A train derailment in Lake County, Ohio (along the Painesville-Mentor border) has caused evacuations and a possible hazardous materials situation.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=75851

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=75849

Let the discussions of how to prepare for something like this in your locality begin…

Pretty scary considering that's only about a 90 minute drive away from me. Also, even more so that there's another set of active train tracks right down the road from my apartment building, which, I'm told, have the steepest incline allowable in my area.

Looks like I really need to pay attention to everyone else's ideas...

Not to change the subject, but did anyone catch the news about the school shooting in Cleveland as well? It's pertinent to me, anyway, because I'm a NE Ohio resident as well. Looks like my area is having a pretty bad day. I'm just glad that not too many people were hurt and I hope that the bad events taking place here don't get worse.

A train derailment causing a fire or toxic incident would be one of the few things that would cause me to bug out. I'm just half a mile from an unbarred crossing.

This brings home that I should check my bug out kit that's near the front door.

In order:
1) Throw kit into truck. Toss tent, pads, blankets & pillow in.
2) Put steel tethers on dogs, secure in cab of truck.
3) Shove all cats into prepared pillowcases and tie tops with the attached shoelaces.
4) Throw both large wire folding dog crates into back of truck.
5) Put bagged cats into two large plastic crates in truck (sitting on top of collapsed crates.
6a) If night, pluck the four hens off their perches & shove into medium plastic crate, put in truck.
6b) If day, & hens are running loose, call while rattling can of grain, when they approach, toss grain into the crate. ('The Girls' have been trained to do this.)
7) Leave. Since it would probably be temporary, I would probably go down to the WallyWorld parking lot and camp out there. But if they opened the day parks to temporary camping, I would go there instead, so we could spread out.

If I had additional time, I would collect some bottled water and the plastic kit of food from the floor of the pantry, take the dog and cat food, plus a few pounds of layer pellets.

But these plans are for a very localized, short-term evacuation under severe time limitations.

Sue

stuff cats in pillow cases Had to say that, sorry Sue I have tracks just across the road from my place, for the most part they transport coal, but there are times when its a mixed assortment, I think I'm going to do some checking around to see if I can find out what they carry.

1.Heard dogs in truck ( hard to get them in pillow cases}
2.Food & Water (travel trailer is stocked but extra never hurts)
3.Hook up travel trailer
4.Leave


Truck already has extra gas, food, water and BOB bag in it.

I’m thinking that it may be a good idea to reorganize all of my important documents, too. I’m considering filing them into one of the Rubbermaid-type containers that accommodates the hanging file folders, then putting that container into a drawer somewhere.

This would be in lieu of just having the hanging file folders in a filing cabinet drawer. It’s pretty difficult to remove all those hanging file folders when I need to evacuate, even more difficult to remove the drawer from the filing cabinet, and darned near impossible to take the whole filing cabinet.

I'm west of Cleveland and this happened on the east side so I wasn't affected, but it did get me thinking what I'd do in that situation. Apparently gridlock ensued after the highway was closed down. I always have my BOB in the car, as well as a couple of N95 masks, and some food and water. I could have walked out of the evacuation zone if necessary and been OK as far as the basics.

If my home were in the evac area, I'd have to go home for the animals (dog and 2 cats) if I knew I'd have to be out of the house for an extended period of time, depending on the threat level.

Well, yes, it does sound funny, but it is surprising how well it works.

The initial idea (for me) came from hearing of an Australian woman who was evacuating from a firestorm several years ago, and that's what she did.

I recalled it one day when I had to take several cats (including my sister's, who live with her, now) to the vet, and didn't have enough carriers. Apparently, not being able to see the landscaping whizzing by, they were extraordinarily calm and quiet.

However, I did learn there is a "best way" to do it, for anyone interested:

Place the pillowcase on a bed or floor, and open it with the end seam as the bottom, and gather all "sides" in a circle around the exposed bottom. Set cat calmly on the bottom, then quickly bring up the sides and close it so the cat is completely covered. Tie securely with a shoelace. (I've tried everything -- shoelaces are best.)

For those who want to just stuff an upset cat into an open bag with one hand on each, please refer to Blast's recent epic: "Hi, my name is Blast and I'm bleeding" at http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=106205#Post106205

This method also works well for snakes, but not for chickens.

Sue

Sue, you must have very, very mellow cats- what is in those prepared pillowcases? Catnip? Catnip mixed with pot? All of mine would have either cut their way out of the bag or knock themselves out trying.