Quick answer
Evacuation readiness is one packed bag per person, one folder of documents, one practiced 30-minute routine, and one decision made in advance: where you would go. The bag costs a rainy afternoon to pack. The destination decision costs one dinner conversation. Households that have both leave calm, early, and ahead of the traffic.
This is a drill scenario: the checklist below is bags and decisions, not shelf supplies.
30 min
Packed-to-driving target
1 bag
Per person, packed in advance
Half tank
The always-on fuel rule
2 routes
Out of your area, known cold
How an evacuation actually unfolds
The warning
Get ready notices come hours or days ahead when the hazard allows: fire warnings, flood watches, hurricane cones. This is bag-staging and tank-topping time.
The order
Leave now means the margin is already spent. Households with staged bags load in minutes; households without start shopping their own homes.
The road
Everyone leaves at once on the same two roads. Early departure buys empty lanes; late departure buys the parking lot. The half tank means nobody joins gas lines mid-exit.
The stay
Days at the cousin's house or a shelter while officials clear the return. The bag's documents restart insurance, prescriptions, and school from anywhere.
Play it out
One long night, three decisions
A chemical release from a derailed train, eight miles upwind. Play the leave.
Scene 1 of 3
Ten days earlier, on a quiet Saturday, a checklist app suggests packing go-bags. The family calendar is full and the hazard forecast is empty.
Prefer to read it straight through?
Scene 1
Ten days earlier, on a quiet Saturday, a checklist app suggests packing go-bags. The family calendar is full and the hazard forecast is empty.
If you there is no emergency. skip it: Reasonable, and the bags stay theoretical. In ten days, at 11pm, four people will pack four bags in nineteen frantic minutes, and the meds, the charger, and the toddler's bear will all be discovered missing at a highway rest stop.
If you pack the bags while nothing is wrong: Ninety unhurried minutes with music on: clothes, meds list, chargers, copies of documents, the bear's understudy. The bags go in the closet by the door and cost zero further thought until the night they earn everything back.
Field note: Go-bags are packed calm or packed panicked; there is no third option. The calm version remembers medications, documents, and the child's comfort item, which are the items panic always drops.
Scene 2
11:04pm. County alert: train derailment, chemical release, mandatory evacuation for your zone, leave immediately via the two marked routes. The bags are in the closet. The gas tank is at whatever it is at.
If you pack a few extra boxes first. ten more minutes: Ten becomes twenty-five, because houses are full of maybes. The exit roads add four hundred cars in that window, and your zone's plume margin was measured in exactly such minutes. You get out fine, later and jumpier than needed.
If you bags, people, pets, gone in twelve minutes: The routine runs itself: bags in the trunk, kids half-asleep in seats, cat furious in the carrier, and the tank sits above half because that is the rule now. You clear the zone on open roads while the maybes stay home where they belong.
Field note: In fast evacuations, delay is the main risk multiplier. The staged bag exists precisely to delete the packing phase, and the half-tank habit deletes the gas-line phase.
Scene 3
11:20pm, rolling. The official route is a red line of tail lights heading north to a shelter. Your phone knows a clever gravel shortcut west, straight along the edge of the plume forecast.
If you take the clever shortcut: The app optimizes for traffic, not toxicity: the official routes were drawn around the plume model. The shortcut is faster right up until it is closed by a deputy, and the reroute puts you behind everyone you passed.
If you stay on the marked route, radio on, destination already known: The line moves slower and entirely out of danger, exactly as designed. An hour later the kids are asleep at your sister's, three hours upwind, per the destination decision made months ago at dinner. Boring roads, boring outcome, which is the win.
Field note: Evacuation routes are drawn around the hazard, not around traffic. In chemical and flood events especially, the marked route IS the safety equipment.
The evacuation checklist
Your head start
0 of 9 essentials on hand
Tick what you already have. Every item on this list earns its place.
| Item | Quantity | Why it matters | Covers | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The go-bag, per person | ||||
| Three days of clothes and meds | Per bag | Prescriptions are the item shelters cannot lend you. | Critical | |
| Charger and small battery bank | Per bag | Reunification runs on phones. | Critical | |
| Water bottle and snacks | Per bag | Evacuation traffic is measured in hours. | Road | |
| Comfort item for each kid | Per bag | The cheapest sedative ever invented for a shelter cot night. | Morale | |
| The family layer | ||||
| Document folder: IDs, insurance, deed, meds list | 1, waterproof | Restarts your life from any zip code. | Critical | |
| Cash in small bills | One tank of gas worth | Card networks get patchy exactly where everyone evacuates to. | Road | |
| Pet carriers, leashes, vaccine records | Per pet | Many shelters require records; all of them require carriers. | Pets | |
| The destination decision | Made at dinner, not at 11pm | Relative, friend, or named shelter, in two directions from home. | Decision | |
| Half-tank fuel habit | Standing rule | Every evacuation story features gas lines. Yours does not have to. | Habit | |
One bag per person, one folder per family, two decisions made early. Print this page and pack against it.
In the app
Bags age. Kids grow. The app notices.
Provision Planner has a built-in Evacuation scenario: it inventories each go-bag, flags the meds and kid sizes that quietly expire, and keeps the destination plan and routes where the whole household can see them. Live weather alerts included.
Run the evacuation scenarioEvacuation scenario
Go-bags
4 tracked
Meds in bags
1 expiring
Documents
Copied
Alerts
Live
Computed from your real inventory. Updates itself as things expire.
Frequently asked questions
What should be in a go-bag?
Per person: three days of clothes, medications, chargers, water, snacks, and one comfort item. Per family: the document folder, cash, and pet gear. Pack for restarting life from elsewhere, not for wilderness survival.
When should we leave versus shelter?
Follow the official instruction for your zone: evacuation and shelter-in-place are chosen deliberately per hazard. When given the choice, or told get ready, leaving early is almost always the lower-risk, lower-stress option.
Where do we actually go?
Decide in advance, in order: family or friends out of area, then hotels along your routes, then public shelters as the backstop. Pick options in two different directions, since the hazard chooses which way is safe.
How do we evacuate with pets?
Carriers staged with the go-bags, vaccine records in the document folder, and a pre-checked list of pet-friendly hotels or shelters on your routes. The households that struggle with pets in evacuations are the ones deciding everything at 11pm.
Explore more scenarios
Every scenario gets the same treatment: the event, the supplies, the timeline, and your number.
Scenario 04Wildfire
Scenario 01Hurricane
Scenario 19Gas Leak and Carbon Monoxide
Scenario 15House Fire
Scenario 17Shelter in Place34 scenarios, one libraryBrowse them all →Go deeper: Wildfire Evacuation Checklist · Emergency Plan features in the app · Food Storage Calculator
Evacuation planning guidance follows Ready.gov. This is general planning guidance: adjust bags and routes for your region's hazards and your household's needs. Photography: NASA image library and Pexels, used under their respective licenses.