15 Items The Red Cross Wants You To Stockpile Today!

welcome back survivalist so the american red cross is a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance disaster relief and disaster preparedness education here in the united states and on their website they have a list of 15 specific items that they want you to keep in your home and keep in your emergency kit and these specific items are going to help you build a general emergency kit and help you in any number of natural man-made disasters that we often see here in the united states so whether we're talking about mass forest fires out in california or winter blackouts down in texas or even double hurricanes striking the gulf coast these specific items can help you and your family survive any of these scenarios and build a general emergency supply kit now after you have these essential 15 items feel free to expand on your kit and really customize it more towards whatever scenario is most likely to occur in your area but do make sure you at least have these 15 core items first so today i'm going to run through what these 15 items are that the american red cross wants you to keep in your home give you a few examples of them give you my thoughts on them as well and then at the end of the video i'm going to give you a few additional bonus items that i also highly recommend that you add to your emergency kit so the first item they want you to keep in your home is a good multi-tool you know too often in life it all comes down to having the right tool for the job if you have the right tool most jobs are fairly easy and that's really where multi-tool comes in handy because this is a general purpose tool that can help you in many many different scenarios now like most things you don't necessarily want to go with the cheapest multi-tool out there if you see a five or ten dollar multi tool most likely those are going to break on you the very first time that you use them you probably have to spend at least forty fifty dollars to get a decent multi-tool and i'm a big fan of the gerber multi-tools just because i've been using them for years now however there are some other really good multi-tools out there as well and most mate tools have very similar designs where they have the pliers at top and then they have a series of different tools that can fold out from the individual handles so for me the tools that i use most often with this is probably the number one is probably going to be the pliers up here i find myself using this all the time but you also have a flathead screwdriver as well as a phillips head screwdriver which is really really comes in handy uh that you don't have to go searching for those tools you already have those tools in your pocket and then of course i use the uh the knife blade that comes on this quite often as well which one is it that's this one right here i use that knife very often so as long as your multi-tool has those core functions to it this thing could be literally a lifesaver in an emergency situation but definitely having a multi-tool in your emergency kit will help you in many many many different scenarios i recommend you guys have one in your emergency kit and also have one in your car as well and i'll have a link down description below to a good multi-tool that i recommend over on amazon as well as links to many of the other items that we'll be talking about today so the next item that they want you to keep in your home for emergencies is cash and this may surprise a lot of people but yes they're recommending that you have a big wad of cash in your home at all times preferably in as small of a denomination as possible if you have a couple hundred dollar bills that may not really help you out in the emergency situation and the reason for this is if there is a widespread power outage in your community many of your stores may still be open and have resources that they can sell you but they're not going to be accepting credit and debit cards and also many atms again are going to rely on power and simply going to be off so you suddenly may find yourself in a scenario where you need to buy some groceries or buy some gasoline but those stores are only accepting cash and all you have is a debit and credit card and you're just out of luck and that's why personally i always have at least a thousand dollars in cash within my home somewhere just for emergency situations like that and if a disaster scenario is bad enough and gets prolonged enough you may find yourself trying to buy resources off your neighbors or trying to pay your neighbors to help you out in some way like chopping up a tree that fell down during a bad storm it is not uncommon for here in america for communities to experience a disaster and then have to go up to a week without any power in that area and if you don't have any cash before that massive power outage you're just out of luck you're not going to have any way to pay other people for resources or for services so the next item they want you to keep in your home emergency kit is winter blankets and i'm sure many of those homeowners down in texas who experienced that multi-day winter blackout wish that they had some extra warm blankets now obviously you can just have additional blankets of any type but i do recommend that you guys invest in some thick wool blankets these things are incredibly versatile and back during the civil war they used to issue wool blankets like this to soldiers and this was essentially their blanket as well as their tent and sleeping bag and these things really are very versatile and they're very thick and very warm and during a emergency