Modular Bug Out Bags

Problem Statement: Shit happens, and you don't know what's going to happen or when it's going to happen. Since different shit can require different stuff, it's unrealistic to think a single pack can contain everything you might need for even the most common scenarios. And my wife doesn't want to lug around a 25-pound bag everywhere she goes just because I want her to have access to helpful stuff.

My Solution, your mileage my vary: Stage things in various places like your home and cars so if shit happens, you can quickly grab the things that makes sense for that situation.

 

Here's a high level of what I have and where I have it in some common categories. I'll list out specific contents below.

• First Aid: We have a kit at home and a smaller kit in each car and in my bug-out bag (BOB). If for some reason we will not be within easy access of one of our cars, we'll grab a first aid kit from a car and put it in a bag we're carrying.
• Extra Clothing and toiletries: There are bug-out bags for my wife and I in a closet next to our front door and a get-home-bag (GHB) in each vehicle for the primary driver of that vehicle. If we are taking an extended trip, even just a day trip, we'll get the get-home-bag from the other car so we'll both have one.
• Food and Water: If we're going more than a few miles from home, we carry an everyday-carry bag (EDC) that contains some basic survival food items. Our BOBs each contain additional food items. Each car has a few gallons of water that we rotate out, and we always carry a stainless steel water bottle we could use to boil water.
• Basic Camping/Survival Gear: Each car contains an emergency and a camp kit. These include blankets, tarps, cordage, small camp stove, water purification tablets, multiple ways to start fire, etc. We also have more extensive camping equipment staged in our garage that we can easily get to in an emergency situation.

 

In review, here are the places we have things staged:

• Everyday Carry Bags (EDC) - these bags travel with us if we're going more than a few miles from home. It might just be your laptop bag or purse.
• Get Home Bags (GHB) - these bag mostly stay in our cars and will be helpful if we get stranded away from home.
• Bug out bags (BOB) - these bags stay at home and can be quickly grabbed if we need to evacuate the home.
• Car emergency kits - these stay in the cars and contains items helpful in an auto emergency.
• Car camp kits - these stay in the cars and contains items that would be helpful if I needed to live out of my car for a few days or hike for more than a day to get back home.
• Our Home

 

Let's run through some common scenarios and see what we have access to when.

House fire: we just need to get out. Everything is replaceable and we will stay with family or in a hotel, not camping in our yard.

I'll grab my EDC which is always close. It contains my laptop which I'll need for business continuity (I'm self employed). If we can get to the BOBs which contain additional weather-specific clothing we will, but otherwise our goal is to get out of the house and live.

Earthquake: I'll grab my EDC and will try harder to get to my BOB than I would in a fire, but hopefully I'll be able to get to my BOB after the fact, even if I have to bust through an exterior wall to get to it. One of our cars is always parked outside of the garage so we should have access to its GHB, car camp kit, and additional water.

Tornado Warning: We'll grab our EDCs and BOBs and go to the basement. Our EDCs each have an emergency whistle attached to a lanyard to make them easier to find. (Loud whistles are a good way to attract attention if buried under rubble) There is also an emergency radio, larger crank lanterns, and flashlights stored next to our BOBs. We can take those as well.

Quick Evacuation (less than three minutes): There are a few other scenario where we might need to quickly evacuate (chemical spill, etc). In this case, we'll grab our EDCs and BOBs. If we are evacuating by vehicle, we'll have water and a camp kit already in the vehicle. If we can't take a vehicle, I'll grab the camp kit from one car along with some water and carry it as far as I can before deciding what should be shed and what should be kept. Depending on the situation, I may shove my BOB in a larger alice pack so I'll have a larger pack to work with later.

Evacuation (less than 15 minutes): If we're taking a car, we have things staged and can pack up everything including a kitchen sink in less than 15 minutes. We will shed things down the road if not needed. If we're not taking a car, it will likely be similar to the Quick Evacuation. I may do a different article about how we have things staged for an evacuation.

