HOME
EMERGENCY
KIT

At home, the order is different from a wilderness survival book. What actually hurts people in long outages:

1. Temperature  ice storms, July heat
2. Water        drink, cook, flush
3. Sanitation   toilets need water
4. Medical      meds, injuries, devices
5. Power, light, news, food

Food is lower than people think. Most homes already have a week of food in the pantry. Water, a safe way to stay warm, and a plan for the toilet are what people run out of.

Start with 3 days for everyone in the house, including pets. Then build toward 2 weeks, which is what Ready.gov suggests for staying home. Where I live in Middle Tennessee, the realistic ones are tornadoes, ice storms and summer power outages; check what's realistic where you are.

This guide is general preparedness, not professional advice. In a real emergency, follow your local officials and the National Weather Service.

The free part matters most. In real outages, households with plenty of supplies still struggled because nobody knew where things were or who to call. Put it on paper, because your phone will be dead or offline.

A wallet card for each person

• Phone numbers you'd need without your contacts app, including one person out of state (long-distance calls and texts often get through when local ones don't).
• Two meeting places: one near the house, one outside the neighborhood.
• Medications, doses and allergies.

A household binder

• Where the water shutoff, gas meter and breaker panel are, with photos.
• Insurance policy numbers, your utility outage numbers, your doctor and pharmacy.
• Which room you go to for a tornado warning (lowest floor, no windows).
• A list of what's in your kit and where it is.

Text uses far less network than a call. When towers are overloaded, texts often go through when calls fail.

Plan on one gallon per person per day, more in summer, plus extra for pets. Three days for a family of four is 12 gallons; two weeks is 56.

Store it

• Containers: food-grade jugs or bricks, filled from the tap. Store tap water in cleaned containers and replace it every 6 months. Sealed store-bought water lasts longer.
• The bathtub: when a storm is coming, fill a bathtub bladder. It holds around 100 gallons and keeps the water clean enough to drink.
• Your water heater already holds 40 to 50 gallons. Learn how to drain it from the valve at the bottom (turn off the power or gas to it first).

Make questionable water safe

• Boil: a rolling boil for 1 minute (3 minutes above 6,500 ft) kills germs.
• Bleach: plain, unscented household bleach. For 6% bleach, about 8 drops (1/8 teaspoon) per gallon of clear water; stir and wait 30 minutes. If it's cloudy, filter it first and double the dose. Check the label: 8.25% bleach needs about 6 drops.
• Filters remove bacteria and parasites but most don't remove viruses. Filter, then treat with a tablet or bleach when the source is doubtful.

Floodwater can carry fuel and chemicals that no filter or tablet removes. Don't drink it.

Winter

• Pick one small room, close it off, hang blankets over the windows and put everyone in it.
• Sleeping bags rated for cold and wool layers do more than any heater.
• Only use a heater rated for indoor use, with a low-oxygen and tip-over shutoff, and keep a window cracked.
• Never heat a home with a grill, camp stove, gas oven or generator. Carbon monoxide has no smell and kills people in their sleep every winter.
• Put a battery-powered CO alarm on every level and outside sleeping areas.
• Let faucets drip in a hard freeze so pipes don't burst.

Summer

• Stay on the lowest floor, keep blinds closed on the sunny side and open windows at night.
• Battery fans, wet towels and cool showers. Drink before you're thirsty.
• Know where your nearest cooling center is, and check on neighbors who live alone.

Decide what has to stay on, then buy for that. Rough numbers:

Phone charge      10–15 Wh each
Modem + router    10–20 W
Laptop            30–60 W
CPAP, no humidifier  30–60 W *
Full-size fridge  1–2 kWh a day

* Check your own device's manual. A router only helps if the internet is still up, and a fridge also needs a burst of extra power each time it starts.

• Phones and radios: a power bank or two. Cheap and enough for most people's first 3 days.
• Laptop, router, lights, a CPAP: a portable power station (a big battery with wall outlets). Get one with a LiFePO4 battery; they last thousands of charges and are safer indoors.
• Recharging: a folding solar panel turns a power station into something that lasts weeks of moderate use instead of a day or two.
• A fridge or a whole house: a large power station or an inverter generator.

