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Non Paranoid Level Disaster Planning Items (1 Viewer)

mr roboto

mr roboto

Footballguy
watching the Buffalo story recently got me thinking that I am not really intentionally prepared to write out a natural disaster for more than a couple days in my own home. Of course we have the canned foods and soups that anybody keeps around but most of our food is refrigerated or frozen and relies on being cooked which, if you cannot leave the home for lose power, can be difficult to do.

I don't want to drop a ton of cash on a very unlikely situation, and I'm not at all interested in being worried about the end of civilization like some of the doomsday preppers are. I would like to hear stories or recommendations on the best types of foods or places to buy foods that will store for years as well as any other items that you feel are important to have for disaster readiness.

 
There have already been a couple good threads on this... mostly good info intermingled with a few antagonistic posts by naive folks convinced that 48 hours worth of food and beverage and a pack of AA batteries will get them through anything until the government comes to save them.

A good starting point is ready.gov's list.. here is my modified version of that.

Emergency Supplies:
Water, food, and clean air are important things to have if an emergency happens. Each family or individual's kit should be customized to meet specific needs, such as medications and infant formula. It should also be customized to include important family documents.

Recommended Supplies to Include in a Basic Kit:
- Water : 5 Gallons per person. Plus 5 gallons for general use. (BPA Free - Food Grade for safe long term storage)
- Food : 3-5 day supply. MRE are cheap and easy. Canned goods as well.
- Battery-powered radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert, and extra batteries for both
- Flashlight and extra batteries
- First Aid kit (antiseptic, bandages, clean dressing, tweezers, lighter, alcohol, etc)
- Whistle to signal for help
- Infant formula and diapers, if you have an infant
- Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
- Dust mask or cotton t-shirt, to help filter the air
- Plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
- Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
- Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)

- Sterno cans for cooking / heating food.

Clothing and Bedding:
If you live in a cold weather climate, you must think about warmth. It is possible that the power will be out and you will not have heat. Rethink your clothing and bedding supplies to account for growing children and other family changes. One complete change of warm clothing and shoes per person, including:
- A jacket or coat
- Long pants
- A long sleeve shirt
- Sturdy shoes
- A hat and gloves
- A sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person

Family Supply List

Below are some other items for your family to consider adding to its supply kit. Some of these items, especially those marked with a * can be dangerous, so please have an adult collect these supplies.
- Emergency reference materials such as a first aid book or a print out of the information on www.ready.gov
- Rain gear
- Mess kits, paper cups, plates and plastic utensils
- Cash or traveler's checks, change
- Paper towels
- Fire Extinguisher
- Tent
- Compass
- Matches in a waterproof container*
- Signal flare*
- Paper, pencil
- Personal hygiene items including feminine supplies
- Disinfectant*
- Household chlorine bleach* - You can use bleach as a disinfectant (diluted nine parts water to one part bleach), or in an emergency you can also use it to treat water. Use 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach per gallon of water. Do not use scented, color safe or bleaches with added cleaners.
- Medicine dropper
- Important Family Documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records in a waterproof, portable container

 
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Bare minimum?

• MRE Case for each person in household or canned food equivalent
• 5 Gallon Jug of water for each person in household
• First Aid Kit
• Flashlights w/ batteries
• Weather/AM/FM radio with batteries
• Means of water purification (lifestraw/tablets/bleach/etc)
• Matches/Lighter/Firestarters

• Blankets/etc if you live in a cold environment

You could spend $250-300 on a family of 4 and be in pretty good shape.

I'm also of the opinion that some sort of firearm with a reasonable supply of ammunition is extremely important. In many shorter term interruptions, most folks will keep composure. However in Katrina-esque situations, people will begin taking advantage of the scenario and/or preying on unprotected resources.

Having all the supplies in the world does you no good if someone can walk up with a pistol and easily take them from you.

 
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Here's what we do. Every item in our pantry has a counterpart in the basement pantry. For every box of cereal, box or bag of rice or beans, can of peanut butter, jar of jelly or applesauce, bag of flour, sugar, honey salt, nuts, crackers, whatever, we have a counterpart downstairs. Same with the toiletries and medicine cabinet in the master bath. When we run out of an item we put it on the grocery list. We then purchase the item and place it downstairs and rotate the downstairs item up into the regular pantry for use. Basically this gives us, at a minimum, a week or more food supply just downstairs, plus what is in the pantry. We also have toiletries and ### wipe a plenty.

