Do you keep any "extra" food/emergency type stuff...

[barkley1]

...in case of some freak natural disaster/terrorist attack/whatever?? I realized the other day we pretty much have ZERO reserves, even in the case of a big snow storm. We'd be pretty hungry by the time we could get out, ha!!!

Does your family have emergency provisions, and if so, what are they? Extra food only? Or stuff like extra meds, cash, waters, etc. I've even read about ppl that keep a packed backpack for each family member with the essentials in case they needed to leave their home in a hurry (why would you have to leave so fast?)

[infomama]

Nope. We manage if power goes out with a generator but no reserves hanging around here.

[MamaMolly]

We have a hurricane kit. It has tools, water containers (empty. We usually have plenty of lead time that a hurricane is coming), a wind up radio/phone charger. It is in our pantry, and which I can't help but keep pretty full. We'll eat a lot of canned goods if we get shut in. ;) Our house in theory also has a generator but it is being repaired. We are better prepared for hunkering down that for running away.

[BayGirl2]

Yes. We have an emergency kit, primarily for earthquakes but it would be used for any natural or unnatural disaster. We have all of our emergency gear, water, food (MRE's) and some camping gear stored outside the house in bins. The bins are ready to go if we ever needed to evacuate or if we couldn't re-enter the house due to damage.

In CA its quite usual to have some kind of emergency preparedness kit. I think ours is probably more complete than the average family's just because DH and I are particularly organized. After the Tsunami last year, when we woke up at 6 am to warnings (we live on an island just 1 flat mile from the Bay) we put more thought into our kit and rearranged some things to make it work for evacuation as well as shelter in place.

ETA: Now that I'm on the west coast I always think its funny when there's a run up on stores before a blizzard in other parts of the country. All the things being purchased and depleted (batteries, bottled water, generators, food) are things we always keep a stock of in our house. Its a function of not having warning before an emergency vs. having 1-3 days notice that something is going to happen.

[KrisM]

We've got plenty of food and cash, but not necessarily in a kit to take immediately.

[ladysoapmaker]

We try to keep a bit of stuff on hand. DH and I are working on getting a year's worth of food, right now I'd say we have about a month's worth of food.

As for medicine we have about a month's supply which will be being depleted because of my being laid off.

Jen

[Cam&Clay]

We have just a few things. I always have lots of batteries, thanks to my dad and his flea market business where he sells mostly batteries. I have a windup flashlight/weather radio and a corded phone.

Food wise, our pantry and freezer is almost always full. Plus, with DS1's sports practices/activities, we usually have a few cases of water or Gatorade around which could be used in an emergency.

None of us take any life or death medications. I might have a panic attack with a case or two of Diet Coke, but we'd manage.

[wellyes]

No but we are not in a high risk area for earthquakes or hurricanes.

[cono0507]

We have plenty of food stocked in the pantry on a regular basis that we could live on for at least a week.

Our neighborhood was evacuated last year on 30min notice due to a very close forest fire and we realized how little we truly need to take with us. Pretty much just the firebox of important documents and our laptops and my everyday purse that has the kids' epipens and benadryl. The rest we would just buy as we need.

[Penny's Pappa]

If it came down to it, there are enough non-perishables in the pantry to last us a week at least, but these aren't kept as part of any sort of emergency preparedness kit or anything.

[daisymommy]

After the nuclear meltdown in China, there were alot of great discussions on here re: are we ready for some disaster here on the homefront, should anything happen (weather related, or otherwise). It really got me to get my pants in gear.

We now have a "go-bag" for each member of the family that has 3 days worth of supplies in it, a "shelter in place kit", and if we really needed to live off our pantry supplies, I'm guessing a month's worth of shelf-stable food that could be cooked over an open-fire outside.

The next thing I really want though is a good portable/non electric filter like a Berkey, that could filter the local lake water if we really had to.

[BayGirl2]

We try to keep a bit of stuff on hand. DH and I are working on getting a year's worth of food, right now I'd say we have about a month's worth of food.

As for medicine we have about a month's supply which will be being depleted because of my being laid off.

Jen

Wow, that is a lot of food. Usually for emergency situations 3 days worth is recommended. A years worth is more like long term survival in a bomb shelter. I guess if you are in a more rural area and have the space that may make sense for you.

[fivi2]

If it came down to it, there are enough non-perishables in the pantry to last us a week at least, but these aren't kept as part of any sort of emergency preparedness kit or anything.

:yeahthat:

I do worry about water a bit, but we aren't really in an area that is likely to have an unexpected event that would last all that long.

