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EvacuationYou have ten minutes. What do you take?
Wildfire, gas leak, flooding, a building order to get out. The people who leave calmly are not braver — they packed the bag on an ordinary Tuesday, months ago. Ten minutes is a planning number, not a promise: sometimes you get an hour, sometimes you get the time it takes first responders to reach your street. Pack for the short version.
A backpack works better than a duffel for most people because your hands stay free. Everyone who can carry their own bag should have one, including kids — a small bag with their snacks, water, and one comfort item gives them something to hold onto.
Almost everything on this page also belongs in your stay-home kit. If you can swing two of the critical items — a second headlamp, a spare first aid kit — do it. Redundancy is what saves you when one thing breaks, runs out, or is in the car. One is none, and two is one.
And if you cannot, do not let that stop you from having a go bag at all. Buy one, keep it in the go bag, and pull it out when the lights go off at home. One set can do both jobs.
Do not wait for the order.
An evacuation order is the last safe moment to go, not the right one.
By the time an official order arrives, everyone on your street got the same alert at the same second. The roads fill. The one route out becomes the only route out, and it stops moving. Every minute you spent waiting for permission is now spent sitting still.
And almost nobody is only packing for themselves. This is the part people do not plan for. You may be packing your own bag, then a visiting parent's medications and belongings, then driving to a relative's house to get them ready too. That is three departures, not one, and each takes far longer than you think. If you start when the order comes, you will not finish.
You can see or smell smoke · you are in a warning or watch zone, not yet an order · you are responsible for someone who needs extra time · you would need more than one trip · you do not drive · something in your gut says go.
Leaving early costs you an inconvenient afternoon. Leaving late can cost you everything. If it turns out to be nothing, you have had a strange day out and you drive home. Nobody has ever regretted an evacuation that turned out to be unnecessary.
If you are helping other households, work out the order now, while nothing is happening. Who do you get first? Who can be ready on their own? Who needs someone physically there? Write it in your binder so you are not solving it in a driveway with smoke in the air.
The core list.
Pack this much for three days away from home.
- Water — three liters per person, plus a small filter or tablets.
- Food — bars, nuts, jerky, dried fruit. Nothing that needs heating.
- Medicine — a week if you can, plus a written list of every prescription and dose.
- Light — a headlamp and spare batteries. If you own two, make the second one rechargeable or hand-crank so one dead pack of batteries cannot leave you in the dark.
- Power — charged power bank and the right cable for your phone. A small solar or hand-crank charger covers you past day two.
- First aid — bandages, gauze, tape, pain relief, tweezers, gloves.
- N95 masks — smoke and dust are the reason most people leave.
- Warmth — a jacket, hat, and emergency blanket. Shelters are cold.
- Sturdy shoes and socks — keep a pair under the bed too, for broken glass.
- Cash — small bills, in the bag, not in your wallet.
- Hygiene — toothbrush, wipes, sanitizer, menstrual supplies.
- A whistle — louder than your voice and it never gets tired.
Your documents.
Rebuilding a life takes paperwork. Copy it once, and you never have to think about it again.
Scan or photograph the following, save them to a password-protected cloud folder and a USB drive in the bag, and keep paper copies in a sealed plastic bag:
- Photo ID, passports, birth certificates, Social Security cards
- Insurance policies — home or renters, auto, health
- Lease or deed, and recent bank statements
- Prescriptions, medical records, and vaccination records
- Pet vaccination records and a photo of you with your pet
- A written list of contacts — you cannot read your phone if it dies
Walk through your home taking video of every room, closet, and drawer. Narrate what things are. It takes ten minutes and it is the single best thing you can do for an insurance claim.
Grab bags for what cannot be replaced.
Insurance replaces the couch. It does not replace your mother's photographs.
Keep two or three sturdy bags folded in the closet where your irreplaceable things already live. Two features matter, and only two:
- A zipper. Not an open tote. You will be moving fast, probably in the dark, possibly down stairs. An open bag spills, and stopping to repack scattered photographs costs you minutes you may not have. Zip it and it stays put.
- Real handles or a shoulder strap. You can carry two zippered bags in one hand and still hold a child's hand or a leash with the other.
A zippered duffel or a large storage tote with a zip top works well and costs very little — here is an oversized zippered storage bag on Amazon that fits the bill.
