The Essentials Of Disaster Preparedness

Preparing for natural disasters isn't just a matter of buying a convenient kit and storing it until you need it. More than anything else, you need to understand the concepts that contribute to preparedness and which should justify the contents of any disaster kit you buy. Not only will this ensure you're buying disaster kits that will provide for your needs, but you'll be better prepared to use them and make it through a bad situation.

Pre-Planning

Most disaster readiness kits focus on compact tools to help you handle a variety of scenarios rather than providing supplies. This is because food and water take up a great deal of space and tend to be quite bulky. Even so, you should still have a secondary option for both cooking and water purification to ensure that you can still survive if the first tool breaks.

Beyond any other supply, water is the most important thing to have on hand during a disaster, but waiting until an emergency is imminent can leave you scrambling. Instead, plan to have at least three days worth of clean water on hand for each person in your home. On average, plan for one gallon of water per day for each adult during a survival situation. Those who are ill, injured, pregnant or nursing will need more, as will children and the elderly.

Essential Equipment

Apart from water purification and cooking, there are other tools you should look for in disaster readiness kits. Watertight containers of various kinds are a good place to start, as they'll help store food, matches and other useful items and protect them from moisture. You should also focus your search on kits that include more reusable tools than finite resources. Having a small packet of disposable bandages is fine, but a suture needle and cloth bandages can be sterilized again for later use.

Avoid putting your faith in anything which relies on electricity or batteries. Look instead for kits that include servo powered flashlights or hand-crank powered radios. You can power these with your own muscles rather than batteries that will drain quickly during periods of heavy use. Think beyond the bare minimum too, and look for kits that offer something extra that might also have a use based on your location. Good additions are things like fish hooks and line, mosquito netting, or thermal blankets, depending on the conditions where you live.

Kits simplify preparedness steps, but they don't alleviate your responsibilities. It's perfectly alright to use a disaster readiness kit to start the process, but don't stop there. When looking for disaster survival kits for sale, consider the natural climate and resources in your area to be sure you have what you need to survive.