EMERGENCY KIT CHECKLIST

Bare Essentials:

Consider packing in advance for each person/pet in your household, at least:

All of the ‘perishable’ items in your emergency kit (eg water, food, medicines, spare batteries) should be checked during the year to ensure they are still up-to-date. Water in sealed containers can be kept for up to 12 months.

• Photo ID (eg Driver’s License), and debit/credit card
• Essential Medications (for at least 3 days) or prescriptions
• Essential Pet essentials (leads/carriers/restraints, food/water bowls)
• Essential Mobile phone & charger
• Essential Food (canned/non-perishable/snacks) & water (1.5 litres/day per person) for at least 3 days
• Essential Any necessary prescriptions (eg blood pressure/epilepsy medications, insulin)
• Essential equipment (eg extra glasses. CPAP machine, extra hearing aids & batteries)
• Essential Basic hygiene needs (soap, tissues, brush or comb, toothbrush & toothpaste)
• Essential Torch—with extra batteries
• Essential Communication devices (eg tablet & charger so you can contact friends & family via Facebook; radio & spare batteries
• Essential First Aid kit
• Essential At least one change of clothes (plus strong shoes, hat, strong gloves — for clean-up on return home)
• Essential Valuables (eg irreplaceable items such as family mementos, photo albums)
• Essential Valuable documents/photos (eg passport, Will, marriage & birth certificates, photos of valuables in house, insurance documents, title deeds of house, passwords) – ideally, use a scanner to keep electronic copies of these on a USB stick/smartphone, or load them to the Cloud
• Essential Computer back-up ideally either an external hard-drive with your back-up on it, or a back-up stored on the Cloud
• Essential Entertainment (games, books, cards, tablets – with charger) – it might be a long while before you can go home