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October 27, 2003
What would you save?
There is a fire bearing down on your house. You have one hour to save what you can and evacuate. What do you take with you?
Not that I'm immediately threatened by any of the fires in SoCal right now--fortunes can change with the wind, though--but it seemed an interesting question to ponder since there are folks in the office running out the door to run home to save their stuff/houses.
NASA has a satellite image up that's really quite impressive, on the same order as the one of New York after the plane strikes. Be warned, the file is huge (750 kB). It's not as huge as the link for the picture on the right, though (250 kB). This is just a subset of the NASA picture, though I've taken the liberty to focus on Los Angeles (upper set of red fire circles) and San Diego (lower set of fire circles), with my home (bright green dot) and my workplace (blue dot) indicated. As a matter of perspective, Mapquest says that the distance between home and work is 4.25 miles.
And speaking of New York and the WTC attacks, it was really freaky last Friday when I was standing outside with the smokers on break. Ash was floating around in the air and the last time I'd seen something similar was 11 September 2001.
Amidst all of the activity of the day, I really began to wonder what I would or should pack up and take with me in the event that an evacuation order comes down from above. I'm not being alarmist--it'd take some doing for either of the Ventura or San Berardino fires to get to where I live or work--but with a third of the department at home or running out the door today to tend to their endangered homes, it really became a plausible question.
Beyond "my laptop" and "my external hard drive" and "my photographs," though, I'm starting to draw a blank. Material things can be replaced, but some things are really hard to sacrifice. Do I give up the plush dog that was given to me at birth and has stayed with me pretty much all through life (albeit currently in a box in my closet)? Do I leave behind my sketchbooks, diaries of my drawing? What is invaluable to me?
I hope I don't have to make that decision any time soon, but it's something I ought to think of sooner, rather than later, especially in light of all the business continuity planning I've been involved in at work.
That said, I'm glad that my friend in San Diego, Drew, is safe and sound.
Updated: Added the satellite photo and padded the text a little more.
Posted by KinCross at October 27, 2003 02:43 PM