Emergency Preparedness Kits
Emergency Preparedness Kits Can Save You and Your Family's Life
The first place to prepare yourself and your family for any kind of disaster is in your own mind.
Emergency preparedness kits means you must first realize that a natural or manmade catastrophe can hit, and which ones are more likely in your area, and what you and your family needs.
Emergency Preparedness Kits Should Cover All Your Needs
If nobody wears glasses, you don't an extra pair. If you have a baby, you'll need diapers. Everybody needs access to money and emergency food.
Survival supplies will most often include: water (1 gallon per person per day for at least three days); food (for at least three days); battery-powered or hand cranked and extra batteries; flashlight and extra batteries and hand-powered flashlight; first aid kit; whistle and flares; Wrench to turn off utilities - especially natural gas lines; hand operated can opener and cell phone with chargers.
Emergency preparedness food should not include anything that will spoil (first eat what's in your refrigerator). Have freeze dried rations on hand for an emergency food supply.
Some sites advise having a stash of travellers checks. That's good if your disaster is local and you escape. If there's a widespread disaster maybe nobody will take them, so you might also want to have some cash too. Yes, you risk a burglar finding it -- just think of it as money you hope you'll never spend anyway.
American Family Safety sells a wide variety of 72 hour emergency kits, for one person and for families. They include enough food and water to last three days. One kind includes a poncho, respirator mask and solar blanket. If you're at home you should have enough warm clothes to wear. Commercial respirator masks will not protect you from air-borne viruses such as bird flu or swine flu.
Keep Emergency Preparedness Kits in Your Car, at Home and on the Job
Some models are designed to fit comfortably under a car seat or in your trunk. You should keep one there at all times. Some kits include things everybody should keep in the car: jumper cables, a snow shovel, flat tire fixer and so on.
Some include sheets of plastic and duct tape to seal a room to create a shelter in place in case of nuclear or biochemical attack. We used to practice this procedure at my day job. We even kept a few little six packs of bottled water in the woman's rest room just in case. I have no idea how effective this would be if another country or terrorists ever did release radiation or smallpox anywhere near me. I hope to God I never have to find out. I don't think I'd like the answer. Not to mention that even if effective, you have to know you have to use this. If these hazardous materials are released into the air before you hear some kind of government announcement, you'll probably be dead before you know it.
Quakekare is enough company selling disaster kits. One of their emergency kits contains a hand cranked Dynamo Power Generator you can use to keep your cell phone charged. That's a good idea, because if the electricity in your home goes out, you can't keep your cell phone charged. Of course, whether the phone's network will operate is another question.
You Can Buy Many Kinds of Emergency Preparedness Kits
They carry survival kits and emergency supplies, including first aid kits, flashlights and radios. Emergency shake lights were a favorite Christmas present several years ago in my area (St Louis), after an early December ice storm left tens of thousands of people without electricity for up to a week. They carry N95 respirators, but those will only protect you against bacteria, not viruses such as bird flu or swine flu.
Some of their packages include a backpack. I think it's a great idea to have your emergency survival kits in an easy to grab and carry form, except the kind you keep the car. Those survival kits are already ready to go. If you are in charge of a school, you can buy school emergency preparedness supplies. You can also have your child take a lunchbox style of emergency pack to school and keep it in their locker.
Their kit for hurricaines includes a tarp, axe, candles, waterproof matches, safety goggles, Fold a Stove, document storage bags, and a folding shovel.
No matter which kind of emergency preparedness kits you decide on, it's important to have something on hand -- at home, in your cars and at work. You just never know.