Plan Your Escape -- and Recovery -- With Your Family, IINC Recommends
Hundreds of families faced sudden evacuation last night as the Griffith Park fire spread close to a Los Feliz neighborhood.
Many evacuees described confusion about what household items to protect as they prepared to leave, juggling photo albums, documents and clothes.
“A household disaster plan should always include a list of critical items to pack in the event of an emergency evacuation,” said Candysse Miller, executive director of the Insurance Information Network of California. “An evacuation plan that includes route maps, family meeting locations and out-of-area phone contacts can help a family escape and recover from wildfire.”
Families can guard against nature’s forces by practicing evacuation plans, developing detailed household inventories and maintaining fire safe landscaping, according to IINC, a non-profit insurance communication association.
• Make a complete home inventory and store it in a safe place away from your home. Inventories can be supplemented with photos and videos and can even be stored electronically away from the home. Free home inventory software is available at IINC’s Web site at www.iinc.org, as well as an inventory guide in pdf format.
• Prepare and practice a family evacuation plan. Detail escape routes and family meeting places in the event that you are separated.
• Designate a phone “captain” that your family can call to report their well-being and locations.
• Familiarize yourself with your insurance policy, and keep a copy of it in a safe deposit box or other secure location away from your home.
• If you must prepare to evacuate, be sure to collect any financial documents that you may have kept in the home in addition to heirlooms, photographs and other irreplaceable valuables.
• If police or firefighters order evacuation, follow their instructions. Your family’s safety is more important than your property.
“Disaster readiness means preparing both physically and financially,” said IINC Executive Director Candysse Miller. “Prepare your families by sitting down together and creating a plan to help evacuate – and reunite – in case the unthinkable happens.”
IINC is a non-profit, non-lobbying communications association representing the property/casualty industry. For more information on catastrophe planning, fire safety, fire safe landscaping and other insurance issues, please visit the IINC Web site at www.iinc.org.
