Rolling blackouts, winter storms and hurricanes left millions of Americans without power for extended stretches these past few years. A global pandemic devastated supply chains and at times made it risky to venture out in public. There’s no way to know what challenges the future holds, but you will sleep better if you’ve done all you can to prepare for any disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends being ready to live at home for two weeks without electricity or the ability to get supplies…and it’s prudent to extend that out to several months. How to prepare your home to shelter in place during disasters…

Food

The cans of Spam that people often stow in basements for emergencies can expire in less than three years, so they likely will be inedible by the time a disaster arrives. Better options…

Buy canned and boxed foods—but only those you already eat. Stock your emergency supplies with extras of the canned and boxed foods that your household consumes anyway—skip the beef stew unless you actually eat canned beef stew. Whenever you use one of these items in your kitchen, replace it by taking that item from your emergency supplies…then purchase replacements to restock your emergency supplies. This “rotation” strategy greatly reduces the odds that your emergency food will spoil, and it doesn’t force your family to eat unfamiliar foods during a disaster.

Buy freeze-dried foods. These just-add-water meals can be safely stored for 25 years or longer. Examples: Reliable makers of freeze-dried foods include ReadyWise (ReadyWise.com) and My Patriot Supply (MyPatriotSupply.com).

Buy and store bulk dried foods. Dried beans, rice, grains and pasta can last 10 to 25 years if they’re stored properly. Seal them in five-gallon mylar bags—add a 2,000cc oxygen absorber pack to each bag before sealing it shut. Then place the five-gallon bag inside a five-gallon plastic bucket, and cover it with a lid. The bucket and bag together should keep out everything that spoils food—pests, oxygen, UV light and moisture. Five-gallon mylar bag/oxygen absorber pack kits cost a few dollars apiece on Amazon.com…plastic buckets cost less than $5 apiece at home centers.

Water

Disasters can disrupt municipal water supplies and knock out the electricity needed to draw water from wells. Some households store bottled water for emergencies. Options…

Store water—lots of it. There’s nothing wrong with the conventional disaster-prep strategy of buying and storing bottled water and/or cleaning plastic soda bottles and refilling them with water. Use plastic bottles marked as PET or PETE on the side or botton for long-term water storage. This type of plastic is approved by the FDA for food and water storage and does not contain toxic BPA or plasticizers.

If bottles of water are your only emergency water source, you’ll need lots of them—it’s prudent to have at least one and preferably two gallons of water per person per day, which can come to hundreds of gallons if there are multiple people in the home and the goal is to be ready for extended disasters. If you don’t want to fill your basement with two-liter bottles, you could instead use seven-gallon Aqua-Tainer storage tanks, available for around $20 apiece on Amazon…or 55-gallon plastic barrels, available for around $100 apiece at home centers. If you use barrels, also purchase a hand pump to draw water from these barrels. A plastic hand drum pump can be found on Amazon for under $20. Simply search “55-gallon drum pump,” and look for the red and white plastic options.

Stored bottled or tap water generally remains drinkable for at least five years. But if you’re storing tap water that came from a well, add eight drops of 5% to 6% unscented liquid household bleach per gallon. The chlorine prevents sickness from microbiological organisms such as bacteria, protozoa and viruses. At the proper dosage to treat water, liquid chlorine is deemed safe to consume.

If you’re reusing plastic bottles, choose soda and/or juice bottles rather than milk jugs. The leaching of milk proteins can create an ideal environment for dangerous bacterial growth in your water.

Buy a germ-killing water purifier. Many water-filtration systems remove chemical impurities, but true water purifiers also can remove bacteria and other parasites. In an emergency, a good purifier could allow you to safely consume water from a nearby pond or creek or collected from your roof gutters (see below). Select one that doesn’t require electricity in case of power failure. Example: Big Berkey purification system, recently $332 on Amazon.

Capture rain water. Unless you’re in a drought or desert, your roof gutters can provide water. Rain water generally is clean and safe, but run it through a purifier to remove impurities it might have picked up from your roof or gutters. A plastic rain barrel and a conversion kit make it easy to collect rain water—and when there isn’t an emergency, rain from this barrel can be used to water your lawn or garden. Example: EarthMinded DIY Rain Barrel Diverter Kit, $39.98 on Amazon.

Cooking

Three great options for preparing warm meals…

Buy a portable stove that runs on twigs. An incredible little device called EcoZoom Rocket Stove 9 (EcoZoom.com) generates enough heat from burning twigs to boil water or cook a meal. There’s no need to stockpile fuel—just collect twigs from your yard or neighborhood as needed. Prices start at $109.95.

Build an emergency stove using bricks. With just 25 bricks—no mortar or construction skills required—you can put together an outdoor emergency stove that can run on twigs and sticks like the EcoZoom stove above, though not as efficiently. Videos showing how to build these brick stoves are on
YouTube—search “25 brick rocket stove.” Watch one of these before disaster strikes so you’ll know how to build it even if you can’t access the Internet during a disaster. Either buy the bricks you’ll need in advance, or confirm that your patio or landscaping has sufficient bricks that could easily be pulled up.

Use your barbecue grill. Many homes already have a backyard grill and someone skilled at using it. But if your grill is your disaster cooking plan, make sure you always have fuel on hand, even when it’s not grilling season—either a few 20-gallon propane tanks…or a large garbage can full of charcoal briquettes.

Four More Must-Haves

Don’t overlook these additional ­disaster-preparation steps…

Buy a kerosene or propane space heater. A winter power outage or gas-line disruption could put you, your family and your house at risk—low temps can lead to burst water pipes. Home centers sell kerosene space heaters capable of warming up to 1,000 square feet, typically for around $150. A propane space heater also might serve this purpose, though these typically are designed to warm smaller areas. Kerosene and propane can be stored for years in a garage or shed—but whatever heater you select, confirm that it’s safe for indoor use. Example: Mr. Heater Little Buddy Heater runs on propane and is a cost-effective, fuel-efficient option for heating small rooms, recently $74 on Amazon.

Create an emergency toilet. A lack of functioning flush toilets can very quickly become a major problem. One affordable, effective solution is to buy five-gallon buckets and an “emergency five-gallon bucket toilet seat” (enter that phrase into Amazon to find numerous options for under $20). Store a few garbage bags of sawdust, too—lumber yards and home centers often provide free sawdust upon request. When your home’s toilets are inoperable, put an inch of sawdust in a bucket, snap the seat on top, then add an additional inch of sawdust after each use. When a bucket is full, put a cover on it and transfer the toilet seat to another bucket. Stow filled buckets in the garage or yard until you can dispose of them safely.

Buy a solar generator. Many households have a portable gas-powered generator for emergencies. Those can be valuable…but gas can be difficult to obtain during an extended disaster, so it’s also worth buying a portable emergency solar system. A small system can charge essentials such as phones and flashlight batteries, while a larger system can power appliances. Example: Goal Zero Solar Kits (GoalZero.com) start at $79.95, though prices climb into the thousands for more substantial systems. 

Stockpile medicines. Ask your doctor to adjust your prescriptions so that you have on hand several months’ supply of drugs you take regularly. Explain that you don’t want to risk being without medicine in a disaster. This might not be possible with controlled substances, such as opioid pain medications, but with most drugs it’s a reasonable request. Use a “rotation” strategy similar to that described for canned foods earlier to prevent stockpiled medicines from expiring.

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