This is one installment of a ten-part series.
#7 Hair-Pulling, Eye Rolling Prepper Mistake: Deciding not to store a 72 hour kit because you have decided regardless of what does go down, when disaster strikes, you’re just not going to need to leave home. Please.
In this part of the Midwest, we are strangely fortunate to have very few weather related issues. Consequently, many people here tend to actually look down their nose at the idea of having a 72 kit or BOB (bug out bag.) People tend to forget that there is always the possibility of severe weather, whether it is a tornado, thunderstorm, ice storm, or many inches of snow fall. We are fortunate enough to reside near a very quiet fault line, the New Madrid. In this neighborhood of the United States, we certainly are not subject to the moving and shaking of the famous San Andreas in California.
More disturbing is the idea that many first responders we have spoken to in our area do not have their own 72 hour kit. Which begs the question: IF something goes down in the nearby vicinity, what will our first responders do? Go home if they have one? Leave the area? Help themselves to your supplies? One can only wonder. Some people we have mentioned this to have been appalled that this is the case, but I can tell you with all certainty, out of approximately fifty first responders (police officers, paramedics, firemen, sheriff, and volunteer personnel) ONLY ONE we have asked in our nearby small town has said yes, they do have an emergency kit.
Some people have actually scoffed at the notion of having a pink and camouflage (of course! around here camouflage IS a fashion statement!) teddy bear with matching blanket in a 72 hour kit. We love having this displayed at shows because it is often a conversation starter. Initially, some individuals think that it is for adults that are REALLY scared. In all actuality, it belongs to our six year old. She is being raised with the concept that she has her own emergency kit; she knows what is in it and what it is for. This gives her a sense of responsibility as well teaching her from a young age what preparedness means. The purpose of the aforementioned pink teddy bear? It is a comfort mechanism as children who are under stress tend to regress.
When we here at the Radical Survivalism family home seriously began a plan of preparedness, we chose the 72 hour kit as our first place to start. Why? Because we realized that putting the emergency kit ‘to work’ was probably going to be the absolute worst case scenario that we could come up with at the time. (That’s probably not the worst case scenario we can come up with now; we could now probably give you nightmares, but that’s an article for a different day.) We hope that we never have to use our kit. But we knew that if something happened that was SO BAD that we would need a bug out bag or emergency kit, we would have a tremendous set of challenges to overcome at that moment. Consequently, we knew right then and there, that an emergency kit was probably going to be the MOST IMPORTANT preparedness item that we could own, even if it was the most likely to never be used.
At the risk of sounding like I am lecturing (ok, so I am.) If you want to see what life is like when you are unprepared, go to YouTube and view some post Katrina videos of people waiting for food, water, diapers, basic essentials such as soap or clean clothes. The question I would pose to you it this: Why would you choose to wait for potentially an extended period of time for someone to show up and take care of you? It really is a simple choice: survivor or refugee. Which would you choose? Wouldn’t you rather depend on yourself? YOU and only you are the most reliable source of necessities that you have. The same could be said of your family. YOU are the most reliable source of necessities that your FAMILY has. ‘Nuf said.
