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What items do I need for general emergency preparedness?

I have a wife and four children. I am wondering what items to keep on hand in case (the Dow drops below 8000 and there are massive riots. That's silly right?). We have a tent, I bought a propane lantern and cook stove. I have 100 lbs of rice and I have 75lbs of beans on the way.

specific questions:

1) How do I store enough water for 6 people? It has to be mostly maintenance free because it is going to be a lot of water.

2) How much food do I really need. It seems like that should do it 100lbs of everything but growing kids (8,6,3,3) can throw things off a bit.

3) I probably need more lighting, are there any other items that I could use that I might be missing?

I want to keep it reasonable but useful. I am trying to buy things that will keep, and that we would use anyway. Also the only other thing that I can think of is a gun, but with 4 young kids I don't even want to think about that.

Thanks for all your help.

Public Comments

1. don't forget the cake mix

2. Hard to say! Its weird to think that in case of an emergencies we wouldn't be able to use simple things we take for granted everyday. Im glad your well prepared and are thinking ahead...not too many people like you in this day and age. Not only would i be worried about things like riots, but natural disasters are more common lately so id keep that in mind as well.I would in addition keep things like can openers,matches etc. on hand. A tool box with only the bare minimum tools such as a hammer, screw driver and you catch my drift, toiletries,Candles could never hurt, A first aid kit would be number one on my list and a list of important contacts and addresses in case electronics aren't working.Blankets, you catch my drift. As far as water goes, i'd say get your hands on a few sparkletts bottles. they hold a good amount of water and are easy stored and the strong plastic could up stand almost anything. Hope this helps.

3. To answer your first question, you really can't. Not a lot of ways to store water for long periods of time without it going bad, yes water can go bad if you leave it sitting. However, if such a situation were to arise that would require fending for your self in your home, fill your bath tub as high as it will go, same thing with your sinks and the like and any buckets you have around, when you use it, make sure it is boiled in order to kill any bacteria that may have collected.

As for the food, it sounds like you have the right idea, dry goods that have a long shelf life. Anything like that will work honestly. Canned good are a really good pick as well. Maybe get some seeds to plant some form of food too, but that depends on where you live.

Third question: Flashlight, blankets, a tarp, rain ponchos (the tarp and ponchos are useful for lots of various things.), A decent length of rope (not sure how much really), matches, flint and steel, a hatchet (chop wood once the propane is out), and last but not least, a gun. There is no reason for me to try and convince you that a firearm is necessary in such uncertain times as these, especially with what you are worried about.

You should get a good reliable firearm to protect your family with. Either a shotgun, Remington 870 or Mossberg 500, or a good revolver are the staples of the self defense weapons. When worrying about a collapse of government and riots and the like, you're going to have looters. Those are not the primary concern, after a while if you actually need that food you store, others will need it too and if they come to you for it, you will need to protect it as well.

None of this is to scare you or anything like that, just somethings to think on. I wish you much luck in your preparedness and am glad to see you are off to a good start.

4. couple of guns and ammunition for a small army should suffice

5. It makes good sense for EVERYONE to have a plan in case of an emergency. Just look what happened to the people in the Gulf of Mexico communities when the hurricanes struck.

I really don't see a point in things like dry rice and beans. My own survival food stuffs are basically canned foods that are already precooked. (Chef Boyardee canned ravioli, lasanga, canned soups, canned tuna fish, canned baked beans, canned chilli, canned fruits and canned everything.) I keep my food in a nice plastic Sterlite or Rubbermaid container and I tape it shut and indicate the date on it. When it gets to be about 9 months old, I bring out the canned goods and prepare to eat them as part of my everyday meals...and I replenish the supplies.

The advantage of canned goods is that they will stay fresh longer than sacks of rice or beans (which are suseptable to mold and fungus from moisture). Also, the canned items I mention can be cooked OR they can be eaten cold...as they are already pre-cooked by the manufacturer. Cold pastas from a can are not the greatest, but when you are hungry, they taste like a gormet meal.

Other things you may wish to consider are a simple first aid kit, a radio that runs on batteries, and some flashlights (the new LED style lights are great!).

Just sit down and think about what you would need on a day to day basis to keep your family going for 2 to 4 weeks, if you were stranded.

