The Mormons are, IIRC, doomsday preppers. What do they keep ?
We have all of the medicines and topical antibiotics (Neosporin/Polysporin) in some kits that I made, but I am assuming the Tylenol, Vicks, and Tums have expired.
I have those ice packs that you break to get the cool started. Gauze bandages are still good, tub of Vaseline should still be good. I don’t have epinephrine because we don’t have anyone with allergies, but it might come in handy. We have escape ladders too.
Costco batteries AA, AAA, 9V, C and D sizes.
I’m going to add the IV supplement that Costco sells because our kids are putting those in their wedding hangover kits.
One of my high school classmates told me about a really good generator for $49 to hold us over in case of electricity issues; we lost power for 12 hours recently. I need to find out what he’s talking about.
We live in Mormon country. They abide by a full preparedness plan that includes:
Personal Preparation and self-reliance.
- Three-month supply of food that is part of your normal daily diet.
- Drinking water.
- Financial reserves.
- Longer-term supply of basic food items like this
- Medication and first aid supplies.
- Clothing and bedding.
- Important documents.
- Ways to communicate with family following a disaster.
We have also noticed that subdivisions are springing up around us with houses that appear to feature attached RV storage, similar to this:
that some Mormon families are using for multi-year food/disaster supplies.
Perhaps my disaster plan should be making friends with some Mormons.
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In a previous life, I was Y2K counsel to companies (no rude comments, please!
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Nothing worth mentioning really happened, but that, plus a massive weather indicent (tornado) years ago, and a few other things (like the fact we live in the Bay Area) made me focus on preparedness.
The easiest thing I’ve found is to have redundancies for all mission-critical stuff for your family. For example,
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If the electricity/gas goes out, we have an outdoor BBQ with a couple of propane tanks that would be perfectly fine for cooking.
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when it’s cold, I bought a small space heater that I can run with some of my back-up power sources. We also have a fireplace with enough wood to last for a several days.
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If there is no water, we have several bottles of drinking water and replace them as needed. I also bought a few cheap filtration devices. And, yes, I whole-heartedly agree with filling the bathtub with water and having a few bottles of water stored in your bathroom. Toilets generally do work if you fill them with water!
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For power, we have a small gas-powered generator, an inverter, tons of batteries, lanterns etc. In the past few years, we’ve had some staged and non-staged black-outs courtesy of PG&E. Amazingly, we seem to be the only house on the street to deal with power-outages. The small generator and the inverter easily cost less than $1000, and they have been life-savers for things like black-outs.
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For communications, I bought a relatively cheap two-way radio from Amazon. We used this for ski trips where there was no cell coverage.
Could we survive nuclear armageddon? Nah…but I don’t suppose we wouldn’t want to. However, could we survive for several days with no power, gas, heat, water, etc? Yup.
I guess the point that I am trying to make is that these redundancies can also be used for everyday life. Just make sure to monitor your supplies and replace/replenish as needed.
This is a great thread for everyone to be thinking ahead. It doesn’t have to be expensive or a lot. Just plan, and you might find that many of these back-ups are very easy to obtain and can be used in a variety of circumstances.
And we don’t have rubles…just good ole USA greenbacks for us. 
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This is the battery I bought that can safely run my medical equipment for several hours. It doesn’t emit any fumes and holds its charge for about a year. Mine was purchased on sale at Costco. At 10 pounds it’s light enough I could bring it along if I need to evacuate.
https://www.duracellpower.com/products/duracellpower-powerblock-500
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As we say, I may be dumb, but I ain’t stupid.
I think I finally got the reference here, which is to the wonderful movie “Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.” If that’s right, well-played, Sir!
- Major T. J. “King” Kong : Survival kit contents check. In them you’ll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days’ concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
Check this out at around 3:38 into the video:
If wrong, it was still worth researching “Dr. Strangelove,” as it’s one of the all-time greats.
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So, back to topic, it’s amusing to watch the stockpiling of bread, milk, eggs and toilet paper when the forecast here is for possible winter weather.