situation you're really gonna want a thick blanket like this now there's many people who go hammock camping that this is what they actually bring out with them and they lay this down in their hammocks first and then put their sleeping bag on top of this just because they are so thick and heavy they just provide that extra layer of insulation now if you're in an area that has the possibility of flooding i do recommend that you keep this extra blanket and your emergency kit up on the second floor just in case your entire first floor does get flooded you know it's very easy to see a scenario where your first floor gets flooded and all your beds and blankets get ruined and you're gonna be very grateful that you have some extra blankets like this that are dry and up on the second floor so get some extra warm blankets to keep an emergency kit if you want to go above and beyond invest in some nice wool blankets like this the next item that they want you to have is water and like fema they're recommending one gallon of water per person in your household for three days so if you have five people in your household you want to have 15 gallons of water just like this and you can simply just go out and buy one of these one gallon containers at your grocery store for about a dollar actually a little less than that now i will say that these things sometimes will break over time the plastic just kind of gives way and they end up spilling but you can buy some five gallon containers to keep that water in now the american red cross is actually going above what fema is recommending for water so they're saying that they want you to have one gallon of water per person per day for three days in case you need to evacuate so you can take that water with you but they also recommend that you have two weeks supply of water in your home in case you need to shelter in place and your water gets contaminated again we saw this down in texas during this winter blackout that many of those homeowners couldn't even drink their water coming out of their faucets that their water got contaminated as well so the american red cross are recommending that you have two weeks of supply of water in your home as well as one gallon of water per person per day for three days in case you need to evacuate let's say there's a bad forest fire for example and you need to evacuate you can take that water with you put it in the back your car vehicle and drive off the next item that they recommend that you stockpile up is non-perishable food and again they're recommending that you have three days worth of non-perishable food in case you need to evacuate so hopefully this food would be mobile and containers you could grab and go and they also recommend that you have two weeks worth of food in your home for you and your family in case you need to shelter in place for a longer duration there's a couple of different routes that you can go when you're stockpiling food i recommend that you just buy a handful of these freeze-dried food kits and these things last for 25 years so this one here is by wise company has 60 servings of meals there are already a lot of variety in them and a lot of these you just need to add hot water and mix it up and you've got a decent meal ready for you and your family so i'd figure out how many servings you and your family need this one has 60 servings and then buy that much supply and keep it in your home somewhere what i love is that these things are also mobile so if you had to evacuate you could easily stick one two or three of these in the back of your car and leave or you just stick this up in your attic and just kind of forget about it until you really need it that's what's great about having this long shelf life so this is definitely one option that i do recommend and i'll have a couple of links in description below again to some of these products that i recommend but you do have a few other options now another simpler option is simply buying canned food and just buying this at your grocery store every time you go to the grocery store buy two or three additional canned items and keep in stock in your pantry now if you did go with this option canned foods do have a long shelf life but it's not as long as an emergency kit like that so what i recommend that you do is buy canned food of items that you actually eat and consume and kind of circulate through your inventory by using it so put the newer cans in the back and use the cans at the front of your pantry and i would just set a goal that every time you go to the grocery store buy two three four extra cans like this to bring home and stock up your pantry now another route that you can go with this which may be the most affordable option is simply ramen noodles now ramen noodles do get a bad reputation in the prepping community and simply because they have practically no nutritional value whatsoever it's like eating cardboard but my argument for this is that most emergencies only last one to two days right you may be without power for a day two days three days and the fact that you're not really getting much nutrition from this is not as relevant on those shorter timelines now if you're without power for up to a week and relying on nothing but ramen noodles for that entire week that's probably not good you're probably not going to be feeling very good after that but for short-term emergencies i have no problem with you simply buying some ramen noodles but you can buy an entire box of these things for five to ten dollars and if you're just starting building up your preps and your emergency kit that may be a good place to start buy a