To cook I have my grill and smoker. I can go charcoal or propane. No problems. We buy water when we are down to 5 cases, and we have two 50 gallon water heaters in the house to turn to if we need to drain them. My wife goes back and forth on wanting a water cooler up in the kitchen so we have one, and a few 5 gallon jugs around as well. Sometimes its in the kitchen, and sometimes the basement, but its around.

Blankets, sleeping bags, tarps, tools, radios, lights, well we have a well stocked home and I camp and hunt so no problem. We generally have a few batteries around and we have one wind up radio generator. We have candles all over the house because my wife loves them for decoration and scent. We have a few cans of sterno because maybe once a year we will do the fondue thing.

I have a small generator. It will not run the house, but will run a couple of lights, a T.V., and a portable electric heater. Mine is powered by propane. I find it quiet, and since I have propane around for the grill this is easy. One propane tank will power the generator for 24 hours unless I am really stressing the thing. (If I had gasoline power equipment and mowers I would go gas on the generator as well since I would have gas cans around.)

As for protection, well I hunt, and my career has involved me being assigned a weapon, so that is not an additional consideration in my case.

 
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In 2003 we got a 6 foot snowfall on St. Patrick's day. It was heavy and wet and took out power lines. roads were closed for days. The power lines in my neighborhood are undergrounded so they will not tend to go out, but the snow took out the main lines miles away. We were relatively warm and comfortable with the arrangements we had in place. Not so for some of the neighbors. We ended up taking in two families of neighbors for the duration. I imagine Buffalo is experiencing something similar right now. Our total time of disrupted services and travel was 100 hours, just over 4 days.

 
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ar-15's for husband and wife

Handguns for the kids

A crossbow

Machete

Steal from the suckers that have no weapons

 
Bucky86 said:
ar-15's for husband and wife

Handguns for the kids

A crossbow

Machete

Steal from the suckers that have no weapons
Click to expand...
For a map of your neighborhood indicating the unarmed, simply note the yard signs around election time. Those homes supporting democrats or green party candidates are presumptively unarmed. Keep note of this for the zombie apocalypse. Be aware this is a guideline and not a rule.

Me, I don't anticipate the breakdown of society, but your plan needs to be expanded just a touch, to include likely targets.

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
Bucky86 said:
ar-15's for husband and wife

Handguns for the kids

A crossbow

Machete

Steal from the suckers that have no weapons
Click to expand...
For a map of your neighborhood indicating the unarmed, simply note the yard signs around election time. Those homes supporting democrats or green party candidates are presumptively unarmed. Keep note of this for the zombie apocalypse. Be aware this is a guideline and not a rule.Me, I don't anticipate the breakdown of society, but your plan needs to be expanded just a touch, to include likely targets.
Click to expand...
:goodposting: Prius in the driveway signals dinner to me.
 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
In 2003 we got a 6 foot snowfall on St. Patrick's day. It was heavy and wet and took out power lines. roads were closed for days. The power lines in my neighborhood are undergrounded so they will not tend to go out, but the snow took out the main lines miles away. We were relatively warm and comfortable with the arrangements we had in place. Not so for some of the neighbors. We ended up taking in two families of neighbors for the duration. I imagine Buffalo is experiencing something similar right now. Our total time of disrupted services and travel was 100 hours, just over 4 days.
Click to expand...
Yep. There are certainly parts of the country much LESS likely to encounter a 3-5 day disruption of services.... but there aren't many that are exempt.

Pretty easy to have some basic #### in the corner of a closet that will get you through it.

