Well, well. It’s a steamy hot summer in the South, and you know what that means – Hurricane Season. In addition to our standard storm watch prep, 2023 has proven to be full of unprecedented extreme weather events. With dust storms, wildfires, earthquakes, tornados, droughts, flash floods, and even fire whirls making headlines this year, it seems like as good a time as any to put together some of my thoughts on emergency preparedness for families like my own.

A bit of background – last year I wrote a piece about surviving winter storms, and I received a lot of positive feedback that my tips and tricks were helpful. I’m also a survivor at heart. I don’t know many kids who built their own emergency kit at the age of 7 or 8, but that was me.

Even as a child I knew that life could be unpredictable, and the best way to quell my anxiety has always been to prepare for emergencies before they occur. I don’t need to live through a flash flood to imagine what preparations might save my home or my hide if it happened to me. This inclination to prepare became especially important to me once I became a mom, and being a mother in 2023 is no joke, y’all. It can be scary out there.

And so over the past few years I’ve been slowly building my home emergency kit. I don’t always talk about it – there’s a lot of stigma around being a “prepper” and you can get some funny looks if you start talking about these things in mixed company – but I have not let that stop me from advising my closest circle on upcoming extreme weather and what to do to prepare. It doesn’t hurt that this year even relatively run-of-the-mill thunderstorms have knocked out our power a few times, or the instances where water main breaks have caused disruptions to our water service here at home.

So today I present to you a list and some photographs of my totally not fancy and not terribly expensive emergency kit that has already come in handy several times. I hope it is helpful to you. Quick reminder – in my profession I am a photographer and writer, and I don’t have any ads on my site. This advice is provided merely as a public service and I don’t make any money from this blog, so I have no vested interest in whether or not you buy the items below or not. I’m just a mom who wants to be prepared, and I figure the info might help others, too.

Let’s start with the obvious- What is an emergency kit?

An emergency kit, sometimes also referred to as a bug out bag, is a collection of items that will help you and your family survive extreme weather events and catastrophes. It should contain everything you need to get by for at least a few days, or a week or so, either hunkered down in your home or leaving due to an evacuation.

The idea of having it in one place in containers that are easy to grab (many use backpacks, but in my case we have a duffel bag along with a couple of Tupperware containers) is that when an emergency hits you don’t have to scramble to collect necessary items before hitting the road. We keep ours in a windowless bathroom that is located in the center of our home as it’s one of the safest places in the case or tornados or strong winds. It’s also accessible without going outside, which I find to be convenient and reassuring. I make a point of taking everything out and checking expiration dates twice a year.

In the duffel bag:

• Two shirts per person
• One sweater per person
• One pair of pants per person
• One pair of pajama pants per person
• Two pairs of socks per person
• Two sets of underwear per person
• One pair of comfortable athletic shoes per person
• Cell phone charger
• Solar powered cell phone power bank
• Solar powered lantern
• Comfort item for children
• A couple of kids books
• A spare wallet with at least $50 in small bills and coins
• Toiletry bag

In the toiletry bag:

• Bar soap
• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Hairbrush
• Hair tie
• Nail clippers
• Sunscreen
• Deodorant
• Tweezers
• Loofah
• Baby powder
• Feminine hygiene products
• Floss
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste

In the food bin:

• Oatmeal packs
• Cans of beans
• Cans of salsa
• Canned soup
• Bagged rice
• Pasta sauce
• Dry pasta
• Salt and Pepper packets
• Instant Mac and Cheese
• Fruit gummy packs
• Bars
• Beef Jerky
• Pack of nuts
• Fruit pouches
• Pet food

In the supplies bin:

• First aid kit w/ necessary medications
• Batteries
• Can opener
• Matches
• Lighter
• Fire starters (toilet paper rolls stuffed with lint)
• Wire saw
• Mylar blanket
• Dish Soap
• Dish sponge
• Hot hands
• Utility knife
• Eating utensils
• Camping cookware set
• Cooking utensils
• Mosquito repellent
• Fireproof document bag with birth certificates, marriage certificates, important documents, printed pictures of our family members with full names written on the back
• Pet food bowls
• Plastic tarp / plastic shower curtains
• Scissors
• Duct tape
• Chalk & a sharpie (for marking paths or leaving notes for rescue crews)
• Compass
• Multitool
• Pencil sharpener (sharpen small sticks to make kindling)
• Clamps / strong clips
• Battery operated radio
• Walkie talkies
• Rope / cord with attached carabiners
• Tote bag
• Tightly rolled plastic grocery bags

Supplies we keep nearby but outside of the kit:

• Rechargeable, long-lasting fans (these were a real lifesaver this summer during a long power outage)
• More cell phone power banks (we use these all the time)
• Water, and lots of it (the official recommendation is a gallon a day per person, but we have space for about 4 gallons total and it’s a good start)
• Rechargeable white noise machine (we learned the hard way that our kiddo really can’t sleep without white noise)
• Atlas with marked locations (read more on this below)
• Collapsible pet carrier
• Disposable litter pan
• Life jackets

Still on my wishlist are a solar powered generator and long-range walkie talkies. These are pricey, so I haven’t made the investment yet, but these would be helpful to have. It’s also beneficial to have a tent, sleeping bags, and a camping stove if you can afford it both monetarily and space-wise.

So, now that you’ve gotten the run down of the supplies, I’m sure that you can imagine how you would use these items to hunker down and stay comfortable in your house. A couple of tips for sticking it out at home: at the first sign of a storm make sure your rechargeable items are charged up, turn your AC down and cool your house as much as possible, fill up your car’s tank with gas, and make sure your kiddo’s tablet has at least a couple of games or shows downloaded. I like to put the fans, power banks, and lanterns on my kitchen table so I can easily find them even if the lights go out.

If you have to GTFO (get the F out) because SHTF (sh*t hit the fan), you can use the chalk or sharpies to leave a message on your door or front step to let loved ones know where you’re headed. And then the item that I personally find to be the most reassuring is the atlas. When I bought it I went one step further and googled state parks within a 2 hour drive in all directions of my house. I looked for locations that include campgrounds and water sources, pinned them in my maps app, and then highlighted them on the atlas.

In the case of a sincere emergency where it’s imperative to get my family to safety immediately, I wanted to have all the decision-making already established. Often cell phone service is disrupted if there are too many people using nearby cell towers, and I’m not particularly level-headed when I’m in “emergency mode,” so I would feel much better about choosing a location that I have previously vetted based on the circumstances of the emergency as they arise.

In short, the less you have to think, pack, and plan *during* an emergency, the better. One important note is that most of my emergency kit has never been used, and it may never be. In fact, I hope that’s the case. But if it’s not, I’ll know I’ve already done as much thinking as I can during a calm non-emergency moment when I have all my resources available to me.

PS – did you know that you can teach your kiddo your phone number by singing it to the tune of Frère Jacques? I taught my daughter at 2 years old, and she still has it memorized. It’s very reassuring to know that she could contact me if we ever got separated.

Thanks for reading. I hope this is helpful! Stay safe out there.