Since you never know when an emergency is going to happen, I stay stocked up and prepared year round. I have a specific cabinet set up with canned foods, cereals, powdered milk, water, pet foods and other necessities. Anything that doesn't come in a water proof container gets put in one and labeled before going in the cabinet. Everything in there is arranged by month/year. Every 3 months I rotate everything out and restock.
Instead of buying bottled water, which can get awfully expensive when you're buying a lot, when I finish with a 2 liter soda bottle, I wash it out good, then bleach the inside good to sanitize it. After it's been rinsed good, I fill it with water and label it. I can stock a lot more water this way without spending a fortune on buying it. I keep a minimum of 50 two liter bottles of water. This way I don't have to worry about not having enough to cook with, drink, or wash and clean with if we lose water.
As I rotate the water, I put some on a separate shelf for use for cleaning with. That gets rotated only once a year. The rest all gets rotated every 3 months. Everything in the cabinet is dated with the rotation date so there's no mistake about when to do it.
In a spare bedroom (since I don't have a basement or garage), I keep a kerosene heater (kerosene is kept in the shed outside), spare batteries of all sizes, flashlights of all sizes, battery powered lanterns, blankets, battery powered radio TV, and DVD player, books, pens, cat box and litter for my cat.
I also have a 12v stove and coffee maker that I can plug into the cigarette lighter in my car to cook with. This way we are all set in case of loss of power for an extended amount of time.
By Cricket from Parkton, NC
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Very, very practical and useful ideas but I have to mention that unless the soda bottles are made out of glass please use vinegar instead of bleach to disinfect because plastic absorbs chemicals of any sort and there's no way to remove them even with an extemely good washing :-(
I would not suggest using milk jugs for water unless it is only for a few weeks. These jugs will eventually leak. Trust me, I know. I had stored water for a survival and was sad to see about 6 months down the way that they were leaking.
This is an excellent article. Even without emergencies with the skyrocketing fuel and food prices this can help a lot. Plus by stocking you can buy almost everything when it is on sale (about every 10 to 12 weeks the same type of items go on sale). Thanks
The 12v appliances are great unless you are without power for a long time. I have a propane skillet, lanterns and a stove, and there are a lot more items that run on propane in sporting good stores. We live in the country so we have a 500 gallon propane tank but you can get the little bottles or even better you can get an adapter pole that goes on the top of a 5 gallon tank with an orifice on the top, for your lantern, and two on the side with hoses to run to your stove, heater etc.
Good article. I live in an area subject to fire, water & earthquakes, so am a great believer in the subject the author posted here & interested in the comments. I would reduce Any plastic for containers of glass, metal or natural substitutes. Plastic is bad for you & the earth. Use your wonderful brains to find alternatives.
Very good Idea. We had hurricane Isabel in our area and a lot of people were without power and water had to be boiled for at long as three weeks. We only lost power for one day because we live in an old house on an old street and are on the same power grid as the street lights on the major road at the end of our street. We got our power back within 12 hours.
Hi Cricketnc
Your idea is great, but I would worry about stocking water for a long time that is not in glass containers, plus left too long is going to become stale.
Good luck.
Patrival
Great post! May I suggest you separate your supplies and create 72 hour kits, just in case you can't get to your emergency supplies immediately. Keep your 72 hour kit somewhere easily reached. If there are more than one in the household, keep the kits in different places too for the same reason. Think earthquake, fire or any number of disasters which might block you from reaching your kit.
There have been many ideas posted for storing water, here's 3 more. I keep at least 3 gallons of water in my freezer. This will help keep things frozen if my freezer isn't full all the time, It also, provides ice packs for spontaneous meals (away from home) which can be packed up quickly in coolers.
I also started with pop bottles, but for various reason, some of which have been listed, I changed to large pickle jars. I ask for the boxes these jars come in... for storing since they have traveled that way to get to the store, then it must work well enough to store in my home. Plus, since vinegar is antibacterial, I don't worry about something which might be in the water. As back up, I bought some individual water bottles which have internal filters (these are in my 72 hour kits). I also have stored some older water which will work for non edible use.
There is so much material about disaster preparedness, as one poster suggested, check out lds.org / providental living and for sure check the Red Cross, also consider pets and those with special needs, keep a 30 day supply of meds plus prescriptions or those receipts in with your 72 hour kits. Great topic!
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