Emergency Preparedness Week 8 – “The Reveal” & “Link Party”
Welcome to our final week of Emergency Preparedness. Over the past 2 months, I have shared how my family is prepared for an unexpected emergency or natural disaster. We have designated a space in our home for the station, built our 72 hour kits, stored the necessary amounts of water & supplies, gathered up all the important documents we need, as well as added comfort items, hygiene kits, and pet kits to our station.
Today I am going to reveal our organized Emergency Survival Station and highlight the past 8 weeks with you. If you have been following along (participating), I would love to see what your station looks like too! Link up your stations to the link party at the end of the post.
Recap of Emergency Preparedness 8 Week Series
Week #1 Storage– This week we designated a space in our home that would store all of the essentials needed for an emergency. We found shelving and cleared the area. We also collected enough backpacks for each family member and pet. To see details of this week, visit my post (here).
Week #2 Food & Water – This week we stocked up on food and water, the 2 most important station preps there is. To see details of this week, visit my post (here).
Week #3 First Aid Kits – This week we stocked up our first aid kits. This is a very important step. To see details of this week, visit my post (here).
Week #4 Emergency Binder & Cash Stash – During this week, we prepared our emergency binder & started a cash stash. To see details of this week, visit my post (here).
Week #5 Supplies – This week we stocked up on supplies needed in case of an emergency. To see details of this week, visit my post (here).
Week #6 Pet & Hygiene Kit – This week we put together our pet & hygiene kits. We don’t want to forget our furry little friends. To see details of this week, visit my post (here).
Week #7 Comfort Kits (& Fun Kit) – This week we created comfort kits for each family member. To see details of this week, visit my post (here).
Week #8 – My Emergency Survival Station Reveal
Emergency Preparedness E-Book (All 8 weeks in one book)
If you have not yet created your emergency survival station, you can purchase my E-Book, with step by step instructions on how to create your own station. It also comes with your emergency binder “printables kit” with several pages to fill out your family information. The E-Book & Printables Kit is only $10. If you are like me, you will love to have the E-Book as a complimentary guide to the 8 Week Series by your side. You can refer to it as you build your Emergency Survival Station. Purchase ebook (here).
The E-Book includes:
Checklist for setting up your storage area
Food & Water Storage Guide
72 Hour Kit Checklist
First Aid Kit Inventory
First Aid Kit Printable
Important Documents & Cash Stash Checklist
“Grab” in case of emergency list
List of personal documents to place in Emergency Binder
Family Emergency Plan Printable
Insurance Policies Printable
Family Health Information Printable
Emergency Numbers Printable
Important Numbers Printable
Supplies Tips
EmergencySupplies Checklist
Faraday Cage Directions
Hygiene & Pet Kit Sheet
Hygiene List
Pet Kit Checklist
Comfort Kit Checklist
Fun Kit Checklist
and more!
Missed the series?
You can go back to revisit any week. The series will be on my blog for reference. You will enjoy this much needed 8 week series to get your family prepared! You never know when you will need it!
Did you participate in the 8 week series? If so, link up your emergency survival station below.
Tags: emergency preparedness, emergency preparedness 8 week series, link party
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40 comments
40 comments on “Emergency Preparedness – Week 8 “The Reveal & Link Party””
I like the organized emergency station a lot. I only wish mine were that organized! 🙂 More importantly, I’m glad to see such an important topic being covered and I hope that it helps many families better prepare themselves for most anything they might experience.
Have you seen the Prepare My Life Planner? I love it! It has everything you need not just a disaster emergency, but for any “Life Emergencies.” My husband got me mine for Christmas two years ago and has been so helpful. preparemylife.com/Prepare-My-Life-Planner/
It looks great Toni!
I checked out Heather’s blog: Where Do I Put My Food Storage? E’s Organized Food Storage
Read more: http://www.cookingwithmyfoodstorage.com/2011/10/where-do-i-put-my-food-storage-elises.html#ixzz2KVPXhSX1
I would become a shelf reliance consultant to get reduce priced items and to share the product with family and friends.
