FEMA refers to this as a question of Evacuation or Shelter In Place, but the question is the same: During an emergency when should you leave your home, grab your gear and bug out, and when should you stay at home, sheltering in place?
Some emergencies will simply make the choice for you, wildfires, floods and earthquakes can make your house unlivable very quickly, but in most other cases you’re going to have to make the decision yourself. We’ll cover what goes into making that decision later in this article, but first let’s talk about the emergency alert systems that are designed to help you make that decision.
Getting Help From The Authorities:
In the U.S. there are a few emergency services that exist that can help you make the decision as well.
IPAWS:
The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System is an alert system designed by FEMA that can take advantage of cellular communication networks to broadcast emergency alerts in the event of known emergencies. If you’ve ever gotten an AMBER alert on your phone, then your phone is capable of receiving alerts. If you’ve got any questions about how the alert system works you can get the details at the FCC site at this link. The messages are generally broadcast to a geographic area and would be sent to all phones in that area.
These alerts include “Imminent Threat Alerts,” which would be issued by public safety officials during man-made or natural disasters where imminent threat to life or property exist. These alerts will sometimes include evacuation orders, or evacuation recommendations, or even Shelter In Place warnings.
Aside from National Alerts (alerts issued by the president) these alerts can be opted out of. If you’ve got a newer Android or iOS phone you can check your settings. To check your phone’s emergency alert settings, try this link for Android, and this link for iPhones.
NOAA, or NWS Radio:
In the United States the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also runs emergency radio frequencies across the country that can provide information about weather emergencies. You can find information regarding the station at this weather.gov link. An important consideration is that NWR requires a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up the signal. You would be looking for emergency radios that are labeled as NWR or NOAA compatible. You would also want to set your emergency radio to the NWR frequency for your area, which you can find at this link.
Staying on top of your local weather, and relying on these emergency alert systems will be the best way to understand if any predictable disasters should require you to evacuate.
Should I Stay, Or Should I Go:
FEMA has a guide they made for state, local, and tribal authorities to follow, and it has a piece of advice that seems applicable to individuals as well. “Jurisdictions should always consider shelter in place as the first / default option, when feasible.”
This is pretty good advice for families and individuals as well. Bugging out is an emergency technique, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you’re in a position where you can ask yourself if you need to evacuate your house, your default answer should be no.
The one question that you need to ask yourself when considering whether or not to bug out, or shelter in place, is “Will I be safer if I leave?” and it can be a hard question to answer. Some considerations.
Do you have a place to go?
Do you have a way to get there?
Will you have food and water if you leave?
Will you be protected from the elements if you leave?
Know Your Threats:
The majority of disasters or emergencies leading to evacuation situations in the United States are natural disasters, and understanding the natural disasters that can affect your locality can help you make the decision as to whether bugging out is the right choice for you. For example, if your home is in a flood plain, when flood warnings appear you should be more concerned with leaving than those who don’t live in a flood plain. You can check out FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center if you want to determine if your home is on a flood plain or not.
Assess the Dangers of Leaving Your Home:
One of the key considerations you should make when determining whether or not to leave your house is what the conditions will be like if you leave. In many cases during disasters such as winter storms, hurricanes, or even flooding there are windows before the dangerous portion of the storm when leaving is an option, and leaving during the height of the storm may be more dangerous than sheltering in place.
Trust Yourself:
The CDC suggests that during an emergency you’re going to go through three phases.
Denial: Your first instinct is going to be to question the event, or the severity of the event. This is a key step, and calling it denial can be a bit misleading. This stage is really just an assessment of the situation, and the CDC is suggesting that people tend to not want to believe that bad things are happening, so they will deny.
Deliberation: In the deliberation phase you start considering your options. There’s a good reason why people suggest that you plan for what you would do during an emergency, it’s going to get you through this deliberation phase quicker.
Decisive Action: This is where you execute your plan. There isn’t a perfect plan, or a perfect option, but remember that doing something will be better than doing nothing. Regardless if you’ve chosen to bug out, or bug in, act calmly and start taking actions that better your situation.
Don’t get caught in the denial or deliberation phases.