom Melissa says, “because I wouldn’t want anything to happen to my family, my kids just for my lack of planning.”

Ready they are. We watched as Melissa ran through the home grabbing 72 hour kits, one for all five family members. She lugged a heavy fire safe box down the stairs, filled with important documents, and grabbed photo albums and journals filled with family memories.

“Furniture, little knick knacks, that’s all material stuff. But memories of things written down, you can’t get that back.”

Perhaps this family is more prepared because dad, Nate, is a firefighter. Brothers Kaden and Aaron, six and five years old, know to meet at the mailboxes on the corner during a disaster. The family mini-van has bottled water stashed in the trunk, and extra EpiPens in the glove-box for Aaron who has a severe peanut allergy.

Bret Waters with the Colorado Springs Office of Emergency Management says the Pitcher family isn’t the norm. He’s watched as panic sets in and people just start grabbing the first things they see, but he says there is an easy solution, “Preplanned go-bags with food, water and other small items, but those should be preplanned. What are you going to take with you?”

For a list of what to pack in a 72 hour kit click on the link below.


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