72 Hour Kits, First Aid Kits, and Zombies

I grew up in the LDS church where things like food storage, emergency preparedness, and even basic first aid training were natural parts of life and topics of conversation.  I make a point of having food (and water) storage and can feed 12 people with a half hour's notice at all times.  I live in an area where, in a 365 day period, we can receive any kind of extreme weather warning from baseball-sized hail to flash floods to blizzards to tornado warnings to wildfires.  So you'd think I would have something as simple as a basic first aid kit and a basic 72 hour kit.

You would be wrong.

Back in July, this became painfully obvious to me.  I went and watched World War Z (yes, that's right, a zombie movie), and found myself horrified by 1.) the part of the movie where Brad Pitt and his family are fighting for supplies in a grocery store and nearly get murdered in the face over things like medication and water bottles, and 2.) the prospect of having to do something similar if I were ever in a disaster situation (likely, it will not be a zombie apocalypses, but that doesn't make the scenario of me getting murdered in the face in a grocery store any less likely).  So, thanks to a zombie movie, I started the project of getting together my 72 hour kit.

I consulted a lot of sources (listed below) and complied a list that makes sense for my situation (single, in Idaho, female, no serious medications or health conditions, with a vehicle and at least half a tank of gas and with at least two separate "rendezvous with apocalyps survival group" options).  I got several items on Amazon, others from Walmart and walmart.com, and a few I already had lying around the house.  For anyone who does something similar, I highly suggest the Prepared LDS Family blog (for well-rounded 72 hour kit advice) and the Self Reliant Sisters blog (for good discussions about food, especially); Mormons know their stuff when it comes for planning for disasters beyond guns and MREs.

http://www.ready.gov/basic-disaster-supplies-kit

http://www.ready.gov/publications

http://lds.about.com/od/preparednessfoodstorage/a/72hour_kit.htm

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/72hourkit/

http://www.costco.com/Shelf-Reliance%C2%AE-72-hour,-2-person-Emergency-Pack.product.11500240.html

http://www.emd.wa.gov/preparedness/documents/piy_72_hour.pdf

http://selfreliantsisters.blogspot.com/search/label/72%20Hour%20Kits

http://preparedldsfamily.blogspot.com/2013/01/make-72-hour-kit-in-12-steps-step-1.html

http://preparedldsfamily.blogspot.com/2009/04/additional-emergency-supplies-for.html

One thing that I was concerned about was getting food that would cover basic nutrition needs in terms of calories, nutrients, variety, and portability.  I decided the best thing to do was to get foods that I would also be likely to eat during finals week.  There are three basic reasons for this: 1.) they're easy to eat and don't require water to cook, 2.) I KNOW they keep me both full and not bored, and 3.) I can easily rotate them twice per year.

Another thing I had to be aware of is that, as a single person, I only have me to carry stuff.  I can't divide things among the packs of several people.  Which means I have to take less of some stuff, or different kinds of stuff, than I might if I could divvy up stuff that didn't need to be duplicated for each person (like a first aid kit, a tent, a radio, etc.).  This SUCKS.  Even splitting the survival basics with one other person would significantly lighten the load.  But I'd hate to get to a survival camp and not have any of this stuff.

Anyway, here are the links to the spreadsheets for my 72 Hour Kit.  THIS ONE is the list I came up with for the actual kit, and THIS ONE is a detailed list of my First Aid kit.  There are several theories on how to pack stuff, but I just ended up using a duffle bag.  I totally encourage you to get at least some kind of emergency plan together, even if it's not as extensive as this one.  Good luck!