When you leave

Reasons that count

Fire, flood, a gas leak, an evacuation order, or a house that cannot keep you warm or clean are reasons. Anxiety is a reason to prepare, not a reason to drive into a storm. If officials say go, go earlier than the crowd. If they say stay, sheltering is usually safer than improvising a journey.

Decide the trigger in advance with the other adult in the house. “If the water is at the gate, we go to Sam’s.” Write it down. Future-you is tired and argumentative.

The bag

One bag per person who can carry one: water and a way to carry more, food for a day or two that needs no kitchen, medicines, a layer of clothes, a torch, a paper list, copies of documents, hygiene items, and a little cash. Comfortable shoes on your feet, not in the bag. Children and dogs need their own version, packed small.

The bag is not the cellar. Do not put the only torch and the only first-aid kit in a rucksack you might grab. Those stay by the door as duplicates, logged in Holdfast under their real categories so you still see them.

The route

Two ways out of the neighbourhood, on a paper map, avoiding the one bridge everyone will sit on. A full tank is a habit, not a hero move; half a tank is the minimum you tolerate. Agree where you are going and how you will say you have arrived if the phones are sulking. Practise walking to the end of the plan once, in daylight, with the actual bag, and remove the things you hated carrying.