Emergency Plans and Disaster Kits
As you may have noticed, we took a LONG time to get Baby Step 7 out to you but we have a good reason! I got completely distracted with emergency preparedness. Over the past few weeks I had the chance to relax and do a lot of thinking/pondering about my food storage and emergency plan. The relaxation soon ended as I became somewhat frantic with how “unprepared” for an evacuation-type disaster I was. I needed to be more on top of the advice we’ve been giving on our getting started page!
So last week I started on a mission … to get my emergency plan ironed out, including the disaster kit and 72 hour kit food items. Back in July when Jodi bought all the ingredients to update our 72 hour kits, I put mine in a bag in the closet (the truth comes out). I started to think, if I had to evacuate my house I would be in big trouble. All my food was in a bag in one closet, the emergency supplies I DID have were scattered around the house, and another thing - my important documents binder wasn’t made and I had no cash in case credit card systems were down. How would it have worked for me if I had to evacuate my house quickly - ummmm not so well!
It’s been about 5 days of me focusing really hard and now I finally have my emergency bin all put together! We are going to be focusing a whole month on Emergency Preparedness early next year, but for now I wanted 
to fill you in on a couple things I did and learned.
1- I bought a car kit ($20 at Wal-Mart). If your Wal-Mart doesn’t carry something like this, we found this Deluxe Emergency Road Kit that is very similar and is great because you can toss in a water bottle and some snacks into the bag as well.
2- I PUT my binder with important documents together (passport, birth certificates, social security cards etc). When doing this, I asked myself one simple question - if my house burned down - would I be annoyed I didn’t have this document? If so, I put it in.
3- I went to the bank and took out $200 cash - and asked for small bills. In Hurricane Ike, a lot of people commented on how they wish they would have had small bills so they weren’t paying too much for stuff when stores didn’t have change.
4- I put my 72 hour kit food in a nice old big plastic animal cookie bin. It fit perfectly and was easier than using milk jugs (I like easy).
5- I gathered up all the items in the disasters supplies area of our emergency plan and purchased the things I didn’t have.
6- I placed ALL this stuff in a big bin in my front hall closet. I was sad because I had a cute little shelf all arranged in my basement for this, but then learned that it’s best to keep your kit somewhere that you can access it easily if you have to evacuate quickly.
p.s. My wonderful sister sent me a list of things she compiled for HER emergency kit. Some of the items were not initially on the list that we posted under Getting Started. I have recently added them to our emergency plan checklist and uploaded the revised list so you may want to print off a new copy if you have been using the older version.
Have you done your emergency checklist yet? You can accomplish all of this within a few days if you just set your mind to it!
Filed under: 72 Hour Kits, Emergency Preparedness, Getting Started, Grains, Julie's Progress
Should we make copies of our important documents to place in the “to go” binder or put the originals in there and make copies for our regular filing cabinet?
I’m going to make a couple copies of everything, give one to my sister who lives a few hours away, and one to my parents.
One day (it’s better to start somewhere then not start at all) I’m going to put the originals in a “fire/water” proof binder or box that locks and keep that in my “to go” box - however, I think copies in there would be just fine - it probably depends whichever one you prefer. My thinking is - if there is a fire and we have to evacuate and my house burns down I’d want those quick and accessible.
Oh I am so proud! You need to make a cute little “widget” link for my blog…
Andrea … stay tuned because a revised blog button is coming soon (we can’t have the old non-cute one hanging around out there still) hehe.
You site is amazing and I love your ideas on emergency planning! I’ve been fortunate enough to have parents who are very into having 72 hour kits prepped and ready to go! I live here in Utah and I actually sell backpacks specifically for 72 hour kits at a ridiculous price, you are more than welcome to check out my blog, and if you’d like to spread the news about the backpacks, please do. I ship all over in quantities of 20, and at $25 a backpack, it is a fabulous deal! If you do post about this, let me know, I’ll be adding your widge to my blog!!! love your BLOG!
Jen, Thanks for the tip about the backpacks. We are going to go more in depth on 72 hour kits and survival stuff early next year so we will definitely point people to your backpacks as we discuss these things in detail. p.s. Thanks for adding our button too!
Charleston earthquake was initially perceived in that city as a barely perceptible tremor, then a sound like a heavy body rolling along; the sound became a roar, all movable objects began to shake and rattle, and the tremor became a rude, rapid quiver. The first shock was at 9:51 p.m. and lasted 35 to 40 seconds. As bad as the economy is these days, be glad if you don’t have to be taking out payday loans to be patching drywall. Charleston, South Carolina, was hit by a minor earthquake last week that caused mostly minor damage. No homes were destroyed, and there weren’t major injuries as a result. Charleston isn’t known as an earthquake hot spot in the U.S. like California is, but quakes do happen there. The most recent one measured a 3.6 on the Richter scale. 3.6 isn’t a major event, but cleaning up after it is a royal pain in the neck. The history of the region has been that a small quake, like the one that just happened, is a usual precedent of a much larger one to come. An earthquake rocked Charleston in 1886 that killed upwards of a hundred people and cost millions to repair, and measured between 6.6 and 7.3 on the Richter. The Great San Francisco Quake of 1906, by comparison, was over 9.0 on the Richter. (A 10 has never been seen or recorded in the span of human history, and isn’t achievable by atomic blasts.) Earthquakes are tough to predict, because the only indicators that tell of one happening are apparent only right before the event. You can read the article called “Charleston Earthquake | Payday Will Be Spent Fixing Drywall”, on the payday loan news blog at personalmoneystore.com.