Decide NOW, in writing, what triggers action — because in the moment you'll rationalise delay.
- Example tripwires: official evacuation order OR wildfire/flood within X km → GO. Grid down >48 h in extreme heat/cold with vulnerable family members → relocate to prepared relative/site. Civil disorder within your district → Layer-2 lockdown + car fuelled + bags staged. Supply panic on the news → one calm final top-up shop that day, then stay out of crowds.
- Default is BUG IN. Your water, food, tools, and neighbours are at home. You leave only when home is more dangerous than the road (fire, flood, contamination, targeted threat).
- If you go: know 3 routes out in different compass directions, on paper maps; car never below half a tank as standing policy (a full tank is ~500 km of options); leave EARLY or not at all — the motorway car park during mass evacuation is the worst place on earth; destination pre-agreed (relative/friend inland/upland, reciprocal deal: "our place is yours in a flood, yours ours in X").
- 72-hour bags live staged (B9); add a laminated card in each: rally points, out-of-area contact, radio channel, medical info per person.