Get Ready for the Unexpected With a Disaster Go Bag

Jolted awake at 1 a.m. by a police loudspeaker announcing everyone must evacuate immediately, Steve and Karen Neill were greeted by a horrifying sight — the bright red glow of a lava flow and the smell of burning ohia trees amid thick smoke and ash that had been miles away when they went to bed.

“We grabbed a box with important papers and with our grab bag already packed in our car headed out the door,” said Karen when the seemingly never-ending river of fresh lava was headed directly towards her home in Leilani Estates in the Puna District on the Big Island. Later known as the Kilauea Eruption and Leilani Lava flow of 2018, that flow caused 2,000 Puna residents to flee their homes and eventually buried the Neill home under 100 feet of lava.

Experts expect natural disasters will only become more frequent with record-setting hurricanes, winter storms, and other extreme and abnormal weather events in one place after another.

“Having a personal preparedness plan increases your chances of staying safe,” according to a training program from the Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Having supplies ready to go, it says, is one of the steps that provides “resilience to all types of emergencies.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends collecting what everyone in the household needs to survive for several days along with important documents into an easy-to-carry kit, often called a go bag.

The Neill family saw the value of these preparations. “Because we had go bags, we weren’t running around trying to pack things at the last minute,” said Karen. “We had what we needed and weren’t stressed out looking for things we wanted to save. We even had our toothbrushes packed in our bags. It helped make a stressful time in our life much, much less stressful.”

The Leilani Lava flow wasn’t the first time the Neills used their go bags. They had their go bags ready to go and used them when the most powerful hurricane in recorded history to strike the Hawaiian islands made landfall in 1992. The Neills were spared the major trauma of Hurricane Iniki and credited the disaster-preparedness help they had received as Jehovah’s Witnesses, both through periodic reminders at their congregation meetings and from tips for putting together go bags on the organization’s website, www.jw.org.

"Life is precious, so we encourage all to heed the Bible’s advice to take practical steps to protect ourselves from danger,” said Robert Hendriks III, spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States.

Go bags also have proven useful in the opposite circumstances as “stay bags.”

When February’s Winter Storm Uri left millions of Texans without heat, electricity, and running water, many go bags there saw their first-ever use outside of hurricane season.

Northwest Houston residents Dan and Rhiannon Muey’s advance preparation enabled them to shelter in place for days, even as many in their area braved treacherous road conditions to scour barren store shelves for supplies.

“Our hurricane ‘go bags’ became our winter storm ‘stay bags,’ but we were so glad we had them,” said Dan. “Instead of waiting in lines for hours to get basics like drinking water, we already had what we needed.”

Emergency kits provide not just practical but emotional value as well.

Niu Valley, Hawaii, mother and son residents Maluhia and Justice Paleafei endured a devastating flood in April 2018 when torrential rain on east Oahu turned Kalanianaole Highway into a waist-high rushing river, damaging hundreds of homes, including the Paleafei's.

Justice, who was at home when the water began flowing in, said, "I was very unprepared. It took longer than it should have to gather my important things. By the light of my phone, I grabbed trash bags from under the kitchen sink and began filling them with clothes and any important papers I could think to grab."

Reflecting on how pre-packed go bags would have relieved some stress and allowed him to act faster, Justice said, "In your ideal situation, you have your things packed so you can breathe, pick up your bags and go. If all those essentials had been put together to begin with, I wouldn't have had to worry about finding them in the first place and putting them in trash bags."

Having recovered from a disaster that displaced them for nearly four months, the Paleafeis know the value of assembling go bags in advance and are thankful for the disaster preparedness reminders they receive in their local congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. "I learned how essential it is to be prepared. We eventually purchased and put together go bags for us," said Maluhia. "Three weeks after we moved back home, we evacuated again ahead of Hurricane Lane. Having our emergency supplies ready took a lot of the burden off and made it easier to leave. Our dogs even had their own go bags!"

Today, these 'ready bags' are found not only in the Paleafei home but also in their car. To anyone who has not yet assembled a go bag, Justice solemnly said: "You have to be prepared. Even what seems like a once-in-a-lifetime disaster can happen in your lifetime and to you."

Disaster-preparedness suggestions and tips for putting together a go bag are available from FEMA at ready.gov and from Jehovah’s Witnesses at https://www.jw.org/en/li-brary/magazines/awake-no5-2017-october/disaster....