Putting Together an Emergency Kit

We’re finally putting together an earthquake emergency kit. I’m not sure what took us so long, but after a few significant shakes these past 6-months, we’ve decided it’s necessary – or at least a good idea. To be honest, I lived through the 1994 Northridge earthquake and 1999 Moore, Oklahoma F5 tornado without an ER kit, but now that I’m older I can see the value in one. From these disasters I learned three things: 1.) water is vital to survival, 2.) cash is good to have, and 3.) don’t sleep naked!

Using my experience from the 1994 earthquake and pre-packaged emergency kit lists to figure out what we really need, we’ve come up with a moderate survival package. It’s not an end of the world kit at all, but we figured if it were the end of the world we’d be screwed anyway, so what’s the difference!

The kit would get us through a few days of sporadic or no public utilities. So far, we’ve included:

• 2 cases of water
• water purification tablets
• first aid kit (we put this together ourselves with the idea that the worst we could tend to on our own would be cuts and sprains)
• toilet paper, hand towels, paper towel
• can opener
• matches
• emergency blankets and ponchos (we felt these were silly, but if we had to leave our home, they’re light weight)
• whistle (in case we get trapped)
• hand wipes
• paper plates
• aluminum foil
• box cutter
• candles
• glow sticks

What’s missing that we still need to get:

• flash lights
• FM/AM radio
• dried food goods (we’re debating if we want to stick with items that don’t need cooking or items that need boiling water which requires a stove of some kind)
• cash (this was an issue in the 1999 tornado. We didn’t have cash and the ATMs were down.)
• A bag to put it all into

The cost so far: $50. We expect to spend another $20-40, but should come in under $100 not counting the cash we want to include.

In the 1994 earthquake, I was able to say where I resided. I didn’t need to be evacuated, we just cleaned up the mess that same day and went to the grocery store to get water – which we didn’t have on hand. I’m hoping that in the next “big one” this is the case, but it’s incredibly unpredictable. Best case scenario, we can stay put and use what we have in our home, worst case we have to leave with out kit and find alternative housing.

In the 1999 tornado, we left our temporary residence, but mainly because there wasn’t any power. We were working at a hospital and continued to trek to work each day, but had no way of getting ready without electricity. We ended  up staying at a hotel for a few days until power was turned back on. (And let me just say, it was a fluke that the place we were staying wasn’t demolished. The tornado cut diagonally across the corner, hopped the freeway and destroyed the entire town across the way.)

I guess you can say I was fortunate in both circumstances – I wasn’t injured or greatly affected. Hopefully my luck won’t run out!

Have you prepared an emergency kit for your home? What kind of disasters are more common in your area?