Are you prepared for an emergency? We have seen many different types of emergencies happen within the last few years around the world and I often think to myself "how would I have handled that!" or "am I prepared for something like that?" The answer could be Yes! In my last ward I was the Emergency Preparedness Leader and one of our challenges was to help everyone in the ward build a 72 hour kit if they didn't already have one and help those who had one update it or improve it. In the past I have seen the long list of items that we should have in a kit and have immediately become overwhelmed! It seems kind of daunting to gather all of that stuff and can be expensive. You can buy a prepared kit from many online sources but if you want to build your own hopefully this can help you. I broke down a basic 72 hr kit list into 19 weeks (it was from sept. until the end of the year) and put a weekly recommendation in the ward bulletin. The ward had a great time following along each week.
I have heard a lot of great ideas for 72 hour kits:
- Keep them in the coat closet by your door
- Have a kit in the car
- Bring it out during conference weekend to check expiration dates
- have a mock emergency and try to live on the food for 3 days
I would also like to hear from you! Do you have any great 72 hr kit suggestions to share?
To see the 19 week breakdown either download the image below or double click on it to enlarge it. Hopefully that will work, if not let me know!
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6 comments:
I love this printout! Thanks so much! We do the conference weekend thing, too. I always buy a new set of sweats, shoes, socks, etc. for my kiddos (and diapers, underwear or whatever is needed at the time), and I buy them a size too big. Then I pull out the last ones, give them to my kids to wear now (they should fit by then) and put the new (too big) ones in their kit.
I stuff my kit with slim fast bars. They are loaded with vitamins and minerals (and calories) and are intended to keep someone in a healthy way for short periods of time. They are small and easy to handle and IMHO great for a 72 hour kit.
A little tip on what NOT to do with your 72 hour kit: When we first put ours together we put out water in "watertight" canteens and added it to the rest of the stuff. The next conference when we got everything out to check, we realized that they'd leaked all over. We now just have our water right next to our kits so we can grab both if we need to. One thing I was really glad about is that someone had told us to put copies of our documents (credit cards, etc) in a ziploc bag and so they stayed dry. Great question, Christine!
My sister who is much more organized than I, keeps her family's 72 hr kits, food, and clothing stuff in a small, clear plastic tub. They all have their names on them and they are easy to see and easy to reach, and waterproofed. She keeps them stacked by their garage door.
Along with my food and clothing kits, I added a saftey kit for each of us. They are in gallon size ziploc bags and they have things like, a poncho, a whistle, pen/paper, a roll of toilet paper, a small knife, a small flashlight, an emergency blanket, water purification tablets, a small rope, etc. If anyone wants a more detailed list, let me know!
My biggest question with 72 hr. kits is how to rotate them? The clothing idea is great, with the sweats and stuff, I am going to implement that this year! But how should I rotate my food because just getting it out, eating it before it's bad and buying everything all over again. What do I do?
I'm totally not prepared! This is something I've always had in the back of my mind but has always seemed intimidating. So thank you for posting this!!!
I don't have any suggestions just wanted to say thanks, I don't have any kind of 72 hour kit so all this information is so helpful, I was never really sure how to go about them!
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