Extra Supplies Auto-Packed and Ready for Immediate Evacuation

If your family has ever been forced to evacuate for flood, fire, or any other emergency, then you already know there is never enough time to grab everything you need, for 3 or more days. Every member of your family will need to have sufficient provisions, whether you family is shelter bound, or heading for the hills, already packed into your escape vehicle.

Every family member, including baby, needs to have their own backpack, filled with emergency clothing, food, water, school supplies, toys, games, books, and bedding roll or sleeping bag. Infants and toddlers can share a fully-stocked diaper bag, but other children, as well as adult family members, will need their own backpack or bug-out bags.

My family also keeps a fully-stocked individual emergency-evacuation outfit on a single hanger in each person's closet, ready to change into at a moment's notice. See my article "What to Wear in Preparation for Emergency Evacuation Survival" for pocket-packing emergency outfitting.

Bug-Out Backpacks

Each family member should have an appropriate backpack based upon size and age. Adult and teen back-packs should have a light-weight inner-tube style framing for even weight distribution, and should have room to accommodate a sleeping bag.

Children and tweens will do fine with a book-style backpack, capable of holding a child-size sleeping bag, rolled up with extra changes of clothing, and comfort toys. Infants can be worn in a frontal harness, such as a Snuggly with adjustable safety straps, right along with a backpack, as I did for years.

Even your toddlers could wear a light-weight child-sized day pack filled with their own clothes and toys. I would also recommend a harness or wrist strap for your toddlers, to ensure they don't wander off or separate from the family.

Keeping the Car Packed

Fully packed backpacks or bug-out bags should be stored in the trunk of your car at all times. This will keep all emergency items neatly stored, out of sight and evacuation-ready, along with just a few other important items.

Back up family photos onto discs and laminate important documents to be stored in travel-ready zip-top baggies, and tucked into parental backpacks. A full case of water bottles should also be kept in the trunk of your car, ready for any emergency.

Typical Disaster Relief

Based upon first-hand fire, quake, and flood disaster/evacuation experiences, my advice is not to count on your insurance company, or any other governmental agencies to help your family during an emergency; you must be prepared to stand alone. Local church relief or Red Cross may not be immediately available, if they've experienced the same disaster, and outside help may not be forth-coming.

You must count on facing disasters alone, as a family unit, for at least 3 days, or maybe more. Try to remember that it only takes one emergency, in which you have not prepared, to lose everything; so why not be prepared, and make plans to ensure your family's safety and survival?