Lets say a disaster hits and you are at work kids at school, wife/husband at his/her work too. Somehow you manage to get together at some point ( at home or at a specified place) and start your trip to bug out of the area.

ONE OF YOUR KIDS IS MISSING.
No one knows anything about him/her.

Would you leave the area ASAP or try to find the kid ???

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Let me start.
And let me state the obvious: It is a difficult decision to make.

I think that if looking for the kid is going to take so long, and nothing is there to indicate we might find him/her soon. Then it better to leave. No point IMO to lose the whole family.

It will also depend on the type of disaster. If its something that smashed the area and left. We may try to stay and look around. If the destruction is still going on ( like fire or chemical spill) I think that leaving is the best choice.

Once the family reaches a safe place, I will definitely come back as close as possible to ground zero to find my kid.

Is there a better way ?

Another angle to look at this subject.

Kids have limited strength / information / and the amount of gear they can carry is very limited. Taking that into consideration, what are the preps that we can provide NOW that may insure a better outcome in case of a lost kid.

That would depend on how many kid's I have. If I had other children, I would send the Missus out of the Danger Zone with them, whilst I stayed to look for our missing child, alive or dead.
If it was our only child, we would both stay.
Either way, I would find them.
Or die trying.

If the kids are at school, the usual 'plan' is to keep the kids there, if you ask most schools. They usually intend to only hand them out to the parents. I don't know how well it would actually work.

You might ask your school administrators what plans they have. Then talk to your kids and come up with a plan. Do you want them to escape from the school lockdown and come to you, or a relative or friend? Do you want them to stay with the school and you will pick them up?

If your kids are at school, you probably know where to find them. But if they're out running around, at some friend's house, etc, and you don't know where, that's when the SHTF.

Do your kids carry cell phones? Send a text message. If they don't know how to send one, show them how. Text messages are said to be more reliable and extend the boundaries of messaging than voice mail.

I would go over all the types of disasters that are applicable to your particular area, and work with your kids on what they should do, and tell them what YOU will be trying to do.

If there's a RR derailment with toxic gases like chlorine escaping, you need to grab your family and pets and get out immediately. Staying to find a kid that may not even be there is pointless. You can't help your kids if you're dead or dying.

If your kids have particular friends, why not talk to their parents and set some plans in place with them? For instance, if their kids are at your house, you will take them with you to point A. If your kids are at their house, they agree to take them to point A or B.

Sue

Susan, I am assuming kids location is unknown. It could be a weekend or summer vacation and kids are scattered around visiting their friends, maybe enojying some festival or baseball game, or perhaps biking around the neighborhood . Whatever.

Your point of having a netwrk of parents is a good one. Kids should know houses of our friends and even may exchange with other kids information about their expected meeting points. If my kid is somewhere in town where OUR meeting point is too far or hard to reach ( blocked roads ..etc.) then maybe he can think of reaching the house or meeting point of his friends family.

Cell phones are out in this scenario.
Not all my kids have them anyway (only th eldest daughter), and they may not work in a disaster..etc. In any case, they are in age groups that I cant provide them with cell phones (just in case). They can lose them many times before they can use them in a disaster.

Hmmm.
Any of you thought of this ?
How about a super tough retreat at home that would not be feasible for an adult but good enough for a kid ?

Say a fortified shed in the garden or whatever that a kid can use in case ALL OPTIONS are out. He comes back home and whole family has left. It becomes like ( Home Alone) case. After a few attempts of contacting someone, he decides to stay home in that little safe room. It has food and water, survival kits, breathing aids like filters and even a small cylinder of oxygen. It can even include a cell phone there, but keeping it charged will be a problem. Maybe a solar charger can be added but the point is to keep things as simple as possible.

One would hope that a kid left behind would be old enough, and have been taught to think enough to use what has been left behind, which is most of what you own.

Personally, I wouldn't leave an oxygen tank and firestarting materials for a kid. Oxygen in a confined space + a spark = explosion.

If you have a plan for truly serious conditions, you'd better make sure the kids know all the ins and outs of the equipment they are likely to be left with.

Considering the lack of mental agility of the kids today, without their constant surrounding of phones, computers, electronic toys, and total lack of any kind of sense, they would probably wander away from a site that had survival equipment right there, crying and feeling sorry for themselves, and die of exposure, dehydration or starvation. A chihuahua has more survival instinct than your average American kid.

Teach your kids while you have the chance.

Sue

I'm with Leigh Radclif......we just had a structure fire locally and 'mom' left both kids 1 and 2 years old to go next door to 'get a fire extinguisher'. It turns my stomach to see the parent outside and their kid inside and they are not doing anything. If my wife or kid is going to die then they'll have to pry them from MY DEAD HANDS because I'll be right there with them!

In that scenario you'd have to apply the STOP acronym and, like, think for a bit and collect what information you had. A lot would depend on the detailed threat, the age and ability of the kid, etc. Initially you said they were at school, but later you say they were visiting friends. It surely makes a huge difference. If they are scattered around, they are reasonably independant and able to look after themselves, and their being missing is not an indicator of special problems. If they are at school, then surely they shouldn't go missing so that sounds like a more worrying scenario to me.

I don't actually have children, and don't want any, so I'm inclined to be cavalier about it. In a disaster I would tend to trust the kindness of strangers - but then I don't live in America. At age 8 or above I'd hope they were able to look after themselves to a large extent and be prepared with the basics (eg the difference between asking an unknown adult for help and accepting help offered by an unknown adult). In general I'd expect the child to become very distressed and unhappy if abandoned, but most experiences would be just as survivable whether or not I was there.

Here's one special data point I came across recently: If you are evacuating an airplane when you are separated from your kids, you shouldn't go looking for them until you are away from the 'plane. That's because one person moving against the flow can block the egress of many.

"In a disaster I would tend to trust the kindness of strangers - but then I don't live in America."

I would venture to say that American strangers are apt to be no less kind than any one else.

Have you ever been to America?