Wow, you are one organised person. Well done on creating such an amazing emergency kit for the whole family. You have thought of everything, let’s just hope that you won’t need to use it. Thanks for the share. Hayley x
This is fantastic. My family wants to become more prepared for emergencies, but I am often overwhelmed by the information on the web. You have posted a very simple, easy to follow plan. Thanks! I included a link to an easy and inexpensive homemade solar oven tutorial. In the event of an extended power outage, you can still cook and purify water if you have a solar oven.
Curious where you are storing this? I’m so interested in doing this — especially before the dreaded tornado season here… but I seriously have no idea where to keep something like this… in Texas it’s far too hot in the attic … suggestions?
I keep mine in my garage by my mudroom door. You can use a hall closet too.
This series is phenomenal!! Thanks, Toni!
There’s one idea missing from this project that might be worth everyone’s consideration: operations security (OPSEC for short): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security
Basically, OPSEC is the idea that the details of your preparations should be on a need-to-know basis. It’s great that Toni has everything so organized right by the door, but that means that every visitor (including neighbors and repair people) can tell just how prepared her family is… which they may well remember during an emergency if they aren’t so well prepared… which is a situation no one wants to deal with.
My water supply is hidden throughout my home in old soda bottles, mostly in closets behind other stuff. Any food we need past the 3-day mark is still in the pantry. I have a mini-kit in my diaper bag in an unobtrusive little tote container. Our faraday cage (no, I haven’t built mine yet) will have a label on it that says “xmas decorations” so that no one rifling through our garage will lift the lid.
Thanks again, Toni, for an amazing series!
This is another approach to being prepared. Thank you for sharing your ideas.
Excellent work. We didn’t need much of our kit during the 2010/2011 Christchurch earthquakes, but it was a real comfort knowing it was there. Mind you, we didn’t allow for everything else in the garage being thrown on top of it which made accessing it harder. Also, when I created my kit, I also made a kit for the ‘we’ve had to move out to a refugee camp for 6 months’ scenario – just a box of tools and materials with which I could fix things or make things to trade.
This come just at the right time. I have been working on a family care plan (emergency family care plan) as a nursing school project. I can’t wait to share this with my client family. Thank you for breaking it down by weeks. this is so attainable!
I don’t see any weapons for self defense or defense of your family and supplies????
I Love this series! Toni, you did an excellent job of making this series very user friendly and welcoming to those who are starting out for the first time to build a family preparedness plan. We took $60 from our grocery budget and put $30 to food storage and $30 for food storage we would cook with. Its worked great! Smart Survival Foods allowed us to grow our food storage as our budget allowed!
Having lived through hurricane Katrina can I add a few tips? Put everything in ziplock bags. Everything! Also- you may have included it in another post but be sure to have sunscreen and bug spray for everyone. Don’t depend on being together. I have a shoe string necklace with a utility tool, flashlight, Chapstick with sunscreen and whistle/compass combo for each person in the side pockets of their bags. That’s the first thing we will put on our necks. The second line of defense are the bags and the third is all of the other supplies that can’t be carried in the bags ie stoves, shovel, portable toilet. Also I put a few water bottles in each bag just in case we can’t carry everything. The main thing is to do something! Add to every time you check them throughout the year. They will get better and better and hopefully never get used!! Good post by the way.
Being an IT guy I know the importance of backups. I’d like to share my home emergency backup plan. I purchased 2 portable USB hard drives for backup. One stays at home and is in my emergency bag. Every month or so I’ll sync up our photos which includes copies of SS cards and birth certificates (stuff you don’t want stored online). The second hard drive sits at my parents place about an hour away. Every time we go to visit I swap out the hard drives. This keeps one set of data locally at home and one set away in case of fire, tornado, hurricane etc. If you don’t have a lot of files you can accomplish the same task with a few thumb drives.
I had a family member loose their home in the Bastrop TX wildfires. They were out of town when the fires happened and were not allowed back. They lost everything from the kids photos to birth certificates. In a major disaster you may not even end up living in the same state after an emergency.
You’re so cool! I do not think I have read something like that before. So wonderful to discover another person with some genuine thoughts on this subject. Seriously.. thanks for starting this up. This site is something that is required on the web, someone with a bit of originality!
