Week 3: one destination is a hope. Three unlike ways is a plan.
This week’s challenge: Pick where you would go, pick more than one of those places, and for each place write down at least three ways to get there — including a way that still works if the obvious road is closed, and a way that still works if the car is not.
You now have a picture of what your place can do: weather and water from Week 1, plants and pipes from Week 2.
Pictures are not plans. A plan answers a ruder question:
If this house is the wrong place to be, where do we go, and how do we still get there when the usual way is blocked?
Emergency managers have a saying that sounds like a bumper sticker until you need it: one is none. One destination is a single point of failure. One road is a traffic jam, a flood, a train, or a plume. One driver is a person who might be across town. One vehicle is a dead battery.
This week you will choose places and ways. You will not pack the entire house. You will not solve every edge case. You will make it hard for a single closed bridge to turn your household into bystanders.
Stay or go is the first fork
Not every threat wants you to leave.
Often you stay (shelter in place) when:
- Officials say so
- The problem is a passing chemical plume or short-term poor air
- The problem is a tornado or straight-line wind and you have a solid interior space
- The roads are the dangerous part (flooded, icy, smoke-filled, gridlocked)
- Someone cannot be moved safely in the time you have, and the home is still structurally sound
Often you go (evacuate) when:
- Officials order it
- Fire is coming toward the house
- Floodwater is rising into the living space, or you are in a dam-inundation path
- The building is damaged, on fire, or filling with smoke
- You have lost heat in dangerous cold, or cooling in dangerous heat, and a safer building is reachable
- A household member’s medical need cannot be met here (power for a device, dialysis, oxygen)
Write this on the top of this week’s notes:
We do not leave because we are scared. We leave because this specific house is the wrong tool for this specific problem — or because officials who can see the whole picture told us to.
If you have ever thought “I would just get in the car,” remember Week 2. Driving into a yellow-green cloud, into moving water, or toward a wildfire because it feels like action is how people get hurt. Leaving is a route choice, not a personality trait.
You need more than one kind of “safe place”
Think in rings, not in one magical cabin.
Ring 1 — Right outside the home
Fire, gas leak in the kitchen, carbon monoxide alarm. You need a meeting spot out of the collapse/fire zone but on the same block: a tree, a mailbox, a neighbor’s porch, the building’s designated assembly point.
Everyone who sleeps here should be able to say it. If you have kids, walk it tonight with a flashlight. If you have a third-floor apartment, this ring includes two ways out of the unit (door and a legal fire escape or window ladder if that is your reality — and a plan that does not rely on an elevator).
Ring 2 — Out of the neighborhood, still in town
Wildfire, localized flood, apartment fire, a chemical incident at the plant on the east side, a gas-main problem. You need a place that is:
- Not in the same floodplain / fire path / downwind zone as you
- Open odd hours if possible
- Willing to have you without a month of notice
- Accessible for whoever you are (stairs, pets, privacy, language)
Good candidates: a specific friend or relative across town, a house of worship that has already said yes, a community center, a public library during open hours, a hotel you could actually pay for (even one night), the home of a coworker. Name the place. “We’ll figure it out” is not a destination.
Ring 3 — Out of town
Regional hurricane, catastrophic wildfire, large hazardous release, major dam issue, long power outage in extreme temperature. You need at least one household that has agreed you can come — not a city name. “We would go to Denver” is a hope. “We would go to Maya and Luis at 14 Oak, Pueblo, and if we cannot reach them we would go to the motel on Highway 50 we already priced” is a plan.
If you have no out-of-town people, pick two real backups: a small town on a different highway, a chain motel you can book on a phone, a community college that has been a Red Cross shelter in past events (verify — shelters are announced at the time). Write the direction of travel, not only a pin.
Ring 4 — The “we cannot use a car” place
This is the one households skip, and it is the one that makes a plan honest.
Who in your life might need this ring?
- Teenagers who might be home without a driver
- Elders who do not drive at night
- You, if the cars are underwater or the street is blocked
- Disabled household members whose van is the only accessible vehicle
- Anyone who relies on transit
Ring 4 destinations must be reachable on foot, by bike, by bus, or with a pre-arranged ride. Distance shrinks. A neighbor’s accessible apartment, a staffed fire station (for help, not as a hotel), a nearby school that is a known shelter, a friend six blocks uphill — these count.
