How to Make a Home Emergency Kit: An Expert-Advised Checklist and Buying Guide

Not so long ago, I used to think that those who made emergency kits for their home were a special category of person, and not necessarily in a positive way. Sure, I’d prepare when the forecast called for a once-in-a-century storm. But I had the privileged sense of general safety that made me think I didn’t need to gather a special stash of canned goods, bottled water, and paper maps with highlighted evacuation routes. Being a “prepper” was just too extreme.

Here’s the current reality: If you live anywhere near a recent wildfire, hurricane path, tornado-prone area, or body of water, you know how quickly natural and man-made disasters can strike.

“We need to adjust our priorities to the fact that climate change is real, and there are all different kinds of disasters that could happen at any moment,” says Brandi Richard Thompson, a 20-year veteran of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the founder of Operation Prepare, which holds free workshops on emergency preparedness.

Thompson says it’s not enough to know you have a flashlight, first-aid kit, and canned food somewhere in the house — the way I’ve been operating up until now. Having a designated home emergency kit will help you keep track of what you have, plus you’ll know where to find your flashlight and other supplies in the event of a power outage. You should also have a go bag with essentials for evacuation that you can quickly grab and carry.

“I’ve seen families that do have everything that they need, but it’s scattered across three floors in their house,” says Thompson. “By the time you go find it, how much time have you lost if you have to leave for a fire or an earthquake or something that you don’t have any time to prepare for? It’s one of the reasons people get stuck, and then they’re a candidate for a lifesaving mission.”

We sincerely hope you’ll never need these kits. But in the event that you do, the information below from experts in emergency and disaster relief should help you gather the supplies that could one day save your life.

• Water (1 gallon per person per day for a minimum of three days for evacuation)
• Food (nonperishable; three-day supply for evacuation)
• Battery-powered or hand-crank radio (preferably NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert)
• Flashlight
• First-aid kit (seven-day supply plus medications)
• Extra batteries
• Whistle
• Dust mask (preferably N95s, KN95s, or N100s)
• Mylar blankets
• Plastic sheeting, scissors, and duct tape
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags, and plastic ties
• Soap, hand sanitizer
• Wrench, pliers, or a multi-tool
• Manual can opener
• Local maps
• Cellphone and backup battery
• Copies of important documents (IDs, insurance cards, etc.)
• Contact information for family, emergency services (on paper!)
• Cash (in small denominations)
• A waterproof container to house the documents, contacts, and cash

“Most people focus on the gear; I like to focus on the gear plus the game plan,” says Jessica White, who combines professional organizing with emergency preparedness advice in her business, The Preparista, based in Santa Barbara, California. “Before buying a single flashlight, I would ask myself, ‘Where do I live? What could realistically happen here? And who lives under this roof?’”

Obviously, your supplies and plan will be different in a hurricane-prone area versus a place at risk of wildfires. And you’ll need different things for babies and pets than you would for older adults.

White advises clients to have “a go plan, a stay plan, and a communication plan.” The go plan is what you would do if you had just a few minutes of warning before evacuating your home. The stay plan is how you’d shelter in place. And the communication plan is how you and every member of your family should coordinate if you’re not already all in one place, plus who outside of your household you’ll need to contact.

“Something we do in emergency management is you exercise what needs to happen,” says Thompson. That means having regular conversations in which you talk through the various emergencies — a flood, a fire, a power outage — as well as factors like whether you’re at work, whether the kids are at school, and whether the roads are passable. The more you talk about these things when there is no emergency, the better the chance you’ll have of being calm and taking the right steps when there is one.

Turn to local governments and agencies for more specific advice about the dangers in your area. There are also plenty of guides online that can help you start these conversations.

Emergency kits that are already assembled for you in convenient bags or boxes seem like an ideal solution. You can find some designed as go bags that you can grab in case of a quick evacuation, some you can leave in your car at all times, and some to keep in your home if you need to shelter in place. The experts approve of these kits, with a huge caveat:

“Ready-made kits are great, and they’re a starting point,” says Thompson. 
“But a premade kit is not going to have everything that’s actually personal to you. … As long as it’s a starting line and not the finish line, and that you add and customize your kit based on the needs of your family, I’m all for it.”

I would love to say that all you need to stay safe and healthy in an emergency is a typical first-aid kit, with bandages, gauze, antibacterial cream, and a couple of over-the-counter pain relievers. But this is the category for which you should do the most personalization.

You should also have all of your prescriptions, allergies, and medical needs written down in what paramedics call a “file of life.”

“It’s a folded card that has all of your information on it: what kind of medical problems you have, surgeries, what kind of medicines you take, and stuff like that,” says Tai M. Lee Jr., an emergency medical technician (EMT), former police officer, and assistant director of the Center for Disaster Medicine at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York.

