What would you grab if you had only 5 minutes to leave?

Anonymous
The Palisades fires, like every fire, have me thinking—

When I was a very young child, my elementary school caught on fire. The K-2 building was annexed, and as the fire ravaged the main building, the 4-8 students piled into the our building while we waited for our parents to pick us up. It was chaos and it really traumatized me. I went home that night and strangely packed a bag full of my most important things, just in case my house ever caught fire. As an adult, I still keep things well organized, just in case.

I know everyone says they’d grab pictures. I’d grab pictures, memory cards, important documents, bins with keepsakes, important meds, as many clothes as I could, and honestly, that’s probably it.

I’m curious if you have a plan. It doesn’t even have to be for a fire. What would you grab in an emergency if you had to flee in five minutes?
Anonymous
Family photos and a box of letters from a childhood friend/first love. Everything else is replaceable with some effort.
Anonymous
Laptop with pics, maybe meds and appropriate outer wear.
Anonymous
Kids
Good shoes and coat
The go bag
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Family photos and a box of letters from a childhood friend/first love. Everything else is replaceable with some effort.


I should add that I already lost a lot of my belongings including most photos in a house fire before I graduated from college. The photos are what still hurt over three decades later.
Anonymous
We are in a hurricane area so yes: our pets, a small crate with documents/passports/keepsake albums, some clothes, dh's family candlesticks and my jewelry box. That's pretty much it.
Anonymous
well I am wondering this now in LA having seen the map of the fires, if they keep moving inland we will be surrounded in Glendale.

We'll take the kids, the pets and our passports.

what else do we need? nothing.
Anonymous
My house caught on fire about 7 months ago. In the first minute when I noticed, as I was waiting to connect to 911, I started to try and gather my important documents like my birth certificate and passports. After about 30 seconds of this I thought f**k it, I have to get my dog out of the house before I worry about any of this. I tried to grab my purse and computer but in the end I only made it outside with myself, my dog, and my phone. I wasn't even wearing shoes or a bra.

I know this is different than having a few minutes, and luckily the fire department was awesome and I had very little loss, but what I learned from the situation is that I really needed to get organized and have an immediate-ready-grab folder or box.
Anonymous
My dog, my phone, our wedding album.
Anonymous
Very little. My kids are still attached to their stuff so I’d help them as much as possible, but I have very little attachment to things. All the photos are double backed up in the cloud. But I’m actively in the process of minimizing our stuff so I’ve read and thought a lot about this.
Anonymous
My cats, and it would probably take 5 minutes to find them if they were freaking out or hiding.

Anonymous
Assuming it was just me, my wife's and daughter's beloved childhood stuffies.
Anonymous
My kids and pets. Oh, and probably my spouse as well.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:well I am wondering this now in LA having seen the map of the fires, if they keep moving inland we will be surrounded in Glendale.

We'll take the kids, the pets and our passports.

what else do we need? nothing.


La Canada Flintridge just ordered evacuations of the entire town.

Was also thinking about this. Family, pets, then if room in the car, my grandmother's silver and two oil landscapes painted by a family member who was extremely talented though never a name as she never made any efforts to do anything but paint what she liked to paint. Everything else can be replaced.
Anonymous
Purse, phone, charger, keys, Safe deposit box (cash, passports, documents) with key to it (putting key on key ring now).
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