Except in the zombie apocalypse sort of scenario, and then I figure a few gallons of water probably isn't going to be all that helpful :D

[edurnemk]

I always have emergency non-perishable food, but last year I started putting more things into our emergency kit. We live in an area with high seismic activity. So we basically have food, water, first aid kit, and extra supply of DH's Rx, flashlights, batteries, wipes, hand sanitizer, copies of our important documents. I can also grab our external drive if we need to head out with the backup of all our files, pictures, videos, etc. (it's also backed up offsite).

I still need to add a few things, like a couple of blankets and I don't remember what else, LOL, I have a list somewhere.

[ladysoapmaker]

Wow, that is a lot of food. Usually for emergency situations 3 days worth is recommended. A years worth is more like long term survival in a bomb shelter. I guess if you are in a more rural area and have the space that may make sense for you.

Yeah it's a lot of food. I figure we'll never get to that point as we don't have the resources or space like a lot of the LDS folks we know do. But I'd be happy with a 6 month supply.

The thing that worries me the most is we have a on-demand delivery system in this country and if something happens most stores have about a 3 day supply then it's empty shelves. So in the case of a zombie apocalypse or a dirty bomb scenario or a mass epidemic, we as a country are really not prepared for a long term wait out at home. The CDC and DHS actually recommend after you have the 3 day supply and "go bag" you should start work on a one month supply, just in case you have to shelter in place. they figure it'll take about 30 days to fix stuff. Friend of mine who's a first responder has a 2 month supply that he's slowly building to 6 month.

Jen

[edurnemk]

Yeah it's a lot of food. I figure we'll never get to that point as we don't have the resources or space like a lot of the LDS folks we know do. But I'd be happy with a 6 month supply.

The thing that worries me the most is we have a on-demand delivery system in this country and if something happens most stores have about a 3 day supply then it's empty shelves. So in the case of a zombie apocalypse or a dirty bomb scenario or a mass epidemic, we as a country are really not prepared for a long term wait out at home. The CDC and DHS actually recommend after you have the 3 day supply and "go bag" you should start work on a one month supply, just in case you have to shelter in place. they figure it'll take about 30 days to fix stuff. Friend of mine who's a first responder has a 2 month supply that he's slowly building to 6 month.

Jen

My parents live in Houston and after Ike, the grocery stores that were damaged needed several weeks to repair damage, get power back up and stock back up. Luckily my parents were visiting us in Chicago when it happened and they just extended their stay until things went back to normal and they could go back.

[hillview]

I voted yes minimal but really we have enough on hand for a couple of weeks. I have water delivered so min amount of bottled water we have at a given time is 15 gallons (right now we have 30 gal). I have about 6 cases of lara bars and a bunch of other pantry items (boxed milk, juice boxes, cereal etc). So we'd be fine. I never put items aside for emergency per se as we never ever run out -- I am a stock piler. I use amazon S&S for a lot of items.

[scrooks]

We've got plenty of food and cash, but not necessarily in a kit to take immediately.

Same here.

[nfceagles]

Such stockpiles can be very handy in hard economic times too, not just natural disasters and zombie apocolypse (sp?). Be they individual job losses, wide spread economic depression, hyper-inflation, etc...

I probably have 3 months, but I'd like to have more. We lost our entire fridge and upright freezer in a 7.5 day power outage after a freak October snow storm. Make sure you aren't too dependent on frideg/freezer food. One thing we learned is that it's hard to access. You don't want to open the fridge freezer and let all the cold out and once you give up on the power coming back in time to save it you have to use it all pretty quickly.

[ahisma]

If it came down to it, there are enough non-perishables in the pantry to last us a week at least, but these aren't kept as part of any sort of emergency preparedness kit or anything.

Ditto. I can and dehydrtate food during the growing season to last well into the winter. We have stuff but it has nothing to do with preparing for an emergency.

We're in the Midwest. At most, we get a snowstorm. I have a gas station, 2 drug stores and a grocery store within a few blocks (easy walk). Plus, coffee houses, restaurants, etc. Once in a while we'll buy some milk so we don't have to brush off the car to go drive in the morning, but that's as far as we get.

[newg]

we have about five cases of water on a pallet down in the basement. I have enough diabetes supplies to last me a few months......but my pills are three months or less (because that's all I'm allowed to order at a time)
Between the pantry, and freezers (we have a chest freezer), we could survive for a few weeks I think.
We usually have a nice supply of batteries that we get at costco to keep the DD's toys going! We have a wind up flashlight (but DD1 plays with it, so I'd have to find it), and a weather radio that takes batteries..
We have wood for our fireplace and generator and DH keeps a few extra tanks of gas.

So I think we could hunker down and stay in our house if we had to.....but we do not have a quick-pick-up and leave kit.