The running liveblog by weatherdude (current link) on the storm situation across the Midwest tonight has me thinking - what do YOU do for emergency preparedness, either on the road or at home?
For myself, I keep an old backpack in the hall closet (just an old college style backpack, though it does have a lot of pockets), ready to grab at a moment's notice. I'll frequently throw it in the back seat of the car when we travel. Here's what I keep in it (in no particular order):
* Small first aid kit
* Leatherman multi-tool
* 2 small crank-powered flashlights (no batteries needed, with a pretty decent LED light)
* water bottle (filled whenever I need to pull out the bag, but I don't keep a full bottle in there at all times)
* Several of those "Hot Hands" heat packs that warm up for 8 hours when opened.
* small container of hand sanitizer
* 1 complete change of clothes for the wife & I (older clothes, but still in fair shape)
* two large plastic trashbags
* whistle (like a gym coach carries) for emergency signalling
* emergency space blanket
* a few trail snack bars (changed every few months to keep them fresh)
* small box of waterproof safety matches and a small candle in a ziploc bag
* A couple of sheets of aluminum foil, folded and kept in another ziploc bag
* During the colder months (about October to March around these parts), I'll also throw a pair of gloves and pair of stocking caps in there for both my wife and I.
* small paper pad & pen, in ziploc bag
It's no professional survival kit, I'll grant you that, but it's what I could think of as being useful if we ever get stranded in a storm when traveling or the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere late at night. It also leaves enough room in the pack to put some extra clothes, my netbook, and some other odds and ends if we are just going somewhere overnight, so we don't need to pack a separate bag.
I've got it pulled out right now and have it sitting by the door to the basement, in case the weather gets hairy here a little later (which seems a distinct possibility, the lighting and thunder just started up again while I was typing this). If a tornado warning comes in for us on the weather radio, we'll head to the basement and one of us will grab the bag on the way down. We're both natives of Tornado Alley, so we're no strangers to heading to the basement. My grandpa used to tell a hilarious (and a bit hair-raising) tale about the day a tornado hit the neighboring farm during a storm back in the 40's - he and my grandmother saw the storm coming and grabbed the kids and headed out to the root cellar about a dozen yards from the house - as he threw the cellar door open, my grandmother turned and handed my dad (then about 3 or 4 years old) to him and said "Here, take him, I've got to go get him a jacket" and turned to head back into the house! According to my grandpa, about that time the neighbor's barn about a half mile down the road exploded into little pieces as the tornado hit it and he grabbed my grandma by the arm and slung her down the steps of the cellar before she knew what was happening and dove in after her with my aunt under one arm and my dad under the other. Fortunately, the tornado missed the house and other than the neighbor's barn and a few cows, damage was minimal. But you had to know my grandma to know how spot on it would be for her to be worried about my dad having a jacket while parts of the neighbor's farm were flying by. :-)
So, here's my question for Kossacks - what do you do for emergency preparedness? Do you have a kit together? If so, what's in it? And, while we're at it, I'd take any constructive critiques/suggestions for my bag, keeping in mind 1) I'm no professional survivalist; 2) I want to keep it easily portable and 3) I want to keep it to things that are easily acquired or replaced at relatively modest cost