Mine is an EcoFlow River 3 Plus with the extra battery that stacks under it, and a 220W solar panel. It can sit between the wall and your electronics as a battery backup, so nothing blinks when the power drops.

Generator rules

• Outside only, at least 20 feet from the house, with the exhaust pointed away from doors, windows and vents. Never in a garage, even with the door open.
• Don't plug a generator into a wall outlet ("backfeeding"). It can kill a utility worker. Use heavy extension cords, or have an electrician install a transfer switch.
• Store fuel safely with stabilizer, and run the generator monthly so it starts when you need it.

• A headlamp per person, kept in the same drawer. Hands-free beats a flashlight every time.
• A lantern per room you'll actually use.
• No candles if you can avoid them. Candles start a lot of house fires during outages.
• Standardize on AA and AAA so batteries swap between devices. Lithium AAs for the kit (they store for years), rechargeables for everyday gear.

• A NOAA weather radio gets National Weather Service broadcasts with no cell service or internet. A hand-crank or solar model charges itself.
• A desk alert radio with SAME codes only sounds for your county, so it can stay on at night and wake you for a tornado warning.
• Two-way radios: FRS radios need no license but reach about a neighborhood. GMRS radios reach farther and need an FCC license (no test; one license covers your family).
• Save your county's emergency alert pages and local radio station frequencies in the binder.

• Keep the fridge closed. Food stays safe about 4 hours in a closed fridge, about 48 hours in a full freezer (24 if half full). A fridge thermometer settles arguments: above 40°F for more than 2 hours, throw out perishables.
• Eat the fridge first, then the freezer, then the pantry.
• Store what you already eat. Canned goods, peanut butter, oats, rice. Buy an extra week of it and rotate.
• Freeze-dried meals are a good extra layer because they last decades, but they need water and cost a lot. Count calories, not "servings."
• A manual can opener. Everyone forgets it.
• Cook outside with propane, or inside only with a stove made for it and plenty of ventilation.

• If you still have stored water, you can flush by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl.
• If the sewer is backed up or you need to save water: a 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat lid, lined with heavy bags, with kitty litter or sawdust to cover each use. Double-bag and seal.
• Hand sanitizer, wet wipes, bleach for cleaning, and plenty of contractor bags.
• Diseases spread fast when sanitation breaks down. This is a health item, not a comfort item.

• Ask your doctor and pharmacist about keeping an extra supply of prescriptions, and how to store any that need refrigeration.
• Anyone on oxygen, a CPAP or another powered device: plan their power first, and register with your utility's medical priority list if it has one.
• A real first aid kit, plus pain relievers, allergy medicine, electrolytes and a thermometer.
• A tourniquet is worth having, but only with training. A free Stop the Bleed class takes a couple of hours.
• A paper medical reference for when you can't look things up.

• Cash in small bills. Card readers and ATMs need power and internet.
• Copies of IDs, insurance, deeds, titles and medical records in a fire and water resistant container. A second copy on an encrypted USB drive.
• Photos of every room and your valuables for insurance claims.
• Keep the originals somewhere you can grab in under a minute if you have to leave.

• Kiwix is a free app that holds whole websites offline: all of Wikipedia, medical encyclopedias, repair guides and more. Download it to a laptop, phone or old computer before you need it.
• Download offline maps for your area in your maps app.
• PDF owner's manuals for your generator, furnace, water heater and power station, saved locally.
• A small shelf of paper books for medicine, food storage and general skills.
• An e-reader runs for weeks on a charge and holds a library.

Do this when the clocks change in spring and fall:

1. Replace stored tap water and check expiration dates on food and medicine.
2. Charge every power bank, power station and radio. Lithium batteries last longest stored around half to 80% full.
3. Test CO and smoke alarms.
4. Start the generator and run it under load.
5. Update the wallet cards and binder.
6. Do one practice evening with the main breaker off. You'll find out what you forgot.

Skip these

• The Lost Ways and similar books sold through ads: the author is a marketing persona and the safety advice is unreliable.
• No-name "solar generators" with no battery chemistry listed. Look for LiFePO4 and a brand that will be around for warranty.
• Cheap Baofeng-style radios without a license. Transmitting on them without an amateur license is illegal; FRS or licensed GMRS radios do the family job.
• Propane camp stoves, grills or generators indoors, ever.
• Bargain tourniquets. Fakes break under load.