An earthquake shakes your house down, a house fire makes living inside impossible or unsafe, a big tree comes down dead center...

For those of you who either have a house or live in an apartment or condo where you have some open area nearby, are any of you prepared/willing to live on the property at least for a while?

I'm especially thinking of the stuff that may still be usable that you could remove from the house: clothes, bedding, books, cookware, etc.

I don't think that I could just walk away from my place and let the looters clean it out. I have room to pitch a tent and grow a garden, so I'm thinking that I would try to stay.

Has anyone else thought about this?

Sue

My maternal grandparent's home burned down in one of our many firefires. When we were able to go back somebody had stripped the fencing.
When the Northridge earthquake hit, My paternal grandmother's house sustained a collapsed brick fireplace, some damaged lath and the foundation shifted.
The family slept out back in the tent and had hot meals I provided via a coleman stove. My brother however, thought the argentine mauser carbine was rediculous.
That night I watched two guys climb her substantial fence and approach the dark house with big screwdrivers.I slippped up behind and asked if I could help them.
'Si, we are looking for work, our freeend.' I set them to work stacking the collpased bricks all night at gunpoint. Come the morning, I gave them 15 seconds to clear her huge front yard and the fence.

Answer depends a lot on why the house went down and how severe the damage is. If due to major fire, flood or tornado (the main risks in my area) then the plan is to try to recover a few personal things and let insurance cover the rest. Cleaning up and recovering things after these types of events is very time consuming and not terribly effective. For lesser types of damage it might be worth trying to stay around but the local authorities may decide to keep you and everyone else out to prevent looting (at least that would be the theory).

- Eric

Priceless!!

Greetings Sue, Take a look at my thread about Layered Preparedness. Perhaps that idea could be food for thought per your question.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area in a row house style condo. My expectation is that a major earthquake will render the house unsafe for living; there are always fires after earthquakes from broken gas mains, and we're down wind from downtown.

We have a patio and a few tents and shade structures we could put up there. Our condo also has a reasonably large parking lot we could set up in.

There are a number of reasons we plan to stay: our geography is unique - we're on a peninsula, so bugging out is less of an option if the two roads going the length of the peninsula are either destroyed or littered with broken down cars; we're too old and too frail to try to hike out; although many expect looting and other villainy, we don't - we expect to be able to take care of our needs and help and be helped by our neighbors.

We bought a van and have a month's worth of food, sleeping bags, air mattress, seasonal clothing, and more in the van where we can get it if the house collapses. We hope to be able to drive out of fire danger if downtown burns, but we don't expect to be able to drive out of the area.

There's no good place for a garden around here, and if we're here long enough to harvest, we'll be planted ourselves, I figure (i.e., dead).

After the big Rodeo-Chediski wildfire here some years ago, the biggest time consumer, and most profitable for the homeowner, recovery activity was sifting the ashes of the homes. We sifted ashes where the bedrooms or den had been, or other rooms identified by owners as places where valuables were kept. We recovered lots of jewelery and loose gems, rare coins, etc. that would otherwise have been lost to the front-loader scooping up debris for removal. Other than that, nearly everything was a total loss. Rare exceptions were inspiring, like the people who's family records had been in a chest of drawers in the basement and a broken water pipe had hosed it all through the fire, preserving their priceless old family records, photos, etc. Generaly, not much is left after a major fire.
Tornados and earthquakes make a mess, but tend to leave more salvagable stuff, making staying on site more worthwhile. Tornados, as we had in Colorado, may put lots of your stuff in a neighbor's yard, but people are usually very helpful in such circumstances. It's refreshing to see how people come together and help each other in such trying times.
After major floods, which we had often in Missouri, the property is pretty much totally lost, and staying on site is often difficult due to health issues, and lack of services and solid ground on which to set up camp. Some property may be recovered, usually small items that need to be cleaned.
In any event, there's lots of work to be done, and staying on site helps with planning, reduces travel time, and ensures someone is there to direct recovery efforts of volunteer helpers. If possible, I think it's better to stay on site.

Unless the structural damage is so great that staying anywhere near the building would be too risky then yes, I would stay if at all possible. Even if your property is more or less destroyed you should still be able to scavenge a lot of useful stuff. You can improvise a shelter in a partly destroyed building that will be much better than a tent in the open. Many great European cities were bombed to rubble during WWII yet the people made do somehow with a bit of ingenuity and hard work.

In areas prone to earthqaukes and wildfires, consider building a fire and qauke resistant storage shed/gargage on your land.
If your house is uninhabitable, it might be possible to live short term in this structure, especialy if it could be extended by tents or awnings.
Re-inforced concrete construction should withstand all but the very worst events.
A number of firms offer to build concrete tornado shelters, such would also appear to be fire and qauke resistant and might be worth considering even in areas with little tornado risk.

If flooding is the main risk, consider not only a two storey house, but remember to keep important supplies and equipment upstairs.

I think you have to look at the damage done and the area you live in, for example tonight air temps will be around -20 with windchill factors of -40 not going to sleep in a tent if something happens to my house, that being said all my camping gear is slit up between the house and detached garage so if something happens to one I have items in the other. My garage is larger than my house so that would become primary shelter even at -20 not that we could spend much time here because it's not heated and not insulated