Label them, and keep a short list taped inside the closet door of what goes in them so nobody has to think it through under pressure:
- Photo albums, loose photos, and the boxes of letters
- Family heirlooms — jewelry, a watch, a quilt, small keepsakes
- Children's baby books, artwork, and school records
- Religious or cultural items that matter to your family
- Anything that would break your heart to lose
Your USB drive is not on this list on purpose. The drive with your scanned documents and photos belongs in your go bag, packed already. It is not something to think about on the way out the door.
Evacuations are rarely exactly ten minutes. Sometimes you get an hour of warning, sometimes a whole day. If time is short you take the go bags and go — no hesitating. If you have longer, the grab bags mean you are not standing in a hallway trying to decide what matters while the clock runs. That decision is already made.
The best version of this is the one you never have to open: scan the photos and letters now, and keep a copy in the cloud. Then even the worst day only costs you things.
Bags for your entire household.
Not add-ons. These are the bags that make the plan complete.
Infants and toddlers
Formula and clean water to mix it, bottles, diapers, wipes, a change of clothes, and one familiar toy or blanket. Pack more diapers than seems reasonable.
Elders, seniors & mobility needs
Spare glasses, hearing aid batteries, a cane or folding walker, incontinence supplies, and a card listing conditions, medicines, and doctors. Plan a route they can truly manage.
Medical equipment
Backup batteries, a car charger, and a manual alternative if one exists. Know which nearby facilities have generators, and register with your utility's medical baseline program ahead of time. See the full oxygen & CPAP outage plan.
Pets
Carrier, leash, three days of food and water, bowls, medications, waste bags, and vaccination records. Shelters often require proof of shots — and a photo of you together proves the pet is yours.
Sensory and mental health needs
Shelters and evacuations are loud, bright, and crowded — the hardest possible conditions for autistic and sensory-sensitive people, and for anyone with anxiety or PTSD. Pack noise-canceling headphones or earplugs, sunglasses, a familiar comfort object, something to fidget with, preferred safe foods, and the emergency routine written out. Include any medication for anxiety, ADHD, or other mental health needs.
Mobility, vision, and hearing
Keep aids where they can be reached from bed — cane, walker, or a manual backup chair. Pack spare batteries for a powered chair or hearing aids, a backup pair of glasses, and a written note of what you need so a responder knows without asking. Plan a route you can actually take, and name the neighbor who will come check.
Print the card. Do not trust your memory.
Under real stress, memory is the first thing to go. That is normal, and it happens to trained responders too. They plan for it by reading from paper.
Put one printed card in the top pocket of your go bag — not on your phone, which may be dead or too hard to navigate when your hands are shaking. Before you leave:
Free: your Emergency Action Cards
Printable PDF · two cards · blanks to fill in
Card 2 is the one that goes in your go bag: bags, people, pets, medicine, documents, phone, lock up, and who to text. It starts with the breathing, and it has blanks for your out-of-area contact and where you plan to go.
Download the cardsBreathe first: in for four, hold four, out for four, hold four — four rounds. It takes about a minute and it makes the next ten minutes better. Controlled breathing slows your heart rate, and that is what gives you back your judgment.
Then work the card one line at a time. Read a line, do that line, go back. People freeze when they try to hold the entire emergency in their head at once. More on staying clear-headed.
Where it lives.
- Put it on the way out, not in a special place. Think about how you actually leave in a hurry. If you always go through the garage to the car, the bag belongs in the garage next to the car door. If you leave through the front, put it in the hall closet. There is no single right room — the right spot is on your path out.
- Match the spot to the person carrying it. If someone has trouble with their hands, grip strength, or lifting, the bag should sit at waist height, right where they pass, with a handle or strap they can actually manage. A perfect bag on a high shelf is not a plan.
- Nothing should need gathering. If grabbing your bag means also finding your shoes, your medicine, and the dog leash, it is not ready. Everything travels together or sits right beside it.
- Do not bury it. Behind the holiday bins, under the stairs, at the back of the attic — those all mean you leave without it. Front and clear beats tidy and hidden.
- A second small bag in the car. Water, shoes, a jacket, a phone cable. You may not be home when it happens.
- Check it twice a year. Tie it to the clock change. Swap food and water, replace batteries, update medicines and children's clothing sizes.
- Practice once. Set a timer for ten minutes and walk out with your bag, along the route you would really take. You will find out fast what is missing and whether the spot you picked actually works.
- Know who else you are packing for. If a relative or a guest depends on you, your real departure time starts well before theirs. Decide the order now, not in the driveway.
Build the bag, item by item.
Tell us who is in your household and we will build your go bag list alongside your stay-home kit — with a budget, middle, and best option for everything.