Twenty minutes is not a packing montage. It is a grab-and-go. If water is already in the street or the bayou is coming over the bank, you are choosing what you can carry.
Houston heat will punish you if you forget meds, a charger, and water. Sentiment can wait. Passports and pill bottles cannot.
Take what proves who you are and what keeps you alive for 48 hours. That is the whole job.
Do this now
- Put daily meds, glasses, and any medical devices in one bag.
- Grab IDs, insurance cards, a debit card, and cash if you have it.
- Leash or crate pets. Take food, a bowl, and any meds they need.
- Phone, charger, battery pack, keys, and a change of clothes that can get wet.
- Photograph rooms and the water line on your way out if you can do it in under a minute.
The 20-minute pile
Wallet, keys, phones, chargers. Prescriptions in the original bottles if they are sitting there. A gallon of water if it is already in the kitchen. Baby formula and diapers if that is your house.
If you have a go-folder, take the whole folder. If you do not, snap the face of your driver’s license, flood policy, and lease or mortgage statement.
Do not hunt for the good jewelry in a closet you have not opened in a year. Water does not care about your system.
What you can leave
Furniture, TVs, and the wedding china stay. You can document them later from photos on your phone backup.
Guns need to be secured or taken if you cannot lock the house. Do not leave them in a nightstand in a first-floor ranch that is about to take on bayou water.
If you have extra minutes, throw a trash bag over the desktop computer and lift it onto a table. Then leave.
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