Why Do You Need a Survival Kit?
There are two types of survival kits. One would be an evacuation kit, your survival kit that is portable and pre-packed so you can evacuate your home in a just a few minutes with everything you need. The other is a three day (or more, depending on the threats you face) kit, which is composed of stored supplies you would need to survive in your home for a predetermined amount of time with no power, no running water, and possible damage to your house.
Tornadoes and Hurricanes
With state of the art weather tracking systems, weather prediction software, and trained storm trackers, a tornado or a hurricane is hardly the surprise it used to be. If you are in danger of a tornado or hurricane, you usually know about it hours in advance. These natural disasters could force you to utilize one or both of your survival kits. The first one being your evacuation bag, the second being your home survival kit. Having these kits prepared and ready to go in advance means you can continue your day as normally as possible, knowing that if disaster strikes you are instantly ready to evacuate or shelter in place.
Earthquakes and Tsunamis
It’s quite a bit harder to predict when a major earthquake is going to strike. Once an earthquake hits, there can be danger of a tsunami if you live in a coastal area. If you had no warning of an impending earthquake, you have at best a few minutes to prepare for a tsunami. Having a pre-packed evacuation bag is a must if a deadly tsunami is heading your way.
Wildfires
They have to start somewhere, and it might be near you. In many cases, people who are in the path of the fire are well aware there is a fire on the way, and most of the time they get out safely. But you could also be the first home or street that gets demolished, giving you maybe five minutes to evacuate your home and flee the area in the opposite direction.
Many years, beginning in the spring and continuing through the summer, California and Texas see out of control wildfires that demolish all homes in their path before they are brought under control. In some cases, hundreds of homes have been destroyed. This is just one more reason to have an evacuation bag and a short term home survival kit ready. Even if you do not evacuate because of the wildfires, you may be in an area that experiences an extended power outage due to the fires or a disruption of supply lines, meaning temporary food or gas shortages.
Radiation
Many people in the United States and other countries live close enough to a nuclear power plant to be in danger of exposure should there be a problem. Almost every adult has heard of the Chernobyl crisis in 1986, and more recently, the radiation exposure that occurred after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan. If you live near a nuclear power plant, you have one more reason to be prepared with an evacuation bag.
Contagions
A disease or a viral or bacterial illness can spread quickly. While it has been many years since Americans have been affected by any type of contagion that caused a large number of deaths, this could still happen at any point. Now we have to face a new fear and that is superbugs. Currently, most people infected with a superbug contracted it in a hospital or other wellness facility. However, this could change at any moment. Standard procedure during an outbreak is to quarantine the area. That means people don’t go in or out, but stay put to try and halt the spread. In case of quarantine, you would need to be ready with enough survival supplies to shelter in place.
Rioting and Looting
Many different things can cause a riot. In case of a catastrophe people who are not prepared (and even some who are) can panic and begin rioting and/or looting. A prime example would be Hurricane Katrina. Many people turned to dangerous looting in the heat of the moment, and in fear. Intent does not have to be bad to cause harm. If a person is looting to find food and water, they may harm you or attempt to harm you to get it. Don’t forget that other people can be the greatest danger in the aftermath of a disaster. This is another reason to have a survival kit in your home. If you find yourself in the midst of disaster aftermath, you can choose to remain in place until the situation comes under control.
Severe Financial Hardship
You may be reading along and thinking: “But I don’t live in an area that has ever had an earthquake, I don’t live on a coast where I could be affected by a tsunami or hurricane. The city I live in is never or almost never affected by tornadoes, and our power supply is not nuclear. This doesn’t affect me!”
This may very well be the case. But there is an umbrella we all stand under as far as survival is concerned, and that is money. You or your spouse could lose their job, or have your working hours drastically cut, imposing a financial crisis. You or your spouse could suddenly become very ill, or your child could become ill. You may also suffer some type of accident preventing you from working.
Not everyone has a savings account. Rumor has it less than half of Americans have a savings account. And even if you do have an emergency stash of cash, just think about how much further it would go if you did not have to spend as much at the grocery store as you do currently. This is where a long term survival kit comes into play. You could live off of your supplies, or use them as a supplement to greatly reduce your weekly grocery bill during a time of financial hardship.
Widespread Food Shortage
You can be affected by a natural disaster indirectly. A large catastrophe that affects crops and livestock can become your problem even if you live on the other side of the country. Severe weather can adversely affect crops, driving up the cost of food. Large amounts of livestock can become plagued by some type of disease or illness which results in higher meat prices. These things can happen at any time. In 2006, spinach in California was suddenly covered in E. coli, resulting in almost every state pulling all spinach off the shelves.
Basic economic rules come into play here. When one type of food (like beef) becomes scarce, all beef currently available rapidly escalates in price. Other foods (like chicken) will rise as well, because the demand for them as a substitute product also rises. In a case such as this, you can use your long term survival supplies to help alleviate your costs.
Other
Additional factors that should be considered are: extended loss of power due to mechanical failure, computer failure, or an overloaded power grid, volcanoes, natural gas or other explosions, mudslides, landslides, and terroristic attacks. Though unlikely, a terroristic attack could be electromagnetic, nuclear, chemical, or biological. Each of these could be situations in which you need an evacuation bag, or short or long term survival kit. Also keep in mind that one event may trigger another. If there is a tornado, the power is probably out. If you experience an earthquake, a tsunami or landslide may follow. If you fled the area due to severe weather warnings, you took your evacuation bag. If you stayed in place, you utilized your short term home survival kit. Sometimes, people are locked in place for longer than they would anticipate. After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, some survivors were found up to 40 days after the event.
When building your survival bag, always keep in mind which threat you are most likely to face, and tailor your kit for your anticipated needs.
