Guides › Evacuation Pack
Leave Early: The Evacuation Pack
A calm, step-by-step plan for when to go, what to take, where to end up, and how to come home safely
Decide on a calm day. Leave before the roads fill.
- Quick Pack (11 pages) + Full Guide (157 pages)
- Instant download
- US Letter, prints on A4 too
- Worksheets you fill in
- Plain English
$14.99 one-time, instant download
- Secure checkout by Payhip
- Download link on screen and by email
- Read the free sample first
- No refund once downloaded
Who it is for
For any household that might have to leave home because of a hurricane, flood, wildfire or other emergency, including families with children, older relatives, pets, medical needs, or no car.
What you get
- A plain-English ladder of watch, warning and evacuation order, with the official hurricane hours, so you know what each alert asks of you.
- The Leave-Early Trigger Sheet, where you write your own go rules and your latest safe departure time while you are calm.
- A go-or-no-go decision table that combines your zone, your home type, your people and the hazard.
- Three countdown checklists, for a week, 24 hours and 10 minutes, plus the Three-Clocks Countdown Sheet to give every task a name.
- Three worked walkthroughs: a hurricane a week out, a flood warning with a few hours, and a wildfire level change at night.
- Go bag packing lists for adults, children by age, infants, older adults, people with medical needs and pets, with a tick-grid packing sheet.
- A Medicine and Medical Needs grid and a Documents, Cash and Digital Backup grid, so your papers and records are ready in two places.
- Car and no-car plans: the half-tank rule, an electric vehicle plan, a vehicle kit, a no-car ladder with county buses and senior services, a ride request script and the My Ride Plan worksheet.
- A Route Planner worksheet for two ways out and three destinations, plus a Lodging, Shelter and Pet-Friendly Call Log and an honest look at shelter life.
- A Leave-a-Note Template, a Home Leaving Checklist, a Family Communication Plan Card and the one-page Grab-and-Go Evacuation Card.
- Special-situation plans for mobility limits, power-dependent equipment, upper floors, school pickup, working parents, dementia and relatives in care facilities.
- A staged return plan from day 0 to day 7 with food and water safety tables and a two-page Damage and Recovery Log, plus one-page hazard guides for hurricane, flood, wildfire, tornado, earthquake and chemical incidents.
What is in it
- When to Go: Watch, Warning, Order and Your Own TriggerThis section teaches you to read the official alert words, then to write your own leave-early rules while you are calm. When stress arrives, the decision is already made.
- Three Clocks: A Week, 24 Hours, 10 MinutesThis section gives you a countdown for each amount of notice, so you always know what to do next. Pick the clock that matches your warning, work down the list, and leave on your own schedule instead of the storm's.
- Go Bags for Every Person and PetA go bag is the one bag you can pick up and carry when you have to leave. This section shows what goes in it for adults, children, babies, older relatives, people with medical needs, and pets.
- Papers, Money and Digital BackupsThis section tells you which papers, cash and information to take or copy, and how to keep both paper and digital copies so you can recover them from anywhere. Do this work on a calm day.
- The Car, and Leaving Without OneMost people leave by car, so the car has to be ready before the alert comes. If you do not have a car, or do not drive, you need a ride plan that is just as firm.
- Routes and Destinations: Where You Will GoDecide now which roads you will take and where you will end up, so that on the day you follow a plan instead of making one. This section helps you pick two ways out, choose three places to go, line up beds for people and pets, and know what shelter life is like.
- Leaving Home Safely and Staying in TouchThis section covers the last steps before you walk out the door, the plan that keeps your family connected once you are apart, and a one-page card that pulls the whole guide together. Do the thinking now, so on the day you only follow the list.
- Special Situations: Extra Time, Equipment and Split HouseholdsSome households need more time, more help or more planning to leave safely. This section gives you early-go rules, equipment and power plans, school and work pickup plans, and care plans for dementia and for relatives in care facilities, with worksheets you can fill in today.
- Returning Home SafelyGoing home is its own trip, with its own risks. This section gives you a calm, staged plan from the all-clear to day 7: when to go, what to check, how to deal with floodwater, food, water and cleanup, and how to document damage for your insurer.
- Hazard Pages: Leave or Shelter in Place?Some hazards call for leaving early. Others call for taking cover right where you are. This section gives you a matrix to compare them, one quick guide for each hazard, and a cheat sheet to fill in for your own county.
Read a free sample
This is the opening of the guide, exactly as it appears in the PDF. Download the free sample PDF (4 pages: the cover, the one-page plan and a first taste).
Part 1
When to Go: Watch, Warning, Order and Your Own Trigger
This section teaches you to read the official alert words, then to write your own leave-early rules while you are calm. When stress arrives, the decision is already made.
Decide now, not then
Most evacuation trouble starts with waiting. People wait for one more update, one more neighbor, one more hour. Then the roads fill, the wind rises or the smoke arrives, and the easy choices are gone.
Ready.gov gives the plain advice: leave early enough to avoid being trapped by severe weather. This section turns that into rules you can follow without thinking hard. You will learn the alert words, learn why timing matters, and finish with a one-page Leave-Early Trigger Sheet that you fill in yourself.
Voluntary, recommended or mandatory?
Guide's advice: officials may call an order voluntary, recommended or mandatory, and the wording differs by county. Treat voluntary as 'leave now if you need extra time or live in a vulnerable home.' Treat mandatory as 'go.' If you stay after a mandatory order, emergency crews may not be able to reach you.
A shelter-in-place order means the opposite: stay inside and follow officials. Write your county's exact words on your Trigger Sheet.
$14.99 one-time, instant download
- Secure checkout by Payhip
- Download link on screen and by email
- Read the free sample first
- No refund once downloaded
Questions
What exactly do I get?
Two PDFs in one download. The Quick Pack (11 pages) is the short version: the one-page plan, the checklists and the sheets to fill in and keep. The Full Guide (157 pages) has the reasons, worked examples and everything else. Open the Quick Pack first. Both are laid out for US Letter paper. You print them, or read them on a tablet or computer. There is nothing physical to wait for.
How do I get it after I pay?
Payment is handled by Payhip, a payment service for digital products. As soon as it goes through, you see a page with your download link, and the same link is emailed to you. This website never sees your card details.
Can I print it?
Yes. It is made for printing: big type, plenty of space to write, and worksheets you fill in by hand. Print the whole thing, or only the pages you need. Print at 100% size on US Letter (it also prints fine on A4).
Is it based on real sources?
Yes. Every instruction traces to an official source such as Ready.gov and FEMA, the CDC, the National Weather Service, the American Red Cross, the US Department of Energy and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The sources are listed at the end, with tags next to the items they support. It was fact-checked and safety-reviewed before publication. It is still general information, not professional advice, so check anything critical with your local authorities.
Is it just the free plan on a PDF?
No. The free personal plan gives you a checklist and your top priorities. The guides go further: decision rules, schedules, scenario walkthroughs and worksheets you fill in, written for one situation in depth.
Can I get a refund?
Read the free sample and the full contents list first, so you know what you are buying. Because this is a digital download, we cannot refund it once you have downloaded it. If you have not downloaded it yet, email hello@afternormal.co within 14 days and you will be refunded. If the file is faulty, will not open or is not what we described, email us and we will fix it, replace it or refund you. See the terms for the details.
Will I get updates?
Official guidance changes. If we revise this guide you will be able to download the new edition from the same link.