Go bags, Evac kits, 72 Hour Kits

onejayhawk

onejayhawk

Afflicted with reason
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
13,706
Location
next to George Bush's parents
Who has them, what do you put in them, and where are they stored?

Some reference material:

Hurricane: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weat...-in-the-face-of-an-imminent-disaster/70002646

General preparedness:
https://www.ready.gov/build-a-kit

Go bags: https://www.ready.gov/build-a-kit
http://graywolfsurvival.com/3089/graywolfs-bug-bag-list-contents/

We have two, one in the house and one in the car. Some items not usually found in homes:
Hand crank radio/flashlight
Bacteria grade water filter
Grain mill

More common:
Packaged 1st aid kit
Oil lamps with extra wicks and oil
Gasoline powered stove and lantern
Electric generator
12V - 110V converter for car
90 days food supply
10 days water

J
 
I always keep one bullet handy for emergency evacuation.
 
I don't know what any of these things are. Do I still pass?
 
I keep a toothbrush and a finger-sized LED flashlight in my shoulder bag. It's amazing how bright the thing is. The flashlight, not the toothbrush.
 
I have backpacking gear to survive in the backcountry for a couple weeks with regular food rations. If I was at my house, my regular food supplies (vegetable oil, nuts, dried fruit, rice, pasta, legumes, etc.) have enough Calories for several months. (And I've got enough propane/isobutane to rehydrate the stuff that needs heat.)

"Bacteria grade" water filters aren't particularly expensive. For my personal filter I've got a Sawyer Mini, plus some Aquatabs as backup.

I don't bother with any electronic gizmos other than NiMH AA/AAA batteries or anything that takes fuel other than propane/isobutane. (generators, inverters, etc.)
 
Valessa said:
I don't know what any of these things are. Do I still pass?
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You don't know what a first aid kit, food, or water are? :dubious:

Blizzards and wind storms here can sometimes lead to power outages. So I have several flashlights (and lots of batteries), some candles and matches, and enough food that doesn't need cooking that I can go for at least a week - two if necessary, although that wouldn't equate to 3 meals/day. I have bottled water and there's enough cat food and litter for Maddy so she won't need to worry.

And now that I'm on the ground floor, there aren't any worries about the elevator going out. I can do stairs, but not easily, especially if I had to take the cat with me.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
You don't know what a first aid kit, food, or water are? :dubious:
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I think water is an alternative to soda, but other than that, I've not heard of these things.
 
I have a first aid kit, a portable stove, propane, other survival & backpacking gear, etc. No food though

onejayhawk said:
90 days food supply
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I think Zelig is the only person I've ever heard of to store that much food. Aside from crazy people preparing for the apocalypse you hear about on the news
 
onejayhawk said:
Who has them, what do you put in them, and where are they stored?J
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IMHO, this is your most brilliant post ever. :goodjob: A suggested addition to your go bag is cash.

I have a lot ot this stuff, but it's scattered around the house. Acting on you advice, I will get it organized and centralized.

A warning on electrical generators. I have been told that, over time, gasoline degenerates and turns to gunk. Diesel is better. I myself have a small solar generator with plans to expand it. We're waiting for the rainy season to end so that we can get up and work on the roof. If I were smart, I'd also get a wind-powered generator to compliment it. As a general rule, when it's cloudy, the wind blows, and on calm days, the sun is usually shiny.

Once again, I thank you for this thread. :thumbsup:
 
What's the point of hoarding 90 days worth of food and only 10 days water? Isn't that, if anything, the wrong way round? Or is there some answer involving urine that I probably don't want to know?
 
warpus said:
I have a first aid kit, a portable stove, propane, other survival & backpacking gear, etc. No food though



I think Zelig is the only person I've ever heard of to store that much food. Aside from crazy people preparing for the apocalypse you hear about on the news
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Considering the wide variety of natural disasters we can have in this part of the country (pretty much everything except hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes, although fracking makes earthquakes something to be concerned about), it makes sense to be prepared. I was lucky during the wind storm earlier this year; my power was only out for a few hours instead of days, and there was no structural damage here. This block was a little oasis in the storm, as the areas all around us took damage, some of it considerable (trees ripped out, roofs ripped off). The building where my dad lives had some siding ripped off. So I pretty much just made sure Maddy had what she needed and made sure to secure everything for possible power outages, and slept as much as possible. The worst part of a power outage here (aside from not being able to cook and having to worry about the stuff in the fridge spoiling) is that there's no window in my bathroom. It's pitch dark in there when the power is off, so that's the most essential place to have a flashlight handy.

I used to live maybe a block and a half from the river, and there was one year when things flooded enough for me to worry about it. It didn't get as far as my place, though, so that was good. However, there were quite a few roads and trails that were closed around there and it made planning routes a bit difficult since any routes that made sense had to cross the bridges that had been closed off because the creek had flooded.

I'm not as concerned where I am now, since I'm farther from the river, up on a hill, and this building is 6 storeys high (7, if you take the parkade level into consideration).
 
warpus said:
I think Zelig is the only person I've ever heard of to store that much food. Aside from crazy people preparing for the apocalypse you hear about on the news
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I don't really eat meat. I try to structure my purchases and eating habits so I'm buying healthy stuff in bulk and not storing dry goods longer than a year or so.