As a side note, I recall that in the winter of 1994-95, we had a series of severe snow storms and cold weather that hid the mid-atlantic coast. The roads were basically closed for 3 business days, and I was glad that I had some food around. At one point, I decided to get out and get some exercise, so I walked to a nearby convenience store to buy some milk. It was like something out of a Mad Max movie, where the store had no electricity and the shevles only had a few items remaining on them. No milk, no bread, just a handful of soda pops, and some stale lunchcakes. Amazing stuff.


6. Wow some folks are ignorant, sure you can store water for a loooooooooooong time, here is a book with the info you need;
http://beasurvivor.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-review-emergency-food-storage.html
Here is a link on how to store water;
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/166359/storing_water_in_your_home_food_storage.html

I use a food grade 55 gallon drum with plain bleach added, it will keep for a long time. I opened one that sat for 3 years and the water was fine.

Another link with info on food and water;
http://www.bearridgeproject.com/2008/03/survival-food-storage-why-do-it.html
A bunch more info;
http://www.bearridgeproject.com/2008/03/survival-food-storage-why-do-it.html
http://www.family-survival-planning.com/

Remember to store extra medicine and first aid stuff. You can either store a whole lot of canned food or dehydrated food. Figure out what you need to feed the family for a day and just multiply the days you want to be prepared for. I keep at least a 6 month supply of everything.

For light get a LED lantern with rechargeable batteries you can charge with a solar panel. They sell wind up flash lights and radios that don’t use batteries.
Those links will fill ya in.

Buy a gun and and ammo and lock it up so kiddies cant get to it.

7. If I was in your situation I would definitely stock up on can goods, flour, MRE's (meal ready to eat), matches, batteries, blankets, etc. You have the right idea and are on the right track. The Army also has water purification tablets too. It can be the rankest nastiest water and you can purify it. As far as self defense/hunting I would purchase a .45 pistol and a AR-15 rifle or a 12 ga. shotgun. Teach your wife to shoot also. That way she's feels safe and handles the weapon properly. Remember guns don't kill people...people do. If you live in the city limits and don't have anywhere in the country to practice shooting go and join a gun club. A hunter safety coarse for you and your family wouldn't be a bad idea either. A survival book wouldn't be a bad item to keep on hand too.

8. Water and water purification tablets are a must. In a pinch you could use ordinary household bleach (chemical formula: Sodium HypoChloride) in small quantities (drops) to kill harmful agents in otherwise non-potable water. I keep two plastic 55 gallon drums in the backyard that I fill with city water for emergencies like the recent Hurricane Ike. We never had to resort to these to drink from (had plenty of bottled water) but if we had to I would have either boiled this water or added about five drops of Chlorox to every five gallons just in case.

I am also looking into purchasing a generator for emergency use. We used an invertor part of the time since we were without electricity for 8 days in my neighborhood during Ike.

I honestly do not visualize the scenario you describe but if you really believe that then you need to get a gun. Secure it in a lock box or with a trigger lock for your children's safety or just train them not to mess with it. You also need to have plenty of matches on hand and also keep these out of your children's reach. I opted for oil lanterns and lamps rather than propane lanterns. Plenty of people here had propane lanterns and no wicks (you know how hard those are to find in an emergency?) and kerosene/oil lamp wicks last nearly forever. Interestingly enough I did have a pair of wicks for a propane lamp and was forced to use them on our front lawn's gas lantern. Somehow during the storm one of the wicks completely broke off. I managed to substitute the ones I had for the original and our's was the only house in the neighborhood with a lighted front lawn which was of great comfort since our 80 lbs. Chow-Chow kept guard in the backyard.

What I'd recommend to you is more water (see if you can get a couple of clean, plastice 55 gallon drums for water), also get some oil lamps and lanterns, lamp oil and Citronella (to keep mosquitos at bay), plenty of matches and at least get a dog to warn you of unwanted callers. If you get a dog be sure and provided for his needs also (plenty of dog food). If you don't have any flashlights get some and buy batteries in bulk. If you get the 'AA' flashlights (you'd be surprised how much light they provide) you can get a 20 or 30 pack of double-A batteries nearly anywhere. Otherwise use the D-cell type. One last tip I learned during Hurricane Ike, the flashlights to get should have a flat base. This way you can stand them up shinning straight up. The white ceiling diffuses the light pretty well and as soon as you get used to the subdued lighting you see that this illuminates a room pretty well. Finally, a battery powered radio can keep you abreast of the news and serve as an entertainment center.