Hi, I’ve recently starting following your blog. I LOVE it! Thanks so much. I especially loved this series. I’m wondering if you do a food storage (short term and/or long term). I think that would be a wonderful series to do.
Allison 🙂
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I’m coming a little late to this game, but have to say “thanks!” for all of your details. I want to second what S said about OPSEC (remind your children that they don’t need to tell everyone about your kits) and what Alan said about Ziplock bags. I use a Food Saver to seal some of my bags, but ziplock things until I have completed the set.
I also keep small emergency blankets (the silver ones) in each backpack. I found them in the camping section of any department store.
Something many people don’t think about is rotating the items in your pack, especially food and children’s clothing. Little people grow like weeds and a 3T won’t cut it for your 5 year-old. Also, regardless of season, pack a sweatshirt or hoodie for everyone. I live in the Arizona desert but you’d be surprised how cool it can feel at 3 am even after a 110 degree day.
It’s not for everyone, but my husband and I will also include our guns if we have to evacuate. Not only would they provide us with a sense of security, but they wouldn’t be at home if looters were to come looking.
Thanks for finally writing about >Emergency Preparedness – Week 8 “The Reveal & Link Party” | A Bowl Full of Lemons <Liked it!
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Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that
over again. Regardless, just wanted to say wonderful blog!
Love this series! Wondering if you have a kit in the car too?
That is very useful, thank you. I live in New zealand where we are advised to have earthquake kits. The one difficult thing about earthquakes is that if you actually need your kit half your house may be on top of it. So I have water in different places. I find it scary that people have mentioned having a gun in the kit.That is not part of the New Zealand emergency kit! I really don’t understand why americans need to have a gun in the first place. Especially in your home. It is a weapon designed to kill and you have this in your home with your family and children??? Why? You don’t need them.Thanks for the tips though.
I think in a 72 hour emergency situation, survival weapons are non-essential. However, the longer people are on their own the more desperate they become and the prepared are the ones who will be a target for the unprepared. Human nature is kill or be killed and polite society is not going to change that – a long lasting survival situation will only aggravate it. That being said, I wont be packing weapons. I’m concerned about my family, so I’ll just go find us a nice little secluded spot to wait out the madness with our preparedness kits 😀
Well said. The gun nuts are more likely to end up in tragedy than the rest of us. Paranoia runs deep apparently!
Great series on Emergency Preparedness! I have been somewhat preparing for the past year however was trying to find someone out there in cyber land with a good format.
I live in Canada so I don’t need nor can I have bazookas, rifles, pistols, or tazers as the main components for my kit. Nor do I have the luxury or the ability of “bugging out” to a remote cabin or underground bunker or pitching a tent on a frozen piece of land during a paralyzing blizzard. As much as I would like to, this just isn’t practical.
We will be left with two choices depending on the scenario, “bugging in” or going to an evacuation centre. That being said I want to ensure that if either scenario plays out my family are as comfortable and as independent as they can be for 72- 120 hours.
This website has provided me with invaluable information to do just that. I am reevaluating our evacuation bags, bug in supplies, get home bag, and winter car kits as we speak and making some changes. Your information is straight forward, simple and PRACTICAL in every way including where to purchase and cost.
Thank you very much.
Jamie
I didn’t see it when my GranolaGirl put me to the test, but there is at least one or two important items missing… sleeping bags and/or blankets and pads… the tent will be adequate shelter, but without at least the bags it could be a miserable night during cold weather… if not bags, at least one wool prison blankets.
OMG. Thank you SO much for sharing everything you do! I am completely in love with everything on here!!! My #1 problem is our kids learning room as well as me being overwhelmed with too much stuff. I try to downsize but it never works. #Fav I will use you as reference to my organization. :-/ wish me luck 😀
Thanks for your post! I am building my emergency supplies and food storage, but my shelves aren’t as neat as yours. 🙂
Could you please explain what exactly you put in the backpack and HOW you fit it all in there. I know I am such a bad packer that one set of clothes and shoes and it would be full. Thanks for everything!