72 Hour Kit. I thought I would work on it each week and
share some information that might be helpful for anyone who
is wanting to make their own kit or update an existing kit.
First of all - What is it?
It is a temporary "home away from home",when you have to
quickly evacuate because of some kind of disaster or emergency.
Such disasters include: earthquakes, tornados, fires, floods and
hurricanes, leakage of hazardous chemicals or radioactive waste,
terrorism, etc. We all think these things will never happen to us.
But disasters can happen to anyone and you never know when
you will have to leave your home in a hurry.
The most important thing to prepare in any kind of evacuation
is to assemble a 72 Hour Emergency kit ( 3 day supply) for
each member of your family.
These kits used to be considered " a mormon thing", as we have
been counseled for years by our church leaders to be prepared.
Now, everyone is talking about them - sometimes calling them
Emergency Flight Kits or Bug out Kits. I even saw a public
service ad for one on a billboard in a large city. This is a good
website with lots of information if you are new to this idea of
72 Hour Kits. Here's another one from Homeland Security.
The first thing to do is decide what container you will use for
your kit. Your container needs to be waterproof and have
some type of carrying handle. Some ideas for containers are:
backpacks, polyethylene plastic buckets, duffel bags, plastic
storage tubs, luggage, etc.
I am putting together three different kits. One for myself that
can be used as a backpack, but also has wheels so it can be
pulled.
One for Mark, which is a large backpack.
And one extra, smaller kit. This is the size that
our kids had when they were at home. Each
one had their own kit. (See Dillon's name
on the top of this one.)
After choosing your container for your kit - the next item of
importance for me is food and water. I don't want to go hungry!
I made a menu of items for three days of meals and headed to
Walmart. After wandering the aisles and picking out all kinds
of highly processed foods, that I don't usually eat,(but would be
happy to eat, if I was hungry!) , I came home and spread it all
out on the counter.
I bought these Mountain House meals at Walmart for dinner meals.
The package says each one serves 2 people ( or maybe one
really hungry person?) My boys ate a lot of these when they
were hiking on the trail, so I figure I could eat them for three
days if I needed to.
Food for Day One
Breakfast - Juice, Granola Bar, Applesauce
Lunch - Ramen Noodles, Pork and Beans
Dinner - Mountain House Beef Stew, Fig Newtons
Snacks - Peanuts, Granola Bar and Mini Candy Bars
Food For Day 2
Breakfast - Oatmeal with Peanut Butter, Hot Cocoa
Lunch - Tuna Salad with Crackers, Chicken Noodle Soup, Craisins
Dinner - Mountain House Chili Mac with Beef, Fig Newtons
Snacks - Peanuts, Granola Bar, Energy Drink Mix, Mini Candy Bars
Food for Day Three
Breakfast - Oatmeal with Peanut Butter, Applesauce, Hot Cocoa
Lunch - Chicken Salad Kit, Craisins and Cheese- its
Dinner - Mountain House Beef Stroganoff
Snacks - Peanuts, Beef Jerky, Peanut Butter Crackers, Mini Candy Bars
These are fairly generous menus - like I said, I don't want to
go hungry! Plus, I expect that if I had to use this, there would
be others around me who weren't prepared and I would be
sharing with them. Also notice that I have included chocolate
for each day. These are my morale boosters!!
Each days meals go in their own ziplock bag.
Much of this food requires water and next week I will talk about
water for our kits. But I am assuming ( and hoping) that I would
have access to water.
So that's it for this week. A container for your kit and food!
When I watch the news and see people who are in emergency
situations, who have fled their homes for shelters, I think to
myself how much better off they would be if they had their own
kit of supplies for at least the first 72 hours. But instead what
I usually see are frightened people, who quickly become angry
because the government is not taking care of their needs.
It's our responsibility to be prepared for our families.
* Goal #18 - Work on monthly storage and preparedness goals.
Impressive!
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