Emergency escape plan

Many of us live in locales subject to horrific disruptions of nature and must contend with an escape plan for our birds. They might be periodic, or simply potentialities of geology that may never occur during our lifetimes. For those with few birds, you might contemplate stuffing them in carriers and placing them in a family auto. For others with a large menagerie, a dedicated vehicle may be necessary.

As a resident of Southern California, wildfires and earthquakes are the potential threats. Tsunamis and a reactor issue at a nuclear powerplant* 15 miles away seem rather remote. There are no known powerful faults running through northern San Diego, but nearby temblors that would menace Los Angeles and the Inland Empire could strangle the water and power infrastructure.

I purchased a used Dodge Ram cargo van about 13 years ago in recognition of my 15 parrots, 3 dogs, and 1 cat. Sure enough, the Great Fires of 2003 forced a mandatory evacuation, thankfully with some notice. The plan worked well, and all were placed in the van equipped with a divider, food, water, and assorted supplies. The birds and cat were quite happy in individual carriers, while the dogs were restless. Our place of refuge was a family friend's home for 5 days. I would phone my home landline every few hours, hoping the electronic message machine would answer, signifying an intact structure. We were lucky, others not so.

Six years ago I moved to a safer locale near the coast, but kept the emergency vehicle as cheap insurance. Over time, the van rusted beyond economic repair and I just replaced it, knowing the threat was relatively low but the horrific cost of inaction too dear to contemplate.

So, what have others done to plan for local disasters? No doubt other parronts face my issues or others such as tornadoes, hurricanes/cyclones, flooding, volcanoes, etc. Quite possibly some of you live in areas with the specter of political instabilities or insurrections.


*For those local, the San Onofre Nuclear plant has been deactivated, but the radioactive core has yet to be removed, and spent waste will remain for decades.

Most of my birds are small, and living on an island we couldn't really "escape" any natural disasters here, but in the case of a "real hurricane" unlike the last two that didn't even match the scariness of a real thunderstorm, my birds would be placed in their "temp cages" used when we move, and stacked in the closets of our bathrooms in our cinder block house.

However, I do have an emergency evac plan in case of fire, gas leak, or other emergency that leads to them needing to be removed from the home immediately.

I have a stack of pillowcases, a belt, and some sturdy rubber bands. Walk through the bird room, catch each bird, place them in the pillow case, tie a knot in the top, stick the knot through the belt, rubber band in place. Quick, simple, gets everyone out alive! The temp cages are stored in an outside shed so they could be quickly accessed once everyone is safe from the flames. I used to have nightmares that my birds all died in a fire. You better believe that won't happen if I am home!

Also, our "regular" vet, the best on the island, is at least a good 90 minutes away, so all of our birds are registered with a closer vet as well.

Growing up in Northern Arizona (where massive wildfires rage out of control every year),we always had small cages ready to pack up the parrots at a moments notice. We did have to evacuate once, the flames were close enough you could see them coming down the hill across the street At that time, my family got 3 birds, my gecko and 2 fish out in under 10 minutes. I always have Kiwis emergency cage right next to his big cage. Grab him, shove him in and GO! Now that we live in OR where it's very wet, I don't think theres that high of risk of a forest fire, but I still keep the emergency cage clean, easy to access and waiting. In the case of a house fire, I'd just stuff him in my shirt on the way out the door! No time to think about anything but grabbing him and getting him to safety!

Same would go for my gecko, shove him in a pocket and I hope I'd have the time to get the newt too! I also keep small plastic carriers next to my newt and geckos enclosures. In the case of an emergency evacuation, all I'd have to do is get them in the carriers on the way out the door. ALL you pets ned emergency plans, not just the biggest ones!

Living in an apartment you just never know what your neighbors might do, so I keep the cat carrier clean with a clean towel in it and ready to just grab and stuff the cats into.

I have Zilla's carrier ready with a clean towel so I can grab her and go.

I can grab the beta vase with him in it and get him out, but the 20 gal aquarium I seriously doubt I would have time to catch all the fish (I do keep a 5 gal. bucket, but if you can't catch them you can't save them)

I have a garage in another building where my car is kept, so even though I would have to stay to help the residents evacuate I could put Zilla and the cats in my car in their carriers. I can leave the garage door open or pull the car out onto the street and leave it running with heat or A/C until I could leave (I have extra keys so I could lock it with it running). I also keep 2 or 3 blankets and an emergency kit in my car "just in case"

We live in New Zealand, above that fun fault line called HOLY****WEHOPEITNEVERGOESOFF. I was in Christchurch for all the big earthquakes over the part 4 years so im reasonably onto it now.

Ive purposely chosen to only have one pet at the house we're currently in (its an apartment) so for now, is reasonably easy; Tachyon the parrots main cage + travel cage are between my desk where I sit all day and the door so I stand up, whip his big cage open, grab a handful of parrot getting bitten in the process and shove him into his travel/emergency cage right next to his main cage, whilst my partner grabs the emergency bag which is between him and the door.

Tachs emergency/travel cage has a zip lock bag under the bottom grate which contains a packet of his daily food, bird first aid stuff like styptic powder and vet wrap, a piece of paper with his name + address, vet info, how to look after him if he ever got separated from us etc (there is also a copy of this stuck to the top of the cage).

Im in the process of sewing "backpack" straps to attach to his travel/emergency cage so we could backpack or frontpack the cage whilst we were getting to safety, it just helps to have all hands free if you can. I did consider one of the currently produced bird backpacks but Tac is SUCH a chewer that im pretty sure he would be able to get out of it pretty quickly which would just add to my stress in an emergency, where as I know he cant chew through the metal of a cage. The cage has a tight toweling cover followed by a waterproof cover, both of which are tied onto to cage with stainless steel wire. I want the cage to be as warm/waterproof (and dark and stressfree) as possible because as we dont have a car, it could be some time before we found somewhere safe after an emergency.