big container of these and then try to add additional proteins and additional vegetables to your emergency uh supply of food as well now the last option probably one of the most expensive ones is that you can buy some of these mres this is a meal ready to eat and this is what the military issues out to their service members when they're out in the field and these things are very calorically dense they have a lot of calories in these and honestly one of these is probably more like two servings you may be able to get three servings or three meals out of one of these kits but they're really not that cheap you may get something like this for nine to ten dollars so it's not the most affordable option but they do have a lot of variety in them and they are fully sealed in and fully packaged and they do have a very very long shelf life so the next item they want you to have in your home is a flashlight and i recommend that you don't just have one flashlight but have multiple flashlights because they are that important and i recommend that you pay attention to what types of batteries they use and try to get all your flashlights that use the exact same type of batteries there's nothing more frustrating when you have three different flashlights and they all use different types of batteries so you can go with just a traditional simple flashlight which you can buy at home depot but i also really like uh headlamps as well what's nice about these is that they free up your hands so if you're working on some sort of project your hands can be free for you to actually work on that if you have to go find the circuit panel in your home or you have to build a fire something like that having your hands free is incredibly useful there's a couple other options that you can get with flashlights as well i do recommend having at least one crank flashlight in your home these things are just really really nice to have i'll be honest that if this was your main flashlight they are kind of a pain in the neck but it's good to at least have one of these as like a backup in case all your batteries die they're usually not as bright as traditional flashlights and it is kind of a pain in the neck to crank them up but this is a good last resort you do have a couple other options as well i am a big fan of having an omni directional flashlight in your home so something like this which is a lantern essentially but this um whenever i lose power this is the first thing that i go to and it illuminates the entire room versus just having one little spotlight working on something so again this gives me a lot of hands-free options where i can set this down and i can prepare food or use the bathroom do whatever i need to do hands-free versus having to somehow hold a flashlight where you're trying to work on something so i do recommend that you get some omni-directional lights which is essentially a lantern and again this one is just battery powered so i can swap those batteries in and out as i wish there's another option uh that i really like and that is uh this which is my luminaid so this is an led light so it's a very low wattage light it has a solar charger on there and the body of it's actually inflatable and the purpose of this body is really just to diffuse that light and this thing surprisingly puts off a good amount of light and the idea behind it is that you leave this out in the daytime and it charges up and then you bring this in and this is enough light that you could prepare a meal and kind of work around and these things are fairly inexpensive so you may want to buy three or four of these just to keep in your home for emergencies and then at night time you take this out and you charge it up and it does have a few different um has like a flickering mode for like ss sos mode and everything but these things are really cool i like bringing these camping and i definitely recommend that you check these out luminaid uh go look these up and have a few of these new emergency kits again i'll have links down in the description to where you can find this so the next item that they want you to have is a battery powered hand crank radio so i am a big fan of these and i think that this should be one of the very first items that you buy for your emergency kit so like i said there is a battery in here so it has a replaceable battery but also has a rechargeable battery which you can charge from this hand crank as well as charge from the solar panels on top and has a built-in flashlight most importantly it has an emergency radio built into it so you can listen for those weather updates and there's many different types and variations that they have out here so this one just has more lights on it and what i like about this one is that so again it has the replaceable batteries and then it has the rechargeable battery in there and i can actually plug other uh devices in it like a cell phone and essentially use this to charge my cell phone or charge other flashlights or really anything else that is usb powered and i can even plug this into my car and charge it from my car so if you know there's a bad storm coming ahead of time you could charge this just from like a wall outlet from like a cell phone charger and now you know you're at least gonna have your emergency radio you're gonna have one flashlight here and you're gonna have a potential cell phone charger uh as a backup with this as well so there's a bunch of different brands out there and you can buy something like this for 30 40 dollars and i'm a big fan of making this one of the first items that you buy for your emergency kit just because of how important