Getting Your Kit Together - Buying a Pre-made Kit

There are two ways you can acquire an Emergency Preparedness Kit: You can make one, or you can buy one. There are advantages to both methods, and I will explain both in two separate articles. In this first article I will talk about buying a kit.

If you are like many people today, you are very busy. It doesn’t matter if you’re busy running a multi-million dollar empire or busy watching Survivor. Either way, you are busy and would rather not take the time to put together an emergency preparedness kit. There is nothing wrong with this, and fortunately for you, there are a lot of good commercial kits out there that will serve your purpose quite well. That being said, I will also warn that there are a lot of kits out there that aren’t so good.

So, what do you need in a kit? First, you will need the basics: food and water. Enough for each member of your household for 72 hours. The type of food is very important. Fortunately, most of the commercially available kits have food appropriate for most climates and situations. It is not always the tastiest, but it will keep you alive. Look for food with a long shelf life (you don’t want it to spoil) that is easy to eat and requires little to no preparation. It should also be very high in calories. Nutrition is also important, but in this case, as we are not planning a long term diet, it takes a back seat to utility. As long as your kit is not full of candy and crackers, you should be ok here. You will need about half a gallon of water per person per day as well. More is better, but water is also very heavy and takes up a lot of space.

First aid is also very important. It is very likely that you will need to treat people for minor injuries, and you should be equipped accordingly.

Besides that, a light source, a portable am/fm radio, some type of shelter, and a signal of some sort are also very important. You may also want to include a few personal hygiene items, some extra clothing and something to entertain yourself with. With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure the kit you purchase has a little extra room to put these things in (you likely won’t have room for the clothes – I like to keep these by the kit in a small plastic bag or pouch of some sort).

That’s really all there is to it. Of course, you can add or remove items to personalize your kit, but the whole point of buying the kit is that you don’t want to spend too much time on it. You can purchase pre-made kits from many places, and I have seen several good ones. Costco and Walmart generally have good kits, and you may want to look there. Another great kit that I highly recommend is available on Amazon.com. It has almost everything you need in it. The only thing it lacks is a flashlight, which fortunately they have a good one that I can recommend as well. It has enough food and water for 2 people for 3 days, with extra room in the pack to add some of the other items you may want to bring along.

Click here to buy the Quakehold! Grab-n-Go Emergency Kit on Amazon.com.

Click here for the Kaito KA404 Emergency Hand Crank Dynamo 5-LED Flashlight with AM/FM radio.

Once you have your kit together, put it in a closet, and check it once a year to make sure everything is still good. Other than that, forget about it. And rest assured that if you need it, it is there.

Emergency Preparedness Kits

With all the high profile disasters recently, you may have heard talk about 72-hour kits, Emergency Backpacks, or Emergency Preparedness Kits. These are all names for the same thing, which I will call Emergency Preparedness Kits. The idea is, in an emergency, to have a backpack or suitcase full of essential supplies that you can simply grab and walk out the door. Sounds simple, right? In concept it certainly is, but without proper planning, care and maintenance, you can easily end up without the items you need most in an emergency, or worse, with damaged or expired items that are no longer any good.

I’d like to talk a little first on just why you might need such an emergency preparedness kit. There has been a big push by governments lately to encourage everyone to have 72 hours of emergency supplies available on hand, as it is estimated to take an average of 72 hours for emergency crews to be able to find and locate those in need of help after a disaster. We have seen with recent events, such as Katrina and Haiti, that it can often take much longer for aid to arrive.

Fortunately, most of us will never be involved in such large scale disasters. That doesn’t mean we are out of danger though. Disaster can strike anyone, anywhere, no matter where you live. Those living in the mountains may not have to worry about hurricanes, but forest fires and blizzards are a strong possibility. In the desert, you may have flash floods to deal with. On the prairies, tornadoes and grassfires. Coastal areas are often hit with severe storms. Those living near train tracks or industrial plants could be forced to evacuate from their homes due to chemical spills. If you live near an airport, you may be forced to leave because of a plane crash.

I’m not trying to scare you into worrying to death, but simply trying to get you thinking of what types of potential disasters could happen in your area so that you can plan accordingly. There is no need to live your life in fear, but with a little preparation and planning, you can be prepared to act in the face of disaster. Think of it like insurance. You set up your plan, get your supplies together, and then forget about it and go about your life.

In this blog I am going to go over how you can make your very own Emergency Preparedness Kit, or if you prefer to buy one, what you should look for. It is inexpensive and takes very little time, but it could save your life.