If Ring 4 is empty, your Week 4 plan must include who picks you up, with a name and a backup name.
The three-ways rule
For each destination you keep, write at least three ways to get there.
Not three slightly different turns on the same arterial. Three ways that fail differently.
A strong set looks like this:
- The obvious way — the way you would drive on a Saturday.
- The “main road is dead” way — a parallel road, a road on the other side of the river, a way that does not use the tunnel / underpass / canyon / rail crossing that closes first.
- The non-car way or the long way around — transit plus walking, a bike path, a pre-arranged ride, or a highway that feels silly on a normal day but still exists when the short cut is on fire.
If you cannot find three, you do not yet have a destination. You have a hope attached to one bridge.
How to build the three ways (90 minutes, plus a weekend errand)
Sit with a map that does not only show what the app wants. Use a paper map, a downloaded offline map, or a county road map. Phone navigation is excellent until towers are busy, batteries die, or the app cheerfully routes you into a closed zone. You may use a phone to study. Do not let it be the only copy of the route.
Mark the failure points from Weeks 1 and 2 on that map:
- Low water crossings and underpasses
- The one bridge
- The canyon road
- The rail line that splits town
- The plant and the likely downwind neighborhood
- The wildland edge
- School and workplace (people will not all start from home)
Draw routes in pencil. Say them out loud. If a 10-year-old or a grandparent could not follow the description, rewrite it with landmarks: “left at the brick church, not the second left after the GPS says so.”
Drive or ride two of the backup routes on a calm day. This is the assignment people skip and then need. You will discover the road that is dirt in winter, the gate that locks at 6 p.m., the apartment-complex maze, the bus that does not run on Sunday. Better to be annoyed on a Tuesday than surprised at night.
Time them. Write “27 minutes in normal traffic, longer in rain.” You are not racing. You are giving your future self a sense of scale.
Repeat from work and from school. A plan that only starts in the driveway is a nights-and-weekends plan. Ask: if an evacuation is called at 1:30 p.m., who is with the kids, and do they go to Ring 2 without coming home first? (Often the answer should be yes. Do not drive into a closed zone to “meet at the house.”)
Multiple people, multiple starting points
Households are not a single blob.
Sketch a simple table:
| Person | Weekday 10 a.m. location | How they get to Ring 2 without coming home | Who they call first |
|---|---|---|---|
Add school reconnection. Every school has a reunification procedure. Ask for it this week. You may not be allowed to pull into the usual pickup loop in an emergency. Write the school’s backup site if they will tell you, and write a rule: kids stay with staff until the named adult on the card arrives; no improvising with a well-meaning neighbor unless that neighbor is already on the list.
If your household includes two homes (shared custody, caregivers, college kids), send this week’s destination list to the other house. A child cannot follow two contradictory plans.
Pets, wheelchairs, culture, and the “not everyone can use a gymnasium” problem
Public shelters are essential and often very good. They are not automatically the right Ring 2 for every household.
- Pets: Many shelters take service animals and, increasingly, household pets — policies vary. Have a pet-friendly hotel name and a kennel name in writing. Have carriers you can lift. A plan that says “we would never leave them” with no carrier and no destination is how people refuse to evacuate and then need rescue.
- Disability and medical equipment: Call the hotel and the out-of-town host now: Is there a ground-floor room? Can we run a machine in a power outage (probably not — so where is the backup: accessible vehicle, hospital, pre-registered special-needs shelter if your county has one)? Register with your county’s voluntary special-needs or utility-dependence registry if one exists. It is not glamorous. It is how the right van shows up.
- Language and immigration status: Choose hosts and shelters where someone can speak your language if possible. Know that emergency shelters are for safety, not for document checks — but people will still feel fear. A named friend can be a better Ring 2 than an unknown gym. That is a valid choice.
- Culture and gender safety: If a congregate shelter would be unsafe or unworkable for someone in your household, your plan should lean harder on private hosts. Do not apologize for that. Do write a second option in case the host is also in the zone.
