Living Off The Grid

Every family should have an emergency preparedness kit. In fact, we should all have several kits: One for the home, one for the car trunk…

You don’t have to be expecting Armageddon, zombies or a total breakdown of society to understand the value of a family emergency preparedness kit.

Think about long term power outages, earthquakes, hurricanes, snowstorms… All of these situations can leave us without access to necessities if we are not prepared.

Even those who enjoy preserving food; who have a backup generator; who have their own water source… can still encounter periods of vulnerability. For instance, the pantry gets a little sparse in late spring; sometimes the diesel fuel for the generator goes bad because it hasn’t been used in years; and sometimes we’re just caught with our pants down – so to speak – for whatever reason.

Whether you live in the city, the suburbs or the country, emergency preparedness kits will include many of the same items. You can buy them ready-made (here or here or here…) or you can make your own…

What To Put in Your Preparedness Kit:

• Flashlights
• Batteries
• First Aid Supplies (you can buy kits or make your own)
• Water, Water Filters and/or Water Purification Tablets
• Hand-Powered Weather Radio
• MREs (meals ready to eat)
• Soap, Toothpaste…
• Toilet Paper
• Clean, Dry Socks
• Blankets and/or Sleeping Bags
• Rain Jacket / Poncho
• Extra Photo Identification
• Cash
• Utility Knife
• Can Opener
• Pliers
• Duct Tape
• Matches / Lighter
• Signal Flare
• Paper and Pencil
• Needles and Thread
• Extra Medication (if needed)
• Compass
• Local Maps
• Whistle
• Gloves
• Dust mask
• Antibacterial Moist Towelettes
• Plastic Garbage Bags
• Toboggan Hat
• Mult-Purpose Tool (i.e. Gerber Multitool or Leatherman)
• Gun and Ammunition (if you’re so inclined)

These are just some suggestions and not a complete list. A 24-hour kit for the trunk of your car will differ greatly from a kit for your home designed to keep you alive for weeks after a major disaster. Entire books have been written about what you need to include in an emergency preparedness kit for specific situations. Since that is a bit beyond the scope of this post, I’d like to share some of those books so you can read them on your own:

• When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes
• How To Assemble A 72-hour Emergency Kit
• Emergency Preparedness The Right Way
• On Your Own: A Family’s Guide to Disaster Preparedness
• Crisis Preparedness Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival
• Organize for Disaster: Prepare Your Family and Your Home for Any Natural Or Unnatural Disaster
• PREPAREDNESS NOW!: An Emergency Survival Guide
• Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis
• Emergency Preparedness and Survival Guide: BWH Magazine
• Self-reliance:Recession-proof your pantry

Below are some other resources to help you and your family prepare for emergencies:

• Ready.gov: A basic overview of emergency preparedness by the US government.
• TheEpicenter.com: How to Prepare for an Emergency!
• American Red Cross: Preparing and Getting Trained
• 72Hours.Org: Are You Prepared?
• UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences: Preparing an Emergency Food Supply
• FEMA: Are You Ready?
• YouTube Video by Marketwire: Preparing a Family Emergency Kit in Plain English
• University of Kentucky: Emergency Plans–Preparing for the Unexpected
• The Survival Spot Blog: Preparing an Emergency Food Supply

And remember, emergency preparedness is about more than just having a bunch of supplies stuffed into a box. All members of your family from teenagers to adults should know basic first-aid. You can get first aid training from many local agencies. Try the local hospital, fire department and police office. If they don’t provide courses, they should be able to point you to a local resource that does.