Many of us want to get started down the road to preparedness but don’t know where to start. The basic 72 Hour kit is probably your best first step. A few things you should know. First, you probably should not go out, and spend money on an expensive kit at a store. First, it costs money and second, it probably does not contain the things that you really need to take care of your family in a real emergency.
Where to start?
We should start with the purpose of the 72 hour kit. In a disaster there are three scenarios we think about. Shelter in place (you stay home and live off food storage). Extended evacuation (You slowly pack the car with all your camping gear and go car camping for a while). And the third option the Fast Evacuation (You grab you 72 hour kit and run).
We are talking about option 3. You have a matter of minutes (or seconds) to grab your kits, get in the car and drive to safety or even flee on foot. You may end up in a hotel room or in the 40 square feet of high school gym space assigned to you in a Red Cross evacuation shelter.
The first items we are going to collect for this important kit are actually the items that make for the quickest recovery and they are some the the items most often left out. I am talking about the paperwork.
When our family had a house fire a number of years ago one of the first things we needed was the phone number and information about our home owners insurance. As we watched from across the street we wondered if all of our most important papers were going to be OK. Would they survive the fire? Would they survive the 500 gallons per minute of water that the fire trucks pump in from each hose?
Electronic vs. paper
Old school we would recommend that you go down to the copy shop and make a photocopy of all of your most important documents. With technology today you may want to consider electronic copies of everything. Just remember that in a large scale disaster, you may have limited access to the Internet, cell phone data may or may not work, and the ability to charge your phone may become very limited. I have been in more than one Red Cross shelter where in order to avoid blowing circuits, charging cell phones was not allowed.
Another important document would be some form of ID. I recommend a copy of your passport, drivers license, or other photo ID. It may not work as a form of identification but it sure will help when you are working with the authorities to try to get back into your home or to try to get replacement identification.
Contact info
And like it or not another one that you should probably have in the kit is contact information for your life insurance company and agent. Note that you do not need copies of the entire policy. Contact information for the agents and the company names are usually enough.
While I and doing the paperwork we always add an Emergency Contact List. This of course will list our all important out of state emergency family contact with email and phone number but also list the family doctor, dentist and other medical professionals. We also list family friends and work numbers we will need to contact in an emergency.
One more addition we feel will be very helpful is a photo of all your medications or prescriptions. In a crunch you may need to provide that information to a professional so they can assist you in obtaining refills.
Meeting your needs
This is not a comprehensive list of all the documents that need to be in your kit. Think about your family and the individual situation. What are the important papers or documents that if lost would really make your life difficult. Those are the ones that you need copies of in your kit. I used to keep all of mine in a plastic bag in the top of my backpack. Today they are in an encrypted file on my phone with a backup on an old thumb drive. My recommendation, do what you are most comfortable with, just make sure you can get to those important files when you need them.