Good luck.

H


9. Let me start by saying that because you're looking to store water for 6 people and will have hundreds of pounds of food, I'm working on the assumption that you'll be staying put rather than bugging out.

Water for 6 people. You'll probably have to use 55 gallon drums. Here's a video on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw8J8_8V7jM . If you can't watch for one reason or another, basically he recommends filling up your containers with non-filtered tap water and rotating every year. It should be non-filtered because the added chlorine helps preserve it. What I do is have maybe 20 gallons stored for immediate use, and 2 wells (one shallow, one deep). If a well is acceptable in your area, you may want to consider that. Rainwater collection is something else you may want to consider.

No idea how much kids eat, so I can't help you there. But I would add a larger variety. Maybe add some oatmeal, canned stuff (which can be anything from pineapple to ravioli to spam), etc. Contrary to what's been said, properly stored dry food can last for decades. The best DIY method now is to use 5 gallon buckets, with sealed Mylar bags inside, with oxygen absorbers. That's the best way...personally, that's too much screwing around for me and I'm not expecting armageddon anytime soon, so I just seal it all with a vacuum sealer in normal vacuum sealer bags and then keep it in a dark area to avoid light degradation.

Lighting's good. Candles are cheap, reliable, but a fire hazard. I'd avoid taper ones because they're easy to knock over and therefore are a significant fire hazard. All candles are, but the taper ones especially. Kerosene lanterns and oil lamps are cheap, as is the fuel, and are less of a fire hazard than candles (and they're just really cool IMO). Flashlights are good - no fire hazard there. Stick to LED ones. My two favorites that aren't mods would be the D cell Maglite MagLED and the Streamlight ProPolymer 2aa LED. They both are good quality, are have great runtime (about 25-26 hours to 50% brightness for a 2D MagLED, 19 hours to 50% brightness for the Streamlight), and use commonly available, inexpensive batteries. Those Coleman lanterns with the Cree XR-E LEDs seem nice, too. I have one, but haven't had a reason to use it much. Personally, I have a lot of all three - pillar candles, flashlights, and oil lanterns.

Other things you may want: first aid kit, toilet paper, soap, toothpaste and some extra toothbrushes, a watch and/or battery powered clock, a quality fixed blade knife. Considering all of your food is dry food, you may want a large Thermos for cooking it (google: thermos cooking). That will greatly cut down on the required fuel. You'll want some extra blankets and/or sleeping bags. If you're able, a woodstove is not be a bad idea. Of course, you'll want stuff that's required for everything else - lighters or matches for candles, batteries for flashlight and radio, wood for the woodstove, an axe/saw and a maul for the wood for the wood stove, ammo and cleaning supplies for the gun, etc.

You'll probably want a am/fm radio at least. Read some reviews of whatever radio you have in mind to make sure it has good AM sensitivity (price doesn't necessarily reflect performance in this regard). If you want to take the time, you can stand outside some night and go through the AM stations and see which ones of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_channel you can pick up and make a list of it. At night, those stations can be picked up from hundreds of miles away (I live near Lake Ontario in NY, but am able to pick up WSB from Atlanta on a $15 Radio Shack radio). That way, even if all the stations in your area are down, you'll still have acess to news.

If riots are a concern, a gun is just as important as food. When the rampaging mobs are out, how else will you make sure your food and supplies stays yours? As far as kids go, most people in this section probably grew up around guns, and we're all okay. You just have to introduce the kids to guns and teach them what they are, what the negative consequences of playing with them are, and how to operate it. Especially the 4 rules of gun handling:
The gun is always loaded
Never point the gun at anything you're not willing to destroy
Keep your finger off the trigger unless your engaging the target
Be sure of your target and what's around it, including behind it.

The gun doesn't need to be anything expensive or super tacticool. A shotgun, an SKS, or a Mosin Nagant will serve you just fine and can be had usually for under $200, or in the case of the Mosin, sometimes under $100 (which may not seem like much of a gun compared to modern ARs and such, but remember it was battle tested in both World Wars and many other conflicts). What's more important than what you get is that you know how to use it. How to shoot it, how to operate it, how to reload it, how to clear jams, etc.

Certainly a good thing to have would

10. Read this........ This is what one fellow went thru when Argentina's economy collapsed in 2000 and how he got thru it......

http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=044387;p=1

Its pretty eye opening....