90 days * 2000 Calories/day = 180,000 Calories.

Rough numbers of Calories I probably have from food staples sitting around:
2 liters of vegatable oil - 16k.
5 kg of rice - 6k
5 kg lentils - 6k
5 kg beans - 17k
5 kg quinoa - 6k
5 kg oats - 8k
2 kg nuts - 12k

That's 70k. I'm sure I could scrounge up some more from some flax/chia/hemp hearts/protein powder/flour/peanut butter/dried fruit/etc. I have sitting around. 180k would probably be pushing it, but I could probably make it to two months.

Manfred Belheim said:
What's the point of hoarding 90 days worth of food and only 10 days water? Isn't that, if anything, the wrong way round? Or is there some answer involving urine that I probably don't want to know?
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Water is easy to filter/purify.
 
We have a fair amount of canned food and dry food, mostly kids snacks like goldfish crackers and captain crunch :lol: I also have an entire fridge in my garage full of juice boxes! So we'd live a week or so I think.

I would be screwed if there was a legit disaster in my area, but being in southeast michigan that's not likely to happen. I'm on public water so power loss doesn't knock my power out. We sometimes get tornados in rural areas, but never anything that's knocked out water or power. We had a terrible wind storm last year and some people were without power for 7-10 days, but it's not like the entire area was without power. It was pockets. So you could just drive a few miles down the road and get supplies. The unfortunate lost everything in their fridges and freezers, but water still worked if you were on public plumbing and grocery stores and gas stations operated normally.

Realistically the worst thing that might happen would be losing power during a cold snap like a week of 0 degree days cus that would probably freeze my pipes and force us to evac to somewhere warmer. Even though the furnace is gas the fan is electric. At my old house we lost heat in the winter for like a day and the whole house dropped to 50 overnight but we just wore extra clothes and blankets til the repair guy came.

In 2004 I think it was, there was that huge power outage in northeast US and parts of canada cus a power plant surged and knocked out tons of the grid. Fortunately for me I was heading out of town right as it happened. We didn't even know it happened. A bunch of traffic lights were out but we got on the freeway and cruised to kansas city MO where they had power. By the time we got back a week later everything was restored. My friends told me they basically drank beer and grilled all weekend and it was a huge party cus no one could go to work and everyone wanted to consume all the food in their fridges before it spoiled.
 
I live in a place that doesn't have natural disasters or overpowering weather.

Regarding gasoline. It goes bad after siting around a month or so. If you are storing it for your generator, then every 90 days, dump your stockpile into your car and buy fresh.
 
Birdjaguar said:
I live in a place that doesn't have natural disasters or overpowering weather.
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Same here. Sort of. The worst that has ever happened here is an occasional snow storm shutting the city down for 24-36 hours. You don't need much stored food to survive that length of time.. And those are rare, usually after a severe snowstorm the city's vital services are up and running fairly quickly. The worst snow storm I remember was one where the army had to rescue people off the highway. Other than that a snow storm is a snow storm, we know how to deal with them.

Thinking about it, the worst emergency type thing that happened here in recent memory was the power going out for many hours in the early 2000s I think it was.. possibly late 90s. IIRC power was back on within 2 days, probably less than that. The worst that happened was we had to eat all the food in the fridge and gained weight. But if the power had been out for let's say a week, there would have been problems.

I guess I technically I live in "Tornado Alley", but those things tend to hit places closer to the coast. They also seem very rare, and if one hit the city I live in, I doubt I would have problems finding food.

I guess the only thing I'd need a large amount of food for would be some sort of an emergency that leads to the power being out longer than 5-7 days. And I think if that happens, it's either some sort of an attack on Canada, some nuclear power plant catastrophe, or maybe just the incompetence of our provincial government. Either way a scenario in which I'd need a lot more than just a lot of food. We're talking gear, weapons, know-how, contingency plans, etc. If I have a lot of food and society collapses, and people find out I have food, I'm going to have to fight them for it.

Having said all that I guess it makes sense to have a bit of extra food lying around somewhere. If freeze dried food meant for hiking/camping was cheaper, I would buy a bunch of that every once in a while, and store it. It takes up a lot of room, but I will use it eventually.. assuming that it lasts forever. I buy it every once in a while for hiking trips, so it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a bunch of it on hand. I have the space, but I have no idea if that would be a good plan. I'll probably stick to my usual approach to food
 
warpus said:
Thinking about it, the worst emergency type thing that happened here in recent memory was the power going out for many hours in the early 2000s I think it was.. possibly late 90s. IIRC power was back on within 2 days, probably less than that. The worst that happened was we had to eat all the food in the fridge and gained weight. But if the power had been out for let's say a week, there would have been problems.
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Early 2000s. The Great Ontario Blackout. :mischief:

https://www.thestar.com/business/economy/2013/08/13/blackout_2003_how_ontario_went_dark.html

In my rural shindig, we were without power for around 3 days IIRC. I was just a kid though so it didn't matter to me.
 
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