communication is in the emergency and you can use this to listen to the emergency radio broadcast channel and listen for any updates from your local community and local law enforcement so the next item that they want you to have in your home is simply extra batteries and i like keeping all mine in this tupperware container up high on a shelf so if my home ever floods these things should still be secure and waterproof up there and you do just want to make sure that you have the right batteries that you actually need and this is why i recommend that you kind of pay attention put some thoughts into this and try to get all of your equipment to use the exact same batteries so if your flashlight uses double a batteries make sure all your flashlight use double-a batteries make sure emergency radio uses double-a batteries as well and it just makes things much much simpler rather than you having to buy three four different types of batteries do try to keep them up in case high in case your house does get flooded and try to leave them to centrally locate a place that you and your family they all know where to go to find the extra batteries the next item they want you to have is a simple first aid kit and i don't think that you need anything fancy just a simple 15 20 kit this one here has a 66 items sometimes you'll see some that says we had a thousand items or 5 000 items but you don't need anything like that for a household just something simple um just to take care of those minor cuts and injuries and keep them clean so they don't get infected so you don't really put much thought into this just get a general first aid kit for your home and you may even want to have two keep one in your emergency kit and then keep one somewhere else just because these are that important they have this in your home the next item that they want you to have is seven days worth of any medication that you may be on this is especially true if you are on some sort of life-saving medication you just really want to pay attention to this and don't wait until you're down to your last one or two doses before you go and get a refill and if you know that there's a storm coming a hurricane a blizzard go out and get that refill sooner rather than later you don't want to be stuck in a situation where in the middle of a bad blizzard you're out of medication you have to go to the pharmacy and put yourself at risk just to try to get more of your medication so try to have at least one week's supply of any medications that you're on and i would actually go a little further than this and make sure you also have some other more generic medication like ibuprofen and melatonin have that stock piled up in your home as well just in case you need it during that emergency the next items that they want you to stockpile is extra sanitation items these are gonna be things like extra toilet paper and paper towels and wet wipes but also maybe some extra toothbrushes and extra toothpaste in case you have company over that is sheltering in place with you and honestly like you can buy toothbrushes and toothpaste for so cheap it's just worth it just to get a dollar general spend ten dollars on some extra sanitation items like this and just keep it in your emergency kit and just leave it there for an emergency these things have incredible shelf life they could be sitting there for five years and you'd be perfectly fine using them so just kind of think of what sanitation items do you use on a daily basis try to buy some extra and set those aside somewhere in your emergency kit so the next thing that you want to have is copies of important documents so these are going to be things like marriage certificates and copies of your insurance in deeds your home and medical records print all of these off and keep them someplace secure i'd very early stick them in a plastic baggie like this and keep them in your emergency kit you could go one step further and actually buy like a secure fireproof safe that's where i keep a lot of my important documents in case my home ever burns down but there are many scenarios where people have had to completely rebuild their lives from scratch just think of all the people who lost their homes in the forest fires out in california many of them losing important documents forever if you had just a copy of a lot of those essential documents it'd make things much much easier think about many of the people who got flooded down in like new orleans or the gulf coast when they get hit by that double hurricane last year many people lost all these essential documents if you just had copies of them it would make rebuilding your life and starting from scratch so so much easier so definitely print off copies of important documents keep them in a waterproof container and keep those in your emergency kit as well so the next one is pretty simple but you want extra cell phone chargers and honestly these things are so cheap and inexpensive today you might as well buy two or three of these to throw in your emergency kit and i do recommend that you have a few different usb cables like this for a few different types of phones just in case again you have somebody else sheltering in place with you or maybe you change phones a few years down the line but you forgot to update the cell phone charger in your emergency kit you know just have a variety there of things you can use to charge your phones this way if there is an emergency you can go out to your car and charge your phone with something like this or you can use this cable and charge your phone off of your emergency radio but just have a one at least one cell phone