 

Take all of the above scenarios and apply them to your office or place of employment. Or while you're driving or on vacation. What will you have with you and what will you need?

If one of those events occurs or one of us gets stuck at the office or in our car overnight or for an extended period of time, we have access to a change of clothes, toiletries, water and emergency food from our EDC, GHB, or car. If we have to evacuate from the office to someplace else, or try to hike home, we can repack our GHB with items from our car camp kit that will be needed.

You can never account for every situation, but with the modular approach, I feel like we'll have easy access to things we'll need, when we need them, and can easily shed the things we don't need.

Here's a current inventory of what we have in each of our packs and stage locations. There are some small differences between my bags and my wife's so I'll list them both. The important thing in my opinion is not what bag or box something is stored in, but if we have access to the things we need, where and when we need them.

 

My Everyday Carry Bag (Kodiak Gearslinger)

• $250 cash tucked out of the way in wallet
• Card with important contact numbers for family and friends in wallet
• Checkbooks for home and business
• AC/DC charger for my cell phone
• Extra glasses and prescription sun glasses
• Lighter
• Emergency Whistle
• Mini-mag flashlight
• Folding knife
• Leatherman tool
• Work gloves
• Ink pen
• Carpenters pencil
• Sharpie marker
• 4X6 index cards
• Laptop
• Laptop Charger
• Wireless Mouse
• Stainless Steel Water Bottle
• Single-serving Gatorade mix (6)
• Brick of Mainstay rations

 

My Wife's Everyday Carry Bag (Just a tote bag she uses to carry her lunch and papers to work)

• $250 tucked out of the way in wallet
• Card with important contact numbers for family and friends in wallet
• AC/DC phone charger
• Extra glasses
• Lighter
• Emergency Whistle
• Medium-sized Swiss Army knife
• Work gloves
• Ink pen
• Carpenters pencil
• Sharpie marker
• 4X6 index cards
• Stainless Steel Water Bottle
• Single-serving Gatorade mix (6)
• Brick of Mainstay rations

Difference: I like to keep a small flashlight in my EDC since it's a backpack. My wife prefers to keep hers in her GHB since her EDC is just a tote. I keep a knife and a Leatherman's tool, she just keeps a mid-sized Swiss Army knife.

My Get Home Bag (Mid-sized Backpack, some things are just in the car)

• Ball cap
• Boonie Hat
• Bandana
• Two changes of clothing, weather appropriate
• Sweater
• Extra socks
• Comfortable walking shoes
• Cold-weather outerwear when seasonal (kept in separate sack)
• Needles/Thread
• Toiletry kit
• Fixed-blade knife
• Compass
• Starbucks Instant Coffee
• Lighter

 

My Wife's Get Home Bag (Mid-sized Backpack)

• Mini-Mag Light
• Ball Cap
• Foldable Sun Hat
• Two changes of clothing, weather appropriate
• Sweater
• Extra socks
• Comfortable walking shoes
• Cold-weather outerwear when seasonal (kept in separate sack)
• Needles/Thread
• Toiletry kit
• Lighter

Difference: I keep my knife and compass in my GHB. My wife just keeps hers in her camp box noted below. She can grab them if she thinks she'll need them, otherwise she doesn't want to deal with the bulk. I still drink coffee, my wife does not. She should probably keep some tea in hers.

 

Car Kits (Same in both cars)

• First Aid Kit
• Fix-a-flat
• Glow sticks
• Jumper cables
• Large flashlight
• Road atlas
• Safety vest
• Emergency Poncho (4)
• Space Blanket (4)

 

Camp Boxes (Same in both cars except for as noted)

• Blanket
• Heavy Duty 10X12 Tarp (2)
• 100' of paracord precut to 10' lengths
• Small camp stove with fuel
• Folding Saw
• Firestarter
• Lighters (Generally keep a few in different places around the car)
• Stainless steel cup, plate, and spork
• Water Purification tables
• Duct tape (about 25' wrapped around business card)
• 3-4 gallons of water
• Fixed-blade knife (Wife's only as I keep one in my GHB)
• Compass (Wife's only as I keep one in my GHB)

