Is it up to date? What do you have in it?
Here in Houston, although hurricanes don't land very often, we often lose our power for days caused by heavy rains and flooding. So I have a kit of a weeks worth of supplies - food, batteries, toiletries, flashlights and a 1st aid kit, along wih a baggie of garbage bags, repellent and disinfectant wipes. Everything is in an oversized ziplock and in backpacks, so it'll be easy to carry around. We have a set in our interior hall closet and another one in our garage near our blow up raft.
I'll be sending lots of prayers for safety for you moms on the Gulf coast this week. Be safe ya'll.
In a sealed tub in the basement, although it's due for an update.
Some of my friends have a bit longer garages so they put shelves up on the interior end. Those shelves hold their table top Coleman gas grills, their tents and other "camping" stuff, each has their own first aid kit just in case they get separated, they each have a tub with their own 72+ hour kits in them, they have gallons of water on one shelf and if they need water they always take them off this shelf so they are always good and not older. They keep a wall safe in that area too with several days worth of cash on hand, marriage and birth certificates, citizenship if someone else needed to have that would be appropriate, they have extra clothes that are for that season on those shelves too, heavy hiking boots with several extra pairs of boots, and just about anything else they can think of.
The did drills a couple of times per year for scouting stuff when the kids were younger and they could load their vehicle with the necessities for a fire, tornado, other natural disasters too. They can grab what is needed in a couple of minutes and know how to fit it all in the vehicle they are currently driving. If they change vehicles they work it out where the stuff will fit if needed.
Each person has a section they do, if it's is hot summer they will not grab the winter items, if it is snow and ice outside they won't grab the swim suits and flip flops....
They have practiced and they use what they have packed so it is always fresh. Their bodies are used to eating the foods they have packed.
For instance, if you pack MRI's in your emergency kit but are not used to living on MRI's you are most likely going to get Diarrhea and puke. You body will revolt.
If you are used to eating Vienna Sausages and Walmart Brand Mini Ravioli's in the can and that is what you pack then you are going to be just fine. If your body is used to what you pack you should be good to go.
So, some things to consider.
Snack Pack pudding cups, they don't need cold and you can slurp them if you need to.
Same with jello cups if they DO NOT need to be kept cold.
Various granola bars, gummy fruit roll ups, and other sweets will lighted spirits and also provide a bit of energy if you are hiking out of somewhere or needing to survive just a little bit longer until you can be rescued.
I hope that everyone was able to evacuate the right places and that devastation does not happen.
My favorite book that I learned A LOT from about how to prepare for MY family and our idiosyncrasies is by Peggy Layton:
Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook
I have a flashlight in every room of the house (2 in the master bedroom). My COMPLETE "at home" first aid kit is in the kids' bathroom (it's near the living room, pretty central location)...though we have a small 1st aid kit in each glove box, Jeremy's desk at work, and a mini-kit in the diaperbag.
Everything storm-related except food/water is in a walk-in closet (along with camping gear and "stuff" that we rarely use. It used to be in the guest closet, but we changed it back to mine because the kids naturally want to go to my room if there's an issue. I don't have a ton of clothes/shoes and use my armoir for most of what I have, Jeremy has his own closet, so in this closet, there's plenty of space for us to "camp out" if we were concerned about tornadoes (I even put glow in the dark stars in there so it seems a little fun and not so scary for the kids), gets refreshed/up to date on the first weekend of every June.
We also have go-bags with everything we'd need to leave (basically 72 hour kits) for each person....EXCEPT since the kids grow quickly, we don't have their clothes in their bags. I figure it'd be pretty easy to grab 3 sets of clothes at any given time and put them in the bags on the way out. We have a file cabinet for normal stuff, but the "really" important things (the flashdrive things where we backed up our tax and other info, as well as our photos, titles/deeds, divorce/wedding papers, insurance policies, and personal info such as passports, birth certificates, ss cards, vaccination records are all in "the black box": a portable file safe that we can just grab and go. That's all in the same closet as the other "storm stuff". Probably won't happen here, but it's just habit. I changed how I thought about things after going through the Katrina aftermath....and I insist on being prepared all the time.
The food/water: if we chose to stay, we store some water in the pantry, some in the deep freezer to help keep stuff cold longer (and we'd drink it as it melted later), we have food, gas, charcoal, fluid, etc. We don't have a generator but no longer live on the gulf (now east coast) so I think we don't really need one. Bleach, etc is in the laundry room closet as always.
Best of luck to y'all at home. I've noticed all my FB friends on the gulf have been really quiet today. Hope all goes well.
In the basement in a large storage bin. I have similar stuff to you in it, with the addition of a battery powered radio with a weather band. I live on top of a mountain, so likelihood of flooding is pretty close to zero. My biggest concern is getting snowed in without electricity. So we also have a propane powered heater.
My first aid kit is in the laundry room! LOL!
We have several gallons of water and flashlights with batteries. We have a gas stove so that we can cook. Your list is good - I would have to go to different places in my house to get the rest. But I know where they are to get them with my trusty flashlight!
Dawn
It's also wise to have a change of clothes, medicines, and important papers (copies of sscards, birth certificates, insurance/mortage information).
For the survivalist, they also include things such as rope, hatchet, hunting knife, tent, matches, water purifiers (actually, that's on my to do list)...
We have 72 hour kits, in rolling suitcase/backpacks in our closet, I need to update them though.
http://www.ready.gov is a great place to get info on this.
http://beprepared.com sells really good 72 hour and emergency kits:
