72 Hour Kits - A New Menu

We've been planning and shopping to repack our 72 hour kits this week. Since we didn't love our last menu, we've been trying to come up with a better one. In the end, we didn't change it very much, but we decided that we will rotate every year and not wait 18 months like we did last time. We did make a few changes that really simplified things. Here is our new menu:

Day 1 - 1 oatmeal, 1 juice box, 1 Ramen, 1 fruit can, 1 can soup, 2 water bottles, 1 fruit snack, 1 hot chocolate, 1 roll lifesavers, 1 pkg. cookies

Day2 - 1 oatmeal, 1 juice box, 1 Ramen, 1 box raisins, 1 MRE, 2 water bottles, 1 fruit snack, 1 hot chocolate, 2 pkgs. cookies

Day 3 - 1 oatmeal, 1 juice box, 1 Ramen, 1 fruit can, 1 can chili, 2 water bottles, 1 fruit snack, 1 hot chocolate, 1 roll lifesavers, 2 pkgs. cookies

Even though we didn't like any of the MRE's we tried, we decided we still wanted to have one MRE, because if we were truly in an emergency, we might want food that was cooked and ready to eat.

In general, I really love our 72 hour kits. I've tried them several ways and so far I like this way the best. If you are struggling to figure out how to put some together, here are some ideas I really like. Most of them came from a class I went to by Jennifer Goldsberry.

This is one of my kids 72 hour kits:

Each person in our family has a backpack. Inside it are the following:

* Food and water for 72 hours including a menu (in Ziploc bags to contain it if anything leaks)

* Clothing - sweatpants, long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, underwear, 2 pairs of socks, hat, and work gloves (in a big garbage to bag to keep it all dry) (one great tip is to buy everything too big - then you'll know it will fit when you need it, and when you update your kits, you can pull out the clothes that now fit just right and put in new clothes that are too big)

* Shaking flashlight

*poncho

*dust mask (at least N95)

*handwarmers

*emergency blanket

*whistle

* $20 in small change

*names, phone numbers and addresses of our relatives

My 2 year old also has cloth diapers, pins, and rubber pants.

That's it inside their packs. But on the outside is another one of my favorite things. It's a laminated paper that we tied on to the outside of each pack. On one side is a picture of our family. Apparently, if someone in your family is lost, it's great to have an easily accessible picture to ask people if they've seen them. On the other side is the following information about each person:

*Name, phone number, address (first meeting place)

*Information about the person including hair color, eye color, allergies, medications

*Second meeting place location (somewhere in the neighborhood)

*Third meeting place location (somewhere outside of the neighborhood)

*Out of state contact

*Grandparents phone numbers and addresses

*Things that person should grab besides their backpack if they have time

Last time we put our 72 hour kits together, we did a practice drill to see how long it would take us to get everything into our van. It took us 20 minutes grabbing everything on our big list. We thought that was pretty good, but we think we can do it faster now that we've had a trial run. Our big list includes a bigger "garbage can" 72 hour kit, extra water, all our scrapbooks (about 25 of them), the computer, wallets, cell phones, coats, and more.

Two more notes: (1) My backpack and my husband's backpack have more stuff than our kids. We have first aid kits, rope, can openers, a crank radio, and all sorts of things. But that's a list for another day. There are lists all over the web if you need one soon.

(2) 72 hour kits and other "preparedness" jobs take work and money. But you don't have to start big. Just start with something and then revisit it. Every time we come back to our 72 hour kits or our preparedness, we get a little better at it. It usually doesn't have to be done all at one time. (Although, I really like to do stuff like this for birthdays or Christmas because it gives me a present and a deadline all at the same time!)

Get prepared!