Being that Im in a very prone area to a hurricane I am especially worried with this years predictions for storms. What disaster plans do you guys have in place for similar scenarios? Personally I would just take my locomotives and track (I creatively use easy track) being that scenery can always be replaced as well as most freight cars can.
I live in a tornado prone area, trains are in the basement. With that said, doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t take them, more important things than things. If nothing else, put them into totes in the highest area in the house.
By the way, the hurricane predictions have been revised downward each of the last two years but don’t listen to me, I’m only a trained weather forecaster (which means I might be right or I might be wrong![:D])
Good luck
Ricky
My disaster plan involves rounding up my wife and kids, maybe grabbing the fileserver if there’s time on the way out the door, and then counting my blessings and focusing on the things that really matter. Trains can always be replaced.
John
Well said John. Nothing is worth more than your life and that of your family.
Fortunately, there is plenty of warning for hurricanes. If one were coming, you would have days of advance notice. It’s not true for tornados and earthquakes, of course, but those are less of a threat for you.
One thing I would do is get a couple of those storage bins, preferably ones with reasonably water-tight tops. Keep them under your layout, empty. You might want to cut up an old corrugated cardboard box from an appliance store so that you can layer stuff in the box. Then, when disaster is imminent, you can calmly go to the trainroom and pack the track and locomotives. I’d recommend putting the rolling stock in there, too, and any detailed structures. Individually, these may not be a lot of money, but when you add them up you’ve probably got a small fortune sitting on your layout, even without the track and engines.
Living on the coast, I have also considered this. There is far more “train stuff” than could fit in our two cars (a P.T. Cruiser and a Prius) if/when we would evacuate. The advantage is we generally do have several days notice when something in the ocean is threatening. Closing up the shutters and putting the hurricane protection on the doors only takes me about 45 minutes, so the key is in planning on the other stuff.
When we moved here, we purchased several of those sizeable plastic containers (RubberMaid makes some) and put the family photo albums in there. Those would be the first things to go into the car if we had to evacuate. Wedding photos and photos of the kids are the things which cannot be replaced. Next would be the box & bag of legal documents, likely including last year’s box of tax forms and such. Then some clothes.
I have not prepared a list, but I have given some serious thought to the priority of what from the model RR would go into that box. Several of my favorite locomotives and a number of the cabeese (which have complete interiors) would be first in the box. I know right where the boxes for those items are to be found. The yet-to-be assembled Keystone sawmill kit would go. My scratchbuilt coal mine (made through lots of bandsaw work from basswood planks from a tree on my deceased Dad’s property) would be high on the list, but the space demand and fragility of an assembled HO building would have to ultimately put it in the “if there is space” portion. I have a small metal toolbox with most of my modeling tools that can fit most anywhere in the car. Do you have special electronics units that would be destroyed by water and expensive to replace which can be unhooked and taken along? Do you have any special collections that would be destroyed by water (antique RR forms or documents, RR postcards)?
Six posts about last-minute scrambling and not a word about insurance.
I would take the advice of the water tight tub, move them to the middle of the house, the odds of getting the whole house blown away are slim unless you live right on the beach where you can get storm surge. I would also make a spreadsheet or some kind of inventory of your trains for the insurance and if you have something supervaluable, you could rent a lock box and put in there before the storm comes. But if my house got blown away, my trains would be near the bottom of list of worries.
I live in Kansas City Kansas, so we don’t worry too much about those hurricane things, but we do get an occasional toot when a tornado is around. It so happens that my layout is built in a structurally reinforced area, which is also where we gather for those tornado warning parties, so we simply go down stairs, sit in the lounge area until we hear the sirens, then we go under Oklahoma City’s Flynn yard area and hunker down. The area we hunker in also has shelves that hold the equipment not on the railroad. We have been in our current home since 1979, and other than a roof replacement from a hail storm, which also tore up a bit of the garden railroad, we haven’t had a problem.
Oh, the laptop that contains all the pertinent layout info along with family stuff is already in the train room, and we keep the desktop in my office and the other laptop I travel with updated, and I carry the little memory sticks in my pocket, so not much more we can do to be prepared.
Bob
Although I’m several hundred miles from the coast, hurricane remnants cause torrential downpours and tornadoes, have caused me some grief, but I’m prepared. I have photographs and most importantly, receipts (very important for the insurance company) for the "high dollar’ items in my home, scanned and stored in 3 places, home, safety deposit box and a secure online vault.
My humble abode (with attached garage train room) is on top of a rise in the high desert of Clark County, NV, so hurricanes (typhoons, cyclones…) are unlikely. Ditto for floods - 50 feet above the 500 year flood mark. However, earthquakes and tornadoes, while rare, are not unknown - and straight-line winds approaching hurricane force are a frequent occurrence. So if a disaster DID strike, it would almost certainly be with 20 minute or less warning.
To be perfectly honest, the most likely disaster would be an aircraft falling out of the sky - the house is directly under one of the approaches to Nellis AFB.
The vehicles are parked outdoors, so they would probably survive an earthquake but would be vulnerable to tornado damage. As for the railroad, in a disaster I consider it expendable. If the disaster involves an erupting fireball of jet fuel, it will almost certainly be expended. So be it.
Looking at the insurance aspect, there’s a dvd in my file in my insurance agent’s office, twin to the one in the big briefcase full of essential paperwork that would be the first (and probably only) thing I’d slow down long enough to grab.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in a double garage in the Dessicated Desert)
Short time:
Get the wife and visitors
Get the dogs
Get wallet, keys, cell phone, and financial records (i.e. laptop)
Get out.
If we have lots of time like the days of warning for a hurricane, we load both cars with valuables first.
Paul