charger if not a few of them and try to have a variety in the type of connections that you have for those as well so next they want you to have print offs of your family and friends contact information so have a sheet with all your friends phone numbers and mailing addresses on there in case you do need to evacuate your area in a pinch and maybe your cell phone's not working or maybe your children need to find their uncle's house having that printed off and having their address on there is going to make things so much easier you know the truth is all that information is just in our cell phones these days you know we don't really memorize people's phone numbers as much these days so having records of that in case your cell phone is not available anymore is could literally be a life saver right there so print them all off keep them in a waterproof container and keep your family and friends contact information and addresses in your emergency kit as well so the next item that they want you to keep in your home is a physical map of the area so again we are way too dependent on our gps's and that could very easily go away you know so having a physical map that you can use so that you can evacuate an area and find your way around could again be a lifesaver you know if i had to navigate to my uncle's house in the next state over without a map uh and without my phone that would be incredibly challenging so having a map like this could be really really important if you do need to evacuate and for whatever reason your phone is just not working you don't want to be 100 dependent on your phone you want to have some backup options so i definitely agree spend five dollars at your local gas station and get a physical map to keep in your home and keep in your emergency kit so that's all the items that the american red cross wants you to keep in your home but i do have a few additional bonus items that i personally recommend that you also keep in your emergency kit and one of those is going to be a water filtration system and again there's a couple of different routes that you can go with this option with a couple different price points this one here is by survivor filter and you can literally take contaminated water dirty water and you pump it through this filter and it pumps out pretty clean uh potable water that you can drink so that's one option is you buy a filtration kit like this now ideally you would have enough water for you and your family for a longer duration but you know everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face that's a quote from mike tyson so having a backup plan for clean drinking water i think is really important so you could buy a larger kit like this or you could buy something even simpler and buy a water bottle like this that has a filtration system built into it so this you can literally um get some water from a stream and as you drink through the uh the mouthpiece here it sucks the water through a charcoal filter and this can filter 99.9 of all uh bacteria in it and so this is just a much simpler and more affordable option for a lot of people this thing is maybe twenty dollars and gets one of these you can also just buy a life straw and a light straw i have one around here somewhere but it's very similar to this except without the container you just kind of drink water straight through a water filter like that so that's something that i definitely recommend that you explore as well having some sort of water filtration system in your emergency kit just in case the disaster that you're in does get prolonged and you have to go without clean drinking water for multiple days now another item that i'm a big fan of including the emergency kit is a simple propane container like this you can buy these at kmart or walmart for camping essentially and a lot of them come with a stand and then an attachment like this that screws onto the top so you can get a little flame you can actually boil some water and actually cook something on top of this all together you can get this for again 15 20 at your kmart or your target and this is going to be one it could help you boil water to sanitize water if your filter doesn't work or if you don't have enough water stockpot but you can also cook food with this and you can get a warm meal this way and just having like a hot meal or a hot cup of coffee or something psychologically that could be a huge huge boost and they're pretty cheap and inexpensive just remember if you are using a burner like that you really shouldn't be using it indoors because of the potential of carbon monoxide poisoning so you do want to use that outdoors but nonetheless having a simple little burner like that they're pretty easy to use and pretty compact that is definitely a great bonus item to have in your emergency kit so now you know what items the american red cross wants you to keep in your home at all times check out this video i did right here talking about how to start prepping for emergencies and kind of what those steps are to get prepared thanks so much for watching and i'll see you over in the next video

Channel: Survival Know How

Views: 252,586

Rating: 4.8835397 out of 5

Keywords: survival kit, american red cross, prepping, emergency preparedness, emergency preparedness kit, emergency preparedness plan, survival kits - build your own, 72 hour kit, bug out bag, preppers, emergency, gear, survival gear, disaster kit, emergency kit, red cross, FEMA, survival know how, end of the world teotwaki, doomsday preppers, grid down

Id: xfN_S5W0MJU

Length: 25min 9sec (1509 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2021