Guilty
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Haha, in HI, we stockpile toilet paper and other paper goods when there’s a rumor or hint of a shipping strike because we had one that lasted a very long time and folks have LONG memories.
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Our main concern is what to do if fire is coming with seconds warning. We have gone over escape routes- up the mountain, down the mountain, sideways to the mountain. Grab the dog and leash and run. Also- how to get out of various parts of the house in seconds.
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This is an issue that many in the Bay Area have. Luckily, the “powers that be” are extremely conservative about fires and give evacuation recs/orders hours before a problem (to the extent that’s possible).
We nearly did evacuate in 2020. The idea was that I would stay behind with our pupper and the rest of the family would go away from the fire hazard. If things got bad, pupper and I would get the heck out of there, either by car or by foot. We had lots of warning, and luckily, nothing happened.
If your area doesn’t have this kind of early warning system in place, the safest thing is to just leave with your family until the fire issue subsides.
Are there are early warning systems in place in your area? If so, heed them. If not, just go. Nothing can replace a life.
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Being in Earthquake country, yes, have food,water/first aid/medicine/batteries, flash/solar lights, clothing, tools, whistle, etc. in an outdoor storage area. (was happy in COVID times to discover 3 rolls of TP in storage!). We also have shoes under beds in case a quake happens at night.
During wildfire season, we back up cars in driveway, have masks, have a ready to go Grab it bag with clothes, toiletries, OTC meds, spare glasses/contacts; cash; contact info and can of spray paint**. We have a list of things to grab if possible:
H: Laptops & cell phones, chargers; RX meds, fire extinguisher.
ME: file with all important insurance, medical, checks, financial docs; box of family
heirlooms/pictures; the "good"jewelry. Extra clothes if time permits.
We also have to-do list: in EQ, turn off gas on water heater. In wildfire, close all windows. **If evacuating, we would paint on house “EMPTY” and “Hot tub here >>”
In our area, really only one main road out, so if it’s impassible, our meeting point is at the nearby Marina.
We have a lot of info/pictures in cloud.
Fingers crossed that we’ll never need to execute any plans…
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Hot tub? To supply water?
For stuff like flushing toilets if the water is out, water in hot tubs and pools are a great supply.
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to aid firefighters … our neighborhood prevention plan has a list of pools and hot tubs for water…but writing on house is a quick alert for non-local units.
and yes, in EQ, water in tubs and pools is a great resource…
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Looks like you have things covered very well. I like how everyone has individual responsibilities and things are so well spelled out ahead of time.
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We have a well and an oil boiler and both require electricity. For back up heat we would fire up the wood stove (doubles as a cooking surface in winter). Non-winter we can cook on the gas grill. For flushing we keep buckets of water in old kitty litter tubs upstairs out of sight. We lose power every winter, but very seldom for more than a couple of hours.
Looking in our pantry, there is probably enough pasta to survive any apocalypse!
You know, we might have to define “disaster.”* I think all of the suggestions in this thread are excellent to consider and implement, but most seem to assume extreme weather occurrences or outages of a few days or weeks at most. Obviously, if the real apocalypse occurs, we’re all out of luck, but I think most of us could get through short-term privation with what we’re already doing. How are you prepared to deal with a long-term or permanent disconnect from utilities or funds? What happens if you suddenly become homeless and camping and foraging are required? Perhaps these emergency supplies should be kept somewhere underground, not in our houses or cars… 
*Which reminds me of a bad dad joke:
I swallowed a bunch of Scrabble tiles. Next trip to the bathroom could spell disaster.
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Define Disaster - I live in the NE and I wouldn’t consider a blizzard (even one that knocks out power for a couple of days) a disaster - it’s something that’s pretty likely to happen every 10 or so years. Similarly with Tornado’s, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, etc depending on where in the country you live.
To me a disaster is something you couldn’t likely predict coming (COVID?) and therefore incredibly hard to accurately prepare for. Who was pre-stocked up on N95’s 3 years ago? What about the fuel shortage in the southeast a couple years back?
Having extra durable food, potable water, etc is a good thing to keep around in any circumstance.
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