11. 1- depending on how much your family drinks, you can get a number of how many gallons for 6 people for a reasonable 2-3 weeks. I personally drink about 1/2 gal a day of water. Its on the low side. the kids are active, they'll probably drink about 1gal,2pints a day. you and your wife could reduce physical activity and get your water needs down to 3/4 of a gallon. That's drinking water only. If you store for cooking, washing your storage can be double ,triple or quadruple in size.
You can buy 55 gallon food-grade water storage drums online. Last time I checked it was 25$ each and shipping was 4$ per drum. That was probably 3-5 years ago. If you can, try to get a local store to buy them from. otherwise the shipping may be more than the cost of your order.
Larger tanks, underground type can be in 1000, 2000, 5000 or more gallons in size. I have no idea of the cost. It can't be more than 5g's of cash. Its a big plastic tank that's put underground.
The use the water you can filter and boil to drink, or treat with water purification tablets before use.

2-food depends on you. if you closely observe how much your kids eat, for say 1 week, you can calculate on average how much food they need a day. Your food needs to meet all 5 food groups, so rice won't work. you need veggies, fruits, meat, diary. Dried milk, canned veggies and fruit. meat, spam cans, canned meat. watch the sodium levels and the fat levels of the food you buy. many times canned food can have over 30% of your daily needs of sodium, if you continue to eat that food you can get really sick. Same goes for fat content. avoid foods with trans fat. anything you can't get ahold of with an affordable price you can cover it up with multivitamins. You need multivitamins, supplement pills, and individual pills for things like iron, calcium, vitamin c if you find your food isn't as nutritious as you need it to be.

3-electricity is a valuable commodity. I don't mean by that you need to go and buy the biggest generator you can afford, but realize that without electricity you need to find ways around an electric stove, water heater, tv, computer, lights, a/c. If your house is in a hot area like the desert, you need away around dependence on the A/C. The AC is a power hog. if you added patio to your home you can use fans to pump cooler air from shaded areas downstairs to upstairs where it is generally hotter. Fans are energy efficient. Around TVs and computer, for the kids you need books, board games, whatever you probably did when you were growing up. I grew up in the 1990s, so I have no idea what to do without TV, computer, movies. You don't want too much outside activity because it would more rapidly deplete your water and food.
Lights, you have a choice- electrical (as in battery powered) vs gas (like propane or some other thing with mantles). Electrical only works if your batteries don't run out. Gas lamps create deadly gasses and a serious fire hazard.
You can go around the light problem with an expensive solar setup. the solar panels are he expensive part. if you had 2-150w panels on the roof charging a couple real industrial deep-cycle batteries, it would power your lights, fans, and probably TV/small computer for a while everyday. In regular times, it would reduce your power usage and eventually pay of itself.
you need emergancy lights too, so cylumes (chemical lightsticks) are good, instant lights, safe that is disposable. buy online to save lots of money. Its also fun for the kids.
You need an LED flashlight per member of family + 2 extras. Most local stores like Microcenter or Fry's electronics sell 9LED water resistant quality LED flashlights for under $5. You need a supply of AAA's to power the flashlights. Costco (or other discount store like walmart) sells that cheap.
Candles and oil lanterns to back up the LED's and chem lights. Oil lamps if carefully used, uses little oil. a 28 oz tank holds enough gas for 2 weeks. you can buy clean burning paraffin oil.
Candles is the last source of illumination if you really ran out of everything. Don't forget matches and lighters.

If you want a gun, you don't need a big powerful one. buy something like a .22lr rifle. they generally don't look impressive and looks like what a 12 year old would have. But if carefully used, can be very effective in protection. ammo is cheap, practice is cheap. Ruger 10/22 or Marlin 39. You can "double lock" it, as in one cable lock thru the gun's action, and another to chain it to something heavy and immovable. ammo runs about 15$ per box of 550 rounds at walmart. 4 box of 550 is all that you need. A couple 30rd magazines for the 10/22, since the .22lr needs quantity to be effective. Your whole thing would be under 500$ total (220 for gun, 50 for ammo, 80 for 5 magazines, 20 for two gun cable locks, add tax, and paperwork fees)


12. I have one acronym for you: Y2K.The world never ends, we are so much more resilient than that.I know it will someday, but I don't think it's going to be over economics. I think it's just going to get really hot.