Home Emergency Kit
A home emergency kit contains emergency supplies that help you
during a natural disaster or a catastrophe. In an emergency, it
may be impossible to travel roads or there may be stores closed
because of no electricity. In any case, you should be prepared to
take care of yourself and your family during this period of time
without any outside aid.
Your home emergency kit should contain emergency gear and supplies
for any contingency. If an earthquake occurs, you may not even be
able to stay inside your house. During a hurricane, you may be stuck
inside your home. After any natural disasters, running water and
electricity may be out. Trees could down blocking normal travel
paths. Point being that you may have to fend for yourself for a
period of time.
Emergency food and water should be stocked so that you have them
available when needed. Canned goods and bottled water do not have
a long shelf life. If you rely on these, be sure to rotate your
stock at least twice a year so you always have fresh food and water.
Bottled water really has about a six month shelf life so you can't
store it and forget it. Our ER food
bars and Aqua Blox emergency
water both have a 5 year shelf life and are Coast Guard approved.
With these survival items, you can store them and they'll be good
when an emergency happens.
Planning for emergencies makes you think about what you would need
without modern conveniences. If your home is uninhabitable due to
instability, then you'll need another form of shelter. A Tube tent,
tarp, lean-to, or any other emergency
shelter may be home for a while. A tornado can tear your home
down. Your home emergency kit should definitely contain alternate
forms of shelter.
Along with your home emergency kit, you should have extra clothing
including hats and gloves to keep warm. If your electricity goes
out in winter, your home could become a large ice box. Having these
insulating items set aside will give everyone what they need to
stay as comfortable as possible. If you're forced to live outside
in your emergency shelter, warm clothing is that much more important.
Putting your additional clothing, hat, gloves in a separate spot
next to your survival kit will ensure you're able to grab it on
your way out.
Inside your home survival kit, you'll have fire
starting material. If you have to live outside, having a fire
will be a source of warmth, light, and comfort. The comfort value
of a fire can not be underestimated or understated. Being able to
sit around a warm fire in an inhospitable environment is as good
as it gets. Without one, your time spent will be miserable. If you
don't have a fire in dead of winter, you will all be cold. Being
cold is uncomfortable. When you're cold, you just want to get warm.
This can be a good thing if there's work to be done. Keeping yourself
busy by moving around and doing work will keep you warm but eventually
you're going to stop. Having a nice blazing fire in a forced outdoor
experience is just what you'll want.
Always have multiple ways of starting a fire in your home emergency
kit. Waterproof matches, windproof matches, the mil-spec Spark-Lite,
magnesium fire starter, along with fire sticks and emergency tinder
are all options available on this website or are already included
in our survival kits. Redundancy is key. You want to have more than
one method of being able to start a fire in case one fails or you
lose one. The warmth and heat of a fire can prevent hypothermia
and can dry out wet clothes. A fire also allows you to cook food
and to purify water. Remember, water sources may not be safe to
drink. Bringing water to a boil and boiling for 10 minutes will
kill anything that can cause you to get sick.
A home emergency kit should also contain a first aid kit. Taking
care of cuts and scrapes in an unsanitary environment is important.
You don't want infection to spread when a doctor or hospital is
not going to be available. Your first aid kit should be much more
than just something for cuts and scrapes. In an emergency, there
is a real possibility for serious injury. You want a comprehensive
first aid kit that prepares you to deal with any medical emergency.
In your home, we recommend either the Comprehensive
Medical Kit or the Fundamentals
First Aid Kit. Both of these prepare you to deal with many medical
injuries including broken bones or fractures, burns, and trauma
wounds. The Weekender First Aid Kit is also great for home as a
regular and daily use medical kit. Be sure to restock any items
you may use from your first aid kit. In a natural disaster, catastrophe,
or any other emergency, your first aid kit may have to help other
people other than you and your family.
Maintaining sanitary conditions in a field environment is challenging,
yet important. When you're clean, you feel good. When you're not,
you don't. Not maintaining your personal hygiene also opens you
up to unhealthy bacteria. Bacteria multiply and begin to affect
your health. Wet naps, baby wipes, and full body wipes can bathe
you in an outdoor environment. During an emergency where you don't
have running water, keeping yourself clean is very important. Personal
hygiene will keep you healthy and keep you going.
 Preparing
your home emergency kit forces you to think about what you'd need
in a real emergency. Our premium
survival kits give you quality survival gear you can put to
use if you're faced with a natural disaster or other emergencies.
They contain many essential items that can help you survive on your
own when normal services and modern conveniences are unavailable.
Don't forget to think about personal items such as prescription
meds when putting this together. Only you know exactly what you
need. Don't count on emergency services to bail you out. You only
need to remember Katrina and those who did not prepare. They felt
they would be taken care of only to realize they were wrong. It's
your responsibility to care for yourself and your family, not the
government's.
|