Money, fuel, and the unheroic constraints
A destination you cannot afford, or cannot reach on a quarter tank, is not a destination.
This week, quietly:
- Keep a household rule about not letting every car sit on empty (half a tank is a common, boring, effective rule).
- Know how you would pay if cards and ATMs glitch: a small amount of cash in small bills, stored where you can grab it.
- If you have no car, know the last bus / paratransit / neighbor ride and write the number of the person who has already said yes.
- If you would need gas money or a hotel night you do not have, look this week at local 211 (https://www.211.org) and your county emergency management page so you are not learning the word “congregate shelter” during the event.
Preparedness that ignores money is just advice for other people. We are not doing that here.
Household conversation (25 minutes)
Prompt 1. “If we had to leave in 20 minutes, where are we going — name a building.” Keep going until there is a street address.
Prompt 2. “What would block the usual way, given Weeks 1 and 2?” List three blockers, then match a route that avoids each.
Prompt 3. “If the adults were at work, what does the rest of the household do?” If the answer is “wait here,” decide whether that is safe for your top hazards. For fire, it usually is not.
Prompt 4. “Who has a key to our Ring 2, and have we asked them this year?” Text them before the weekend is over. Asking is part of the challenge.
This week’s challenge
Fill the destination card. Then travel at least one backup route on purpose.
Destination card
Ring 1 — outside the home
Meeting spot: _________________________________
Second way out of the home/unit: _________________________________
Rule: no one goes back in for stuff.
Ring 2 — in town, out of the neighborhood
Place / address / who lives there: _________________________________
They have said yes (date): ________
Pet / access notes: _________________________________
Way A (usual): _________________________________
Way B (if A is blocked): _________________________________
Way C (no car, or long way around): _________________________________
Time estimate: ________
Ring 2 backup (if Ring 2 is in the same problem zone)
Place / address: _________________________________
Ways A / B / C: _________________________________
Ring 3 — out of town
Place / address / host phone: _________________________________
Direction of travel (highway names): _________________________________
Way A: _________________________________
Way B: _________________________________
Way C: _________________________________
What would make us choose a different city instead: _________________________________
Ring 4 — without a household car
Place: _________________________________
How: walk / bike / bus / named rider: _________________________________
Backup rider: _________________________________
Do not drive toward:
(plant, canyon, underpass, wildland edge, river road — from Weeks 1–2)
Work / school rule:
If we are apart, we meet at ________, not at home, unless ________.
Practice log
Date we drove/walked Way B: ________
What we learned: _________________________________
A short story about why three ways
Imagine a wildfire or a chemical plume on the east side of town. Everyone you know uses the same westbound four-lane road. That road is full. The underpass at the river is flooded from last week’s storm (Week 1). The rail crossing on the “clever shortcut” has a stopped train (Week 2).
The household that already knows the ugly back road to the cousin on the north ridge, and the bus line that still runs on the state highway, is not braver. They are just less stuck.
You are allowed to hope you never use any of this. Hope is healthier when it has a map.
What success looks like at the end of Week 3
- You can name Ring 1, Ring 2, and Ring 3 out loud.
- Each kept destination has three unlike ways.
- At least one backup way has been traveled in real life.
- School and work have been included.
- Pets and access needs are on the card, not in a guilty aside.
- Someone outside the household has agreed to be a host, or you have a paid/public backup that is specific.
Next week we put the threat picture, the shelter-in-place steps, and these routes into one written plan — the kind you can hold, copy, and stick on the fridge. The thinking is mostly done. The writing is the kindness you do for 2 a.m.
Series: Ready Together
Previous: Week 2 — The hazards people built
Next: Week 4 — Write the plan
Sources and tools we used this week
- Ready.gov, Make a Plan — ready.gov/plan
- Ready.gov, Shelter — ready.gov/shelter
- Ready.gov, Evacuation — ready.gov/evacuation
- U.S. Fire Administration, wildfire evacuation planning — usfa.fema.gov
- 211 (local help, shelter info in many communities) — 211.org
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