72-hour Kits

I have finally finished our 72-hour kits. It took quite a while, but it feels so good to have them complete! Just in time for tornado season :) I did a lot of research this year and here is the end result:

Everything that could get wet I put into ziplock baggies...and I do mean everything! We each have a full change of clothes: pants, t-shirt, fleece, jeans, pj's, socks, underwear, diapers/wipes warm hats, and shoes. The shoes actually didn't fit into the packs, so we ended up stringing them to the outside.

Every year I throw out so much food when I go to update our packs, so this year I decided to go a different approach. Simplify! We each have a ziplock full of our food: oatmeal packets for each breakfast, ramen for each lunch, fruit leathers, peanut butter crackers, granola bars, cookies, hot chocolate, trail mix, and crystal light packets. For our dinners I purchased some dehydrated camping dinners. We have Beef Stew, Scrambled Eggs with Bacon, and Lasagna with Meat Sauce. I love these because they are super light weight AND they won't go bad for a long time.

Water is a big issue with 72-hour kits. It is super heavy and you need so much of it! So, we each have an empty Nalgene bottle strapped to the outside of our packs. We also each have a couple of water bottles in our packs. For the bulk of our water however, we have a super-duper camping water filter AND some water purification drops. Both are small and light weight.

Here are some of the things we have inside our packs: A first aid kit, all kinds of medicine, rain ponchos, emergency blankets, sunscreen, toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, small Tide packs for washing clothes, big black garbage bags, toothpaste/brushes/floss, small shampoos/deodorants/lotions, extra glasses, eye drops, tissues, flashlights/batteries, matches, money...and I can't think of what else. We have about $100 in our packs right now, all in small bills. I would like to get $200 eventually. We also have several quarters, dimes and nickles.

Here are our packs. I purchased small packs for the boys. They each have their own food bag, a water bottle, and a bag of their clothes in their pack. I also put a book for us all to read, "James and the Giant Peach" and a pack of UNO cards.

We have backpacking packs for Todd and I to carry. We got one at Costco and one at a yard sale. They each have a sleeping bag attached to them. Todd's also has a camping axe attached to the outside of his.

The one thing that I am missing that I am going to put into our packs is a laminated, current family photo with our names and extended family names and numbers on the back.