The 2007 hurricane season starts June 1st. Now is the time to start planning for what you need to do if you have to evacuate with your pets.  It is important that you don't wait till the last moment to prepare your family.

These disaster preparedness suggestions come from an Hurricane Pets Rescue (HPR) contacts such as, DeLynne, whose home was hit hard by Katrina.  What she suggests are great tips for us all:

• Have enough carriers for your pets and enough room in the car for the carriers. Hard carriers are recommended because if you have to slam on the brakes, you don't want the carriers taking a tumble. And, if you are in an accident, they have more protection than in a soft carrier. If you aren't sure about space or tying down the carriers, make some practice runs to see what you have to do at the critical time. Don't wait to experiment at the last minute.

• Also, it is a good idea to microchip your pets, so if you are separated them they can be traced back to you.

• Make sure to have ample litter for several nights, a litter box, cat or dog food, and bowls. If any of the pets are on medication, take all of it with you. Likewise, pack your own medications. If you evacuate to a motel, be sure your cats are on a flea preventative or take some with you. You have no idea how many animals end up in motels when there is an evacuation!!!

• Make reservations at a pet friendly motel. Motel 6 or Red Roofs usually allow pets.

• Take your computer with you. There may not be room in the car for the monitor, keyboard, or mouse, printers, scanner, etc., but they are relatively cheap to replace. There wasn't time to backup my files. Even if I had, most backup programs only restore to the PC you backed up from. If the computer is ruined, where are you??? I also packed all my software just in case.

• Be sure you have several hundred dollars in cash. If the power goes out and you need to buy something, credit cards and checks will not be accepted.

• Fill up your gas tank. Make sure your car is in good shape. If a storm is looming and you need an oil change, go get it!!! While there, ask them to check the car out. Be sure your wiper blades work, belts are OK, and the tires are properly inflated - that includes the spare tire.

• Take your valuable jewelry with you.

• Take your extra check books with you.

• Network with a couple of neighbors to see where they are evacuating to and how you can contact them.

• One thing to think about. Do you do business with a local (hometown bank) or one that has branches statewide and in other states?? I was lucky. My main checking account is with J P Morgan Chase. They are everywhere. Some of the people who evacuated with me were not as lucky. They had no access to their bank accounts - money was not being deposited nor could it be withdrawn until the banks were back up and running. It was days to weeks. They couldn't even find out how much money they had in their accounts. That effects Debit Cards too.

• You always hear to take your important papers like insurance  policies. Well, I didn't need them. I just went to a local State Farm office at my evacuation city. They could retrieve the policy numbers for me.

• What I didn't take that I should have was my copy of last year's income tax returns!!! FEMA and other organizations will ask you dozens of questions about your gross income last year, other financial info, etc. All I could do was guess. If you use computer software to do your taxes, then you will have a copy on your hard drive (if you take a PC with you).

• Another thing I didn't do was keep an inventory of monthly bills. I didn't think about it as I have as many as possible paid by bank draft or via on-line banking - thank goodness. With on-line banking, you can easily retrieve account numbers, contact numbers, etc., from the web. Your inventory should include account numbers, addresses, phone numbers, when the account closing dates are, etc. An alternative would be to take  copies of your last month's bills. The bottom line is know what is due when and where to make the payment and account numbers.

• Take info on your doctors and vets. If you order prescriptions via mail order, take at least one order form with you.

• Of course pack clothes. Because space was limited in the minivan, I left with three outfits, some underwear, sleep wear, and the shoes on my feet!!! That doesn't last very long. At least the Motel 6 had a laundromat.

• I had hundred of slides my Mom had given me of when my brother and I were growing up as well as the family vacations. I always said "one of these days, I'm going to scan them". Well, I never got around to it and they are gone forever. Scan as many photos, etc., put them on a CD or DVD and take it with you. Now is a good time to start a project like that. Don't wait until a storm is coming.

