5 Reasons to Update and Rotate your Emergency Kits

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Apr 102012

 

Once you get an emergency kit put together either for your home, office, car, or bugging out, there is a tendency to stash that kit somewhere and forget about it.  Don’t do it.  Be friends with your kit.  Check in on it at least once a year–every 6 months is even better.  And some kits need updating even more often than that.  Need some convincing to do a kit checkup?  Here are 5 great reasons to keep updating your emergency kits.

1. You use stuff out of it.  Well, maybe it wasn’t you, maybe it was your significant other or your kids or the ubiquitous “nobody”.  The point is, sometimes when you most need a roll of toilet paper from the car kit it isn’t there!  If you keep a list of items that are supposed to be in the kit tucked in the kit somewhere, it’s easy to check if everything is there.  If you know you’re using items frequently, you will probably need to refill your kit more often than every 6 months.

2. Food and water expire.  Some of the foods in your kit will have an expiration date.  If you’re checking in on your kit often, you can eat these foods and replace them with fresh items.  Same with water bottles.  They aren’t made to last forever–the water gets an “off” taste and it is reported that some of the plastic chemicals leach into the water after long periods of storage.  Use them and replace them before they are too long past their expiration date.  If you have really old water bottles, use that water to water your plants or something.

3. Medications expire.  If you have medications in your kit, these also need rotated.  At best they begin to lose potency after their expiration date.  I want medicines that are going to work and work well when I need them, so I try to keep the medicines updated with fresh stuff from the medicine cabinet.  Check this post to see how I keep track of the lots and expiration dates of the medications in my kit.

4. People grow.  Especially kids.  If you have extra clothes or shoes in your kits for your family members, how likely are they to actually fit them in an emergency?  With some kids (especially babies and young teens) this will need changed out every 6 months or so while they’re going through growth spurts.

5. You learn something new.  Maybe you’ve been reading a book or a blog and come across something you really think would be of value to your family in an emergency.  Get it into your kit and add it to your kit master list.

Some folks like to pack their kits and leave them (our evacuation kits are like this), and some use items from their kits for everyday emergencies (our car kits are more like this).  Either way, your kit will need updated and rotated frequently to best serve its purpose when there is a reason to use it.