With the standard amenities we all enjoy today, staying in your home for a month or more during a disaster scenario may sound easy, but if there was no running water, power, or grocery stores the task of securing your most basic needs (Water, food, heat) would prove a tremendous challenge.
You should be under no illusion that by virtue of being at home you have everything that you need to weather the aftermath of a major disaster. It is vitally important that you first store up enough supplies in your home to last until help arrives. A fully resilient set-up at home can take considerable time and resources to assemble, but it is important to look at it as a form of insurance. Can you insure that your family can survive comfortably for several months without utilities or leaving the home?
There are a few disasters in which you must leave your home or abandon it, but in most cases you either don’t need to, can’t, or simply don’t want to. There are certainly advantages to being able to stay at home in a natural disaster, it not only provides you with shelter but also a place to build up and store a vast array of supplies, which you will certainly need.
A lot of the most core supplies you will need for an emergency situation are well outlined within the Evacuation Kits section, so this section will focus primarily on what you can have in place in addition to those core supplies that will make life easier for you while staying home during a long-term emergency:
Stay At Home supplies: 30+ Days of Emergency supplies:
The key advantage for planning your stay at home supplies is that it allows you to leverage your home as an asset in the case of an emergency. If you find yourself fortunate enough to have your own roof still over your head, you can ride out any potential disasters within the relative comfort of your home.
There are a great many avenues that you can explore when trying to optimize your stay-at-home supplies. Each one has its own particular set of pluses and minuses so what may be best for me may not be the best for you given your situation, location, needs etc. Below you will find a break down of some of the most popular and/or reliable methods for gathering/storing the necessities for your stay-at-home kits:
Water
Access to water during a prolonged emergency situation is vitally important, not only for drinking, but also for food preparation, hygiene, medical, and even Fires! While a minimum of 1 gallon per person per day is a good minimum we highly suggest 3 gallons per day per person (or more if you can provide the capacity!) Here are a few ways that can secure access to the needed quantity of water:
Storage
By virtue of being at home you can store large quantities of water with just a small allocation of space. While storing up bottled water is a good starting point, when you factor in a daily need of 2-3 gallons of water per person per day you’ll find that bottled water becomes prohibitively expensive and have a lot of plastic waste to deal with.
The best option is probably to allocate a space for a 50-gallon drum for water storage. Water bricks are a bit more expensive, but easier to use, store and move. Couple this with some Nano-silver sol for water treatment and you can store sufficient water for less than half the price of bottled water.
Purification (Boiling):
Perhaps the best-known method for water purification is good old fashioned boiling. The catch here of course is that you need to make fire/heat to accomplish that. If a disaster of some sort has taken out your water supply, then its also very likely that your power and/or natural gas are out as well.
There are several products available that do an excellent job of providing the needed cooking power. For a list of Heat and cooking sources see the Heat/Fire section below.
Purification (Filtering):
Filtering water is another effective method of obtaining the water you need, assuming you have a reliable source of water. Wise company has a variety of water filters to choose from. Berkey water filters are also a good choice. While good water filters are a bit on the pricey side you must understand that your life will depend on it. Sickness caused by contaminated water is the leading cause of death in most disaster situations.
Purification (Treatment):
The most traditional methods of water treatment employ the use of Iodine, dichloro isocyanate, or chlorine dioxide. They taste terrible, but they do the trick. We recommend using nano-silver sol. Silver has been used for thousands of years to fight bacteria and with modern technological advancements less is needed to keep water pure. (Nano-silver sol)
Finding Water
It would be good for you start taking walks around your area to locate water sources. Streams, ponds and other natural water should be noted. Collecting rainwater from your gutters or by using a tarp is another great way to collect water if you live in an area that rains. Always sift out debris with a cloth and purify before ingesting any water no matter how clean it looks.
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Food
Ensuring your family has ready access to the food they need will do more than fill bellies: It will help provide a sense of normalcy and improve morale in a very rough situation. Initially your fridge and pantry will help support your family, but as the days pass the contents of your fridge and freezer will spoil and your day-to-day pantry will vanish. Having a store of dedicated emergency food will help keep everyone in top shape!
Canned foods
Canned foods are a great place to start if you are working on a budget. Often you can find sales at your local market for various canned goods throughout the year, making them a very economical choice.
There are however a number of downsides to canned goods: they will eventually need to be replaced or rotated through and having so many canned goods with a relatively short life span means you will either be throwing out a lot of food or will need to incorporate it heavily into your diet as you near their end-of-life. Additionally, canned goods contain a high fraction of water content! Meaning that the volume and weight of their storage is pretty high for the number of calories and nutrition that you get out of them.