 

My Bug-Out Bag (Mid-sized Backpack)

• Two changes of clothing, weather appropriate
• Sweater
• Ball cap
• Bandana
• Emergency Blanket
• Emergency Poncho
• Cold-weather outerwear when seasonal (kept in sack next to BOB)
• Stainless Steel Water Bottle
• Brick of Mainstay emergency rations
• Work Gloves
• Fixed Blade Knife
• Lighter
• Firestarter
• 100' Paracord cut in 10' lengths
• Starbucks Instant Coffee

 

My Wife's Bug-Out Bag (Small Backpack)

• Two changes of clothing, weather appropriate
• Cold-weather outerwear when seasonal (kept in sack next to BOB)
• Sweater
• Ball cap
• Bandana
• Toiletry kit for both of us
• Emergency Blanket
• Emergency Poncho
• Emergency Ration Bars (3)
• Stainless Steel Water Bottle

This is where we currently veer off course compared to many people's bug-out bags. I view these bags as necessary for quickly fleeing the house in the case of a fire or tornado, not as something that contains everything we might need to survive in the wild in for the next few years.

Once safely out of the house, we should almost always have access to one vehicle which contains additional camping/survival gear and a better pack. It will also contain water. If it's just a natural disaster, we likely won't need any of that as we'll just go to a family member's home.

These bags are also smaller and lightweight bags so my wife can easily handle them if I'm not home. If there's a tornado warning and I'm not home, I don't want her trying to get a 20-pound BOB from the closet to the basement. I want her to grab a small bag with some clothes and basic things she may need. If she can get my bag too, that's great. But if all she has is her bag she'll be OK for that emergency.

My last bit of advice ... don't feel like you have to do everything at once. Start with a bag or a backpack you already own. Don't have one, start with a grocery bag. Just start!

I tend to prep in spurts and started about two years ago. It's taken us this long to accumulate what we have, and we still don't have what we feel like we need, but we're a lot better off than we were.

Don't wait. Just start!  

Preparedness Update

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, and until about a month ago it had been a while since I'd done any significant prepping. Business got real slow last year which was not too big a big deal. I just didn't want to spend money I didn't have to. I got rid of my office and moved my business back to my home so that changes my prep thoughts a bit. I no longer have a second place locally that I can move to and frankly, my office was easier to secure and less likely to be looted than my home.

As I'm getting back into prepping, we're finally taking care of some issues including buying a generator and storing extra fuel, as well as revisiting how we stage and what we include in our bug out bags, get home bags, and everyday carry bags.

You'll likely see a few posts in the next few months and then who knows, it might be another 18 months before I feel like I have something to contribute.

Preparedness Update

We had a few goals over the past two weeks and made a bit of progress.

The biggest goal for me was to address the storage issue for preparedness items. This was accomplished as is noted in the previous post.

I also asked my wife to take care of emergency cards we can keep in our wallets and to research first aid supplies. Well, those have not happened yet but I'm trying to not ride her too hard. It's funny in that she's really pushing that we take some preparedness steps but appears to be moving at a much slower pace. We'll get there.

I did order two of the 25 Gallon Boxed Water Kits from Emergency Essentials. The order went fine and was shipped quickly. I have not had a chance to fill these up and replace our current water in storage but I'll get to it in the next couple of weeks.

I also ordered a Maxpedition Kodiak GearSlinger pack from Olympic Camping Gear to use as my everyday laptop bag/day pack. This seller had a very good price and provided good service before the sale verifying it was in stock. It shipped out the next day and arrived with no issues so I would definitely buy from this store again. Now that I have a pack, I'll start building it out.

Removing Barriers to Disaster Preparedness

Prepping is overwhelming and we all seem to have barriers that keep us from taