Week 19 - 72 Crew

OK, now let's work on some of the other things that we may need in a 72 hour kit.  So let's put in a pocket knife!!!  I have seen usable pocket knives on sale from $4 to $140.  I have seen pocket knives with simply one folding blade to 12-in-1 combinations.  You may want to do some talking to the Scouts and/or campers in your family to get their recommendations.  And you may want to do a little internet research.

I tend to favor a Swiss army knife configuration, but that may just be because our pocket knife (a Swiss army knife combination) was a gift from my dad.  When you look at the configurations, think through how the various functions might help your family.

We'll calendar this item for 3 weeks, both because the more common prices are between $12 - $20 and because you may need a little research time.  If you want to check out the $4 knife, feel free to send me an email, and I can direct you to it online, however I am not endorsing it or any particular pocket knife.

For those of you that already have your pocket knives, we would love to hear what you have and why you chose it.  Please give us the benefit of your experience.

And optionally, if you already have a pocket knife in your 72 hour kit, put your $5 this week into an envelope to start saving for your radio.

Week 17 - 72 Crew

So how is your bedding coming?  Have you identified the sleeping bags you want and have you either purchased them or have you been putting away your $5/wk/every 2 people in your family so that you can purchase them next week?  We will allot this week and next week to getting this very important part of your 72 hour kit in order.

The optional item this week is a whistle.  I think the only two criteria is that it works and it is loud.  It is one of those things you may never use, or it may become very important in locating yourself to others or to finding someone else in a crisis situation.

Or maybe you will just "whistle while you work" ;-) (It is possible that I am spending too much time on the internet watching old Once Upon a Time episodes.)

Week 15 - 72 Crew

Hi again,

As promised, this week we are still working on bedding.  With our current budget plan, hopefully you are now at least half done storing the bedding needs of your 72 hour kits (or having the money squirreled away to purchase half the bedding needs now).  If you have questions or concerns, be sure to ask or comment. 

And, of course, if your bedding needs are now or already met, good on you - keep putting your $5/week/every 2 people into savings for the other needs. Or if your kit has room for it, you may want to tuck in a small travel pillow for every one.

Have a great week.  Your kit is shaping up!!

Week 14 - 72 Crew

Here we are, the 14th week of our project and the 2nd week of working on bedding.  At $5/week/every 2 people in your family, we going to be working on this a few weeks.  So please drop me a quick "Done" email as soon as you have your bedding completed.  Anyone find any good deals this week, or want to send along a quick photo of your nifty sleeping bag? 

For those of you that have your sleeping bags in place, let's toss out another optional item you can purchase and add this week:  a sewing kit.  These are the little (about 1" x 2" x 3") kits you can often find in the same section as you find your travel size bottles of shampoo and the like.  You never know when a needle and a little thread will come in handy.

Week 13 - 72 Crew

Good morning,

OK, today we start on another item that may be a bigger cash item, so we will be doing it for a few weeks.  I will need responses back from you to help determine how long we will work on it.

Today we add....a little drumroll please.......

SLEEPING BAGS

Each person in your family will need bedding.  The bedding will hopefully be lightweight, but give you the warmth and protection you will need.  If we are simply evacuating to a shelter here in TX we probably won't need a sleeping bag that is rated for -40 degrees, but again, it is worth a family discussion to decide on what kind of bedding you need/want.  Be sure it is easily transportable, that it fits easily into the container you are using for your kit or straps (be sure you have the straps) easily onto your backpacks. 

As you probably know, there is great variety in the cost of sleeping bags.  As a benchmark, I see that one of the major discount stores has some workable bags for about $16 apiece.

For those of you who already have sleeping bags, the optional item this week is an emergency blanket.  If you are not familiar with what these are, simply type in "emergency blanket" in a large store's search engine and you will see a selection.  They are usually made of something like an aluminized polyester and will reflect body heat back to you.  They can be folded up to the size of a deck of cards.  You can usually get them for under $5 apiece.

Sweet dreams,

Marie

Week 11 - 72 Crew

Morning Sisters,

This week we are still working on the toiletries.

So...get out another of those gallon size ziploc style baggies. Today, or tonight for FHE, put in it the following:

• a small hairbrush
• a travel size container of shampoo
• a small bar of soap (the size you get at hotels works great)
• a soap dish (this is optional - you might just want a small baggie, but a small soap dish usually lets the soap air out better)
• a travel size container of hand sanitizer

That's it!! Easy, eh?

Again, some of these things you may have around already. In that case, put the $5 this week in your 72 hour savings envelope. If you have to buy all this, it may take more than the $5. Again, just let me know, and we can extend it a week or so.


Preparedly yours,

Marie

Week 10 - 72 Crew

Morning Sisters,

Ah...this week you may find kind of fun, as the items may simply be already in your house, and it may simply be a matter of taking FHE tonight have your family help you go around and gather them up.

If this assignment does not need spending from you, remember to put that $5/week/every 2 people in your family into the savings envelope for either your carrier for your 72 hr kit or for upcoming sleeping bags.

So here goes. First, you will need a gallon zip lock bag/every two people. In it, place a roll of toilet paper. If you need to conserve space, you can take the cardboard out of the middle and flatten it. Then place two toothbrushes and a travel size tube of your favorite toothpaste. If there are girls/women in your household who are having periods, put a 3 day supply of tampons/sanitary napkins (whatever they prefer to use) in their zip lock bag as well.

Then put the baggie in your 72 hour kit or box. Tada!!

Ah...the joys of feeling that much more prepared.

Take care,

Marie

P.S. I am obviously making an assumption that you will already have some if not all of these things already in your household and they just need to be transferred. However, I realize if you have to buy toothbrushes or baggies or an extra tube of toothpaste, this could easily go over the $5/week/every 2 people limit. So just let me know if we need to give this assignment another week to complete.

Week 8 - 72 Crew

Morning, team,

Let there be light.

So now you have your food all in place either in your boxes that are serving as your temporary 72 hour kit carriers or in your 72 hour kit itself.

This week, use your $5 per every two people to get a good flashlight (equipped with working batteries) for your kit. Obviously, you may have an extra flashlight you can use or extra batteries in storage that you can pull out.

If you already have a working flashlight that you are putting or already keeping in your 72 hour kit and haven't purchased the carrier yet, put the money with the other that you are saving for this purchase.

You may have to have a family discussion as to if you want every individual to have a flashlight, every two people to have a flashlight, or simply that the family's kit have the one flashlight.

When we had kids at home with backpacks as part of our plan, the goal we aimed for was that every one would have a smaller flashlight for their backpack, and we would have a larger one for our family kit. We were never in a situation to put it to the test, so that might have been overkill. Those of you that are campers may be able to let the rest of us know what is reasonable for light needs.

De"light"edly,

Marie

Week 7 - 72 Crew

Good morning, oh ye sisters who are diligently preparing.

We are still continuing to make sure we have the needed food items in our 72 hour kits. This is the last of the 3 weeks we had set for this endeavor, so be sure you have the food items you will need in your kits.

In brief, the assignment for all of you this week, whether you are refreshing or buying for your kits for the first time, is to spend your $5 (per every two people in your family) on getting food items for the 3 days of food for your family members.

If you already have 3 days of food in your kits for each member of your family, please put that $5 per every 2 people in your family in an envelope to spend on other things you will need as we go along.

Additionally this week, add vitamins. Check the expiration dates and make sure that they do not expire in the next 6 months before you include them. Ideally, you will just be including the regular multi-vitamins that your family usually takes so that it will just be a part of their regular routine to take them. There has been research that indicates that B vitamins are especially helpful in dealing with stress. You may want to check to see if your normal vitamins have a goodly amount of the B complex in them or you may want to add them. If you do not regularly take vitamins, you may want to decide whether this is something you want to include or not. Remember that some vitamins do better in a dark container. As you are going to need just 3 multivitamins per person, you may just need a very small container. I do not recommend putting vitamins in a baggie - too easy to get squashed, etc., but look around your house for a small little container that will do the trick.

Also this week you need to go to your calendar, and in the middle of August someplace, write "Change out food in 72 hour kits." This is a process that needs to be done every 6 months, so use whatever tickler methods work for you. Some families choose to use General Conferences as their "refresh the 72 hour kit" days. If you prefer to do it then, today write on your calendars on those first weekends in April and October that you are going to "refresh the 72 hour kits."

Have fun. I am looking forward to seeing the wide variety of 72 hour kits you are creating. Maybe we can celebrate with a special dinner and display when we get them all put together.

Love,

Week 6 - 72 Crew

Play it again, Sam.  As mentioned last week, we are still continuing to make sure we have the needed food items in our 72 hour kits.

In brief, the assignment for all of you this week, whether you are refreshing or buying for your kits for the first time, is to spend your $5 (per every two people in your family) on getting food items for the 3 days of food for your family members.

If you already have 3 days of food in your kits for each member of your family, please put that $5 per every 2 people in your family in an envelope to spend on other things you will need as we go along OR  use it to come up with an entertainment type item for each person.  For example, in our kit, we carry a set of UNO cards.

Carry on!!

Week 4 - 72 Crew

Good morning sisters,

 

Mark had such a good time with you all at the special RS meeting on Saturday. It sounds like LOTS was accomplished!!!

 

OK, so you have or are working on getting your bags/containers, you have underwear and a change of clothes for everyone in your family. Now we are going to work on WATER.

 

The rule of thumb for water is: 1 gallon per person per day. In Mark and my situation, therefore, we figure 2 people times 3 days and add some for dogs...so we came up with needing 7 gallons (we have little dogs). So do the math for your family and see what you come up with.

 

Living where we do, the water you can usually take right out of the tap. So coming up with water is not the challenge. However, what to put the water in can be a challenge. The containers can also be a $ item.

The other rule of thumb is that it needs to be quickly transportable. Those of you at the Saturday activity heard that the Bastrop people were given 1 minute to get out of their homes. Remember a 72 hour kit is pretty much a "grab and go" arrangement.

 

And water is heavy, so you have to solve the transportability issue. So this week you will need to study water containers and decide what you want.

 

The other challenge can be the purification issue. I have taken the following quote from the Josephine County Oregon Emergency Preparedness Handbook. "Purify water by boiling it for 5 to 10 minutes or by adding drops of household bleach containing 5.25% hypochlorite. FEMA recommends 16 drops of bleach per gallon of water. Water purification tablets or a filter system such as those designed for campers and backpackers also work." My understanding is that if you are using distilled or nursery water, that this process has already been done. I have also seen much smaller amounts of bleach recommended in other sites. I am no water expert. So I again will leave this to your own research, judgement and prayer as to how to prepare your water.

Here is the link to the handbook I just referenced. We have found it to be a very good guide to preparedness.

 

http://www.co.josephine.or.us/files/2009bookfinal.pdf

For those of you who were at the Saturday activity, you saw the water containers Mark and I are currently using. The last revision we made to our 72 hour kits, we had decided to simply pack gallon containers of distilled water into our rolling duffel bags. Bad idea. Only 1 out of the 7 made it through the 6 months. So we have invested in two more durable stackable containers. Our plan is that they stack on top of each other and are strapped to our dolly, so that we can either heft them into the back of our jeep or can pull them behind us.

 

As, I am sure you are realizing, 72 hour kits are all individually designed to meet the needs of your particular family. So please share with us how you address getting the water needs met for your family in your 72 hour kit.

 

Assignments:

RED Team: Again put $5/every 2 people in your family into your envelope in your cardboard box for your 72 kit containers. Determine how much water you will need and how you are going to store and transport it. Look around your home for storage containers you can repurpose for water. Until you get/can afford what you want, start cleaning out those containers that your milk, soda, etc. comes in and fill them with water and put them in another cardboard box with handles in the sides, so you can pick them up and go if you need to.

YELLOW and BLUE Team: Review your water needs and transportation needs. Do you have enough water? Has it been changed out in the last 6 months? Is it in containers that are transportable. If you have suggestions of things that have worked for you in regards to water storage, remember we have sisters here who are just beginning the water storage journey and would love to have the benefit of your experience, so please feel free to share your stories with us.

Week 2 - 72 Crew

Morning Sisters,

OK, we've had some more wonderful sisters join us, so for review, consider yourself in the RED subgroup if you are beginning to to put together your 72 hour kit

YELLOW subgroup it you are in the middle

BLUE if you have a kit but it needs refreshing.

This week is UNDERWEAR week.

RED TEAM

1. Put another $5 per every two people into your envelope that is going to purchase you carrying bags.

2. Pick out two changes of undergarments for every person in your family and put them in your cardboard box. (1 change will do if that is all you can spare right now.)

YELLOW TEAM

Assuming you have the carriers you intend to use:

Either:

Pick out two changes of undergarments for every person in your family and put them in your cardboard box. (1 change will do if that is all you can spare right now.)

OR

If that is something you have in the kits already, check the sizing on each garment and make sure it still fits. It not, take it our and replace with current underwear. Have the kids and husband help.

BLUE TEAM

Yea, you know where this is going. Get the husband and kids to help you check the kits. It their underwear no longer fits, have them change it out for underwear that fits and hopefully will fit for 6 months.

Note to all: 72 hour kits need to be reviewed every 6 months to do just the kind of things we are talking about, making sure clothing fits and that food hasn't passed their use by dates.

Next week will be Outer clothing, so if you want to do it all at the same time, feel free. It will just be more time consuming to do it all at once.

You guys are great. Talk with you next week.

Marie

Week 1 - 72 Crew

Here is a possible checklist to use for the 72 hour kits we will be creating.

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/preparation/72_hour_kit.pdf   Hi Team,   Yay, it is Week 1 of our getting prepared.   Within this group there will be 3 mini support groups. Some weeks the mini groups will have different tasks. Some weeks we will all have the same task. This week it is a bit of a combo.   Red Team (starting from scratch or re-scratch)   Yellow Team (somewhere in the middle)   Blue Team (needs refreshing)     RED Team 1. Get a cardboard box and label it 72 hr kit   2. Identify the spot in which you are going to keep your 72 hour kit - think easily accessible.   3. Decide what permanent kind of travel container you are going to want to carry your 72 hr kit. There are pros and cons of various kinds. Do you want it on rollers? Do you want it all in backpacks? Think sturdy and transportable. Do a little "window" shopping on the internet and identify what you think you want and how much it will cost.   4. For every two people in your family, put $5 in an envelope labeled For 72 Hour Kit Container and put it in your cardboard box above or in another safe place.   5. Print out the pdf file at the beginning of this email and put it in your cardboard box.   YELLOW Team Print out the pdf at the beginning of this email, mark off everything that you have and scan and email it back to me. If you have another list you are working from, please just send that to me.   BLUE Team Ah, bless your hearts, this is probably the toughest task this week.   1. Pull out your 72 hour kit(s), check all expiration dates of perishable things, and throw away everything that is past its use by date. If you have husband and kids, schedule this at a time that all of them can help you do this.   2. Print out the pdf at the beginning of this and put it with your 72 hour kit.   Onward, ever onward. Let me know as you complete your tasks, and have fun.