Dried Foods
Another great and economical place to start your food storage. Dried foods such as beans, rice, nuts, flour, pastas etc. can, if stored properly, be held in reserve for several years. As some of these items are staples in many diets they can be easily cycled through so long as you are vigilant in maintaining an emergency reserve. Many stores, such as Winco, QFC, and Whole foods maintain a bulk foods section that offer these dried items at great prices. You can often speak with a store associate and get even better deals if you buy whole 25-50lb bags at a time.
The only downside to dried foods is that they, on their own, provide pretty bland diets and generally lack in a number of key minerals and nutrients. As such it would be wise to augment these with something more lively and interesting, such as fruits and vegetables, either through canned or freeze-dried foods.
Freeze Dried Foods
Freeze dried foods offer a lot of versatility in an emergency situation. They provide the best of both worlds with regards to long term storage (often 25+yrs and low weight/volume per calorie like dried foods) while maintaining a diverse selection of good nutritionally rich ingredients (Like fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs etc.). There are a host of companies that sell freeze dried food, but we have partnered with wise food company. They are one of the most trusted names in the industry with food and other survival products. We also like the durability and stackable design of their buckets.
We like Wise company foods, but there are many good brands. The link below highlights their buckets.
If there was a downside to Freeze dried foods it’s that, relative to other methods, it is more expensive. However, we believe that by the time you factor in storage space/time, food quality, and simplicity you get a considerable bang for your buck.
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Heat/Fire
While you may have a roof over your head you should still plan for utility services such as electricity and natural gas to be disrupted. Should the event happen during some of the colder months of the year you could find yourself in a tight spot with regards to keeping warm despite your shelter. Furthermore, without utilities most appliances such as stoves, microwaves, fridges and freezers will no longer be operable. You will need to consider alternative methods for both warmth and cooking.
If you have a regular wood stove or fireplace, you can use it for heat. However, DO NOT USE kerosene heaters, or any outdoor type heater inside. Such devices create poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide, which is an odorless and colorless gas that can be fatal!
Propane stoves
Propane stoves have exceptional versatility and are often used for camping; many people have these sitting in their garage already and will work wonderfully at home in the case of an emergency. Just ensure that you keep enough fuel on hand to last and you should be good to go! Of note however: propane stoves pose a risk if used indoors and should only be used as such if you are able to provide sufficient ventilation, as such their use as a source of heat is inadvisable.
Fire Logs
Fire Logs such as the popular ‘Duraflame’ or Fire pucks are a nice, compact source of heat if you have a fireplace in which to use them. Often, they are formulated to last a fair number of hours, so you can ration them out the keep cozy as needed. These can also double as a heat source for cooking as well.
Kelly Kettle
The Kelly Kettle is a personal favorite of ours: It is a wood burning ‘rocket’ stove with features that help utilize every BTU of heat produced by burning wood scrap (which should remain plentiful in an emergency situation). It’s compact and offers exceptional utility in providing both a heat source (given ventilation indoors) and cooking power.
Keeping the heat in
If there is an emergency that takes your heat sources having proper clothing and blankets will help. Taking advantage of body heat may be your only option. It is advisable to use blankets to close off a small room to keep heat in. If your house is damaged we recommended to have thick plastic sheeting with staples, nails and duct tape to seal off holes in your house.
Food that multiplies
While having a large supply of long term food storage is a great place to start, it will not last forever. Ideally it should be used to supplement your own garden and livestock. We will talk more about gardens and homesteading in the next step, but having heirloom seeds and gardening tools on hand is vitally important for long term survival at home. Many modern seeds are hybrid GMO seeds that do not reproduce more seeds for the next year. Wise company sells a variety of heirloom seeds.
Food will be the currency when the economy dies so be sure to stock up enough for your family and a bit extra for others.
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General Needs and Miscellaneous
With your core needs (water, food, heat and shelter) covered there are still a host of additional supplies you should consider stocking up on. To start with: take stock of what you use on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. A buffer of your standard consumables like toilet paper, dish soap, toothpaste, batteries, feminine products and vitamins should be on hand as insurance against a long-term emergency.
For a list of Amazon Suggestions: Go to our store.
Some additional stay home items may also include:
Slings/Braces
Pain Killers/anti-inflammatory (Aspirin, Ibuprofen etc.)
Digestive aids (Antacids, Laxatives, Anti-diarrhea meds)
Allergy Medications (Antihistamines)
Burn ointments
Tools (Scissors, tweezers, thermometers)
Prescription Medications
Hygiene
Camp Shower
Flashlights (with spare batteries)
Solar Charging station (For phones and other small electronics)
Two-way Radios
2000-Watt Generator (Optional, but could be used to power your fridge, a deep freezer and run a microwave)
Entertainment
Cards
Board games
Baby Supplies
Children activities
Pet supplies
Books