• You should also scan all important documents you keep in your home and take a copy with you - like birth certificates, Power of  Attorney, etc. I had some papers in a safe. Sadly, the flood water  seeped in and they were ruined. It is an ordeal to get copies after the fact.

• Keep an up-to-date inventory of the contents of your home. Track when you acquired them and what you paid for them. I didn't keep good records of the latter unfortunately.

• If you live in a hurricane area, carry good insurance with a reputable company and be sure to have flood insurance. A lot of people who were severely hit by Katrina had no flood insurance. That goes for the folks in Mississippi who were wiped out by the tidal surge. "Regular" insurance only covers wind and rain - not rising water!!

• Let close friends know where you are evacuating to. Once there, touch base with them and give them your contact info. If there is a Red Cross shelter in your evacuation city, check in with them. You can register that you are safe and pick up donated items of clothing. Some times, they offer meals even though you are not staying at the shelter.

• When you return home, start an inventory of what was destroyed or ruined. The insurance folks will ask for a detailed inventory with PRICES!! That drove me crazy. Like what were the contents of your refrigerator and freezer and what did the items costs!!! The same applied to every article of  contents in my home.

• With wide-spread devastation like Katrina, know that it may be months before an adjustor shows up. The items you have to trash right away should be photographed. Take tons of photos showing each room and then close-ups of contents. I did my losses on  Excel spreadsheets and backed up the entries with photos. The adjustor was impressed with the package I presented him.

• The only  draw back is that I was under insured. So now is the time to check that angle too. Do you need to increase your coverage?? If you have questions, talk to your insurance agent.

• Practice patience. I guarantee patience is necessary and not one of my virtues. You will be astonished at how uncooperative businesses can be. You would hope they would be sympathetic but the majority are not - some customer reps won't even be polite. Get used to continual busy signals and long hold times on the phone. Sometimes you can contact them on the web with faster results.

• If you have to live somewhere while your home is being repaired, be ready for a shock. Just imagine starting all over from scratch. No furniture, pots, pans, bed, linens, few clothes, etc. It takes money. Be prepared for outlandish bills. Oh, and the extremely high bills will continue as you rebuild your home.

• If you are fairly comfortable with a computer, put as much info as you can on a CD or DVD and start NOW. Excel spreadsheets or even inventories in a word processing program are better than nothing. In the face of disaster, you almost need "an office to go".

• Our local newspaper had an article this past Sunday about two free software programs to help organize important information. Mind you, I am NOT endorsing them, I don't work for an insurance company (never have), but I'm thinking of downloading them. The first is called My Financial House from the Insurance Institute. Here are some highlights from the article:
  • There is a category for insurance separated by type, description of coverage, name of the insured person, policy numbers
  • Sections to list every family member and their Social Security numbers
  • Sections to lists assets such as IRAs, real estate, savings accounts, etc.

  The URL to download the software is www.myfinancialhouse.org  or go to www.iii.org
  
  The article also mentions another free software from the Insurance Institute called Know Your Stuff. It is designed to inventory your personal possessions. The URL is http://www.knowyourstuff.org/
  
  It seems over 250,000 people have downloaded both software so far. Like I said above, I'm not endorsing them and haven't yet tried them yet but they are tools to help you get organized whether in the face of a natural disaster or a fire or severe illness.
   

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  Karen P. suggests that everyone keep folders of the pets vet records and some good ID photos of them assembled in a  tote bag or backpack and kept hanging near the door, ready to grab and go. Be aware of the types of emergencies you might encounter where you live. Hurricanes give you a couple days notice to pack and get out. Most of the things that would happen here in the upper midwest would give you about ten minutes to grab and go. With a tornado, that's ten minutes to grab the cats and head for the basement. So my carriers are stored, assembled and ready, in the basement, except for a few that the cats use for beds. Anything else I can't buy outside the danger zone is ready to grab on my way out.
   

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