Essential Items to Include in Your Grab & Go Bag and Bug Out Bag!
Better safe than sorry. A major emergency or national crisis could happen at anytime and when you least expect it. Don’t be an unprepared victim! Here are the categories of items you should have in your “Grab and Go Bag” or “Bug Out Bag.”
The good news is you can prepare by getting a grab and go bag or bug out bag together. But where do you start, what should you pack?
I do an in depth presentation on this in my workshops but here is a quick and dirty run down of what you should include in your BOB to get you started.
At the bare minimum you should have something to cover what I call the “Survival Seven: Food, Water, Fire, Shelter, First Aid, Security, and Communications.”
1. Food should come in nonperishable form like canned goods, MREs or meals ready to eat, protein bars, meal replacement shakes, nuts, trail mix etc. The food you pack should give you enough calories every day to sustain your energy so your brain can focus on what you need to do to stay alive and get back to your family.
2. Water can be carried in bottles, little emergency packs, or you can use hydration packs like the “Camelback”. Your water should be portable. If you don’t have water on hand at least have containers to carry water ready so you can fill them up later. Also, make sure you have ways to purify your water like some type of filter, a fire source to boil your water, or bleach.
3. Fire is important as it can keep your body warm to prevent hypothermia. You will need it to boil and sanitize your water, and heat food to the right temperature so it is safe for consumption. You should carry several ways to start a fire. A lighter is great but you have to know how to get old school and use a hand drill or bow drill. What if your lighter runs out of fluid and you missed the ideal high point of the sun’s trajectory to make fire with a piece of glass? The point is to have redundancies built into your pack and practice with all those different methods available to you before you actually need them.
4. Shelter is important to protect you from the elements. It can come in different forms like tube tents and sleeping bags which can easily be carried in a pack and don’t take up much space when they are folded well. You also need to learn to look for natural shelters like an abandoned vehicle, little alcoves or caves, maybe turn a canoe or little boat upside down or on its side for cover. Those emergency blankets they wrap runners in after a marathon also come in the form of an emergency sleeping bag that you can slip your entire body into so you can keep warm and dry. That is what your shelter should do for you.
5. First aid is self explanatory. Not only do you need to have the standard band aids, ointments, gauze, etc but you need to have the training to deal with wounds and emergency first aid. Also carry antibiotics if you can get your hands on them, any prescription medications you might need desperately like insulin or blood pressure pills. It goes without saying that you should get some advanced emergency medical training or tactical medic training. You may encounter injuries or wounds that a basic first aid kit simply won’t cover.
6. Security, well that is one of my favorite topics. In a SHTF situation you will need firearms and ammunition. I would definitely carry a firearm myself for protection. If you are not comfortable carrying guns or using firearms, and you haven’t trained with me or had other good quality training, then you shouldn’t be using guns because you are a big liability. A handgun is a great tool for personal protection. Long guns like rifles and shotguns will be very useful for hunting and putting food in your belly. Other adjuncts like pepper spray, knives, flashlights, are necessary security elements. Of course your mindset and level of awareness are the most important things you carry with you because you are ultimately the weapon. The tools you carry are just tools. They don’t work by themselves.
7. Communications are vital to your survival. You absolutely must maintain a way to communicate with other people and receive vital information. You can have things like FRS radios, HAM radios, satellite phones, battery operated or hand crank radios, and police scanners. If phone lines are down you wont be able to call your loved ones or check the internet for information.
Emergency kits are meant to be portable. By all means don’t use that empty box of copy paper in your office as an emergency kit container. I have consulted with families that put their survival kits together after the last major natural disaster and they bring me this box of disorganized junk. The box is old, falling apart, and has nothing more than a bottle of water, some extra clothes, a single blanket for the entire family, and some beef jerky. That is not good enough for you. Get a good bag of some kind like a backpack or hiking pack with strong straps. Your “Grab & Bo Bag” should have at least three days of supplies because they are meant for quick access in case of a truly unexpected and unplanned emergency. Your “Bug Out Bag” will be a little larger and should have at least seven days worth of supplies. You should place one in your home for each member of your family, at least one in the car and one in your office. Make sure you go through your kits and update them every six months.
Share your thoughts and comments here. If you have been to one of my classes and seen my Grab and Go bag and Bug Out Bag demonstrations let me know about your progress.
To Your Surviving and Thriving,
MaryAnne Morcos, The Urban Survival Chick