If you’re unconscious when first responders get to you, this info is going to save them time and possibly save your life. “What we do as first responders is tell people [to] keep the file of life on the refrigerator door, but I would say keep a copy in your go bag,” he says.

Remember that both the prescription and over-the-counter meds in this box will have expiration dates. Make a calendar alert for yourself to check those dates at least twice a year so you can swap them out.

Typically, after news of an impending storm, you’ll see the reports of long lines and empty shelves at grocery stores. That’s just one reason it’s a good idea to have two weeks’ worth of food and water in your home emergency kit. You also can’t necessarily count on being able to fill up your bathtub and water bottles at the last minute.

“Having the actual water is important because sometimes there are challenges with the water supply during a disaster,” says Thompson. “Even before a disaster, if the location that you live in, everyone’s trying to put water in their bathtub, for instance, so that they’ll have water. The water pressure may get really low, and you may not have access to the water that you think you will.”

You have plenty of options for nonperishable food. If you go with canned food, make sure you have a manual can opener. You’ll also need a way to cook it without gas or electricity. That’s one reason you should also pack things like protein bars that don’t need preparation or added water. And while you may see a lot of very practical food bars out there that promise long shelf lives and dense calories, remember to get something you’ll actually want to eat.

“Buy it cheap, stack it deep,” White tells people. “You are not buying a whole bunch of food that you have never tried before and don’t even know if you’re going to like. Buy things that you already use, and just buy a bit of extra.”

But the situation is far from perfect. Previously, Batteiger McLaughlin worked in animal rescue for a national humane organization, so she’s seen the many ways things can go south if you don’t plan ahead. Here’s what she thinks you should add to your kit for your furry, feathered, or scaled friends:

• 7 to 10 days of food (shelf-stable) and bottled water
• Collapsible bowls
• At least a week’s worth of any medications
• Up-to-date ID tags
• A microchip (registered with current contact information)
• A recent photo of your pet
• Airtags or GPS collars
• Medical records, vaccination documents, and emergency vet contacts
• Waste bags/litter pan
• Favorite toys, blanket, or bed
• Leash
• A carrier or kennel
• Sweaters, jackets, booties, or paw protectors
• A thermal or space blanket
• Pet-safe ice melt
• A battery-operated fan, cooling mat, or frozen water bottles
• A life jacket

It’s great that we’re past the days when everything needed six D batteries to function. But then again, it must have been a lot simpler to stay stocked back then. Now, you’ll need to take inventory of which of your flashlights need AAA batteries and which ones need to be charged with a USB or USB-C cord. Do people in your household need even smaller batteries for their hearing aids or heart monitors?

Power banks are ideal in these situations, as long as they’re always charged, long before an emergency situation. There are also solar-powered options — though you’ll need to be in an area with sunshine to take advantage of those.

And how about generators? For many, this is an expensive nice-to-have that allows you to enjoy air conditioning during a blackout. But Thompson does recommend a generator for people who need medical devices, like CPAP machines or power wheelchairs.

Ready.gov lists a wrench or pliers in its most basics checklist as a means of shutting off power. But you may need a wider variety of tools than that after an emergency. For example, you’ll want scissors and a can opener to open food containers. If you’re sealing leaks or fortifying a shelter, you’ll need plastic sheeting, duct tape, and something with which to cut it all, like a pocket knife.

If you decide to do all this with said knife, please don’t let this be the first time you’ve used it that way. You don’t want to be dealing with a bleeding wound in addition to everything else.

Maybe it goes without saying, but your home emergency kit and your go bag should be somewhere everyone in your household can easily access. It should also be out of the way of curious children and pets, pests, water or moisture, and anything else that could damage its contents.

That may be a tall order, depending on where you live, so do your best. If you have to make a compromise on location, for example, then use a waterproof container.

“You should prepare your go bag to be as waterproof as possible,” says Lee. “That can be done in a number of ways, like everything you put in the bag, put it in watertight containers. Less damageable things can be put into a ziplock bag.”

Thompson has a reminder in her calendar to check her emergency kit twice a year. To make it even easier, she does it during daylight saving time when she changes the clocks, just like you’re supposed to do with your fire alarm batteries. This is when you’ll look at the expiration dates on everything in there and rotate out the supplies, ideally before they expire, so you can use them elsewhere.

“Go ahead and use the food that’s about to expire and put some new food in,” she advises. “Check your batteries. Check the water, because you don’t want to have water from three years ago.”

Use this as a time to update your emergency plan, too. Check that the contact numbers are up to date, and have another conversation with loved ones to keep it all fresh in your minds.

“For emergency responders, their aim is to do the greater good, for the greatest number of people,” explains White. “During a natural disaster, they’re going to be busy triaging, going to the most severe, most dire circumstances to help the greatest number of people.” You never really know where your home will be on the list of priorities when people need to be rescued.

White emphasizes that 72 hours is the minimum, but if you’ve got space for two weeks of water and food, that’s even better.