Susan,

The response to your question will vary depending on the local topography, the time of year, weather, and the type of threat or disaster. Being in the Northwest, you are familiar with the threats we can encounter from the weather, terrain, and volcanos. The Midwest, desert areas, East, and Gulf Coast have different scenarios to consider. Having been in disaster planning and response for a major utility, the best advice in most circumstances is to remain at home, unless told otherwise, until the threat is over and the local infrastructure has been restored to safe traveling conditions.

However, as good as we think we are at predicting threats, humbling surprises constantly occur that forces unexpected flight from your home.

When I was a young boy in Central Illinois, we had a very wet spring where there was considerable flooding. Our family was not concerned since we were at a relatively high elevation and not in a flood zone but many others had lost their homes. All temporary shelters, hotels, and motels were full. But it kept on raining. One night part of our new home sank almost out of sight. My parents, brother, sister and I escaped but my first dog was crushed.

We later found out from a very old neighbor, who used to be a coal miner, that the entire area was crisscrossed with long lost coal mine tunnels. A tunnel which ran below our house had become a river when an old air shaft seal had collapsed and started draining many acres of land. The tunnel’s supporting timbers were washed away and the tunnel collapsed. With the force of the rushing water, the debris that fell in from tunnel’s ceiling were also washed away.

For two days, still raining, we could only find shelter in a garage. There was very little we initially could take with us because we did not know what was happening. It is one thing to think the sky is falling yet another not to know where it is safe to walk when the earth below your feet is falling.

I believe that episode made my whole family aware of planning for disasters. We planned for both what we could expect to happen and for the unexpected!