 
Bucky86 said:
Ditkaless Wonders said:
Bucky86 said:
ar-15's for husband and wife

Handguns for the kids

A crossbow

Machete

Steal from the suckers that have no weapons
Click to expand...
For a map of your neighborhood indicating the unarmed, simply note the yard signs around election time. Those homes supporting democrats or green party candidates are presumptively unarmed. Keep note of this for the zombie apocalypse. Be aware this is a guideline and not a rule.Me, I don't anticipate the breakdown of society, but your plan needs to be expanded just a touch, to include likely targets.
Click to expand...
:goodposting: Prius in the driveway signals dinner to me.
Click to expand...
Yep. Prius in driveway = Come on in and take our stuff. Can siphon off their 8 gallons of fuel pretty easily without threat of repercussions outside of a stern talking to.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
[icon] said:
Bucky86 said:
Ditkaless Wonders said:
Bucky86 said:
ar-15's for husband and wife

Handguns for the kids

A crossbow

Machete

Steal from the suckers that have no weapons
Click to expand...
For a map of your neighborhood indicating the unarmed, simply note the yard signs around election time. Those homes supporting democrats or green party candidates are presumptively unarmed. Keep note of this for the zombie apocalypse. Be aware this is a guideline and not a rule.Me, I don't anticipate the breakdown of society, but your plan needs to be expanded just a touch, to include likely targets.
Click to expand...
:goodposting: Prius in the driveway signals dinner to me.
Click to expand...
Yep. Prius in driveway = Come on in and take our stuff. Can siphon off their 8 gallons of fuel pretty easily without threat of repercussions outside of a stern talking to.
Click to expand...
hire a black dude to do it- they will understand and probably thank him

 
Bucky86 said:
Ditkaless Wonders said:
Bucky86 said:
ar-15's for husband and wife

Handguns for the kids

A crossbow

Machete

Steal from the suckers that have no weapons
Click to expand...
For a map of your neighborhood indicating the unarmed, simply note the yard signs around election time. Those homes supporting democrats or green party candidates are presumptively unarmed. Keep note of this for the zombie apocalypse. Be aware this is a guideline and not a rule.Me, I don't anticipate the breakdown of society, but your plan needs to be expanded just a touch, to include likely targets.
Click to expand...
:goodposting: Prius in the driveway signals dinner to me.
Click to expand...
I had not thought of that, but probably not a bad indicator in most cases.

 
[icon] said:
Ditkaless Wonders said:
In 2003 we got a 6 foot snowfall on St. Patrick's day. It was heavy and wet and took out power lines. roads were closed for days. The power lines in my neighborhood are undergrounded so they will not tend to go out, but the snow took out the main lines miles away. We were relatively warm and comfortable with the arrangements we had in place. Not so for some of the neighbors. We ended up taking in two families of neighbors for the duration. I imagine Buffalo is experiencing something similar right now. Our total time of disrupted services and travel was 100 hours, just over 4 days.
Click to expand...
Yep. There are certainly parts of the country much LESS likely to encounter a 3-5 day disruption of services.... but there aren't many that are exempt.

Pretty easy to have some basic #### in the corner of a closet that will get you through it.
Click to expand...
I like not having specialty supplies that we may not ever use, just an abundance of stuff we know we use. Even the generator gets used every year at Elk Camp. It gets cold up high.

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
[icon] said:
Ditkaless Wonders said:
In 2003 we got a 6 foot snowfall on St. Patrick's day. It was heavy and wet and took out power lines. roads were closed for days. The power lines in my neighborhood are undergrounded so they will not tend to go out, but the snow took out the main lines miles away. We were relatively warm and comfortable with the arrangements we had in place. Not so for some of the neighbors. We ended up taking in two families of neighbors for the duration. I imagine Buffalo is experiencing something similar right now. Our total time of disrupted services and travel was 100 hours, just over 4 days.
Click to expand...
Yep. There are certainly parts of the country much LESS likely to encounter a 3-5 day disruption of services.... but there aren't many that are exempt.

Pretty easy to have some basic #### in the corner of a closet that will get you through it.
Click to expand...
I like not having specialty supplies that we may not ever use, just an abundance of stuff we know we use. Even the generator gets used every year at Elk Camp. It gets cold up high.
Click to expand...
Yep. YOu guys have a great approach.

All my camping / outdoors gear gets used a lot (this weekend for example). My MRE's are the only real potential "waste" but I take them camping and restock sometimes when they're winding down. Your system is definitely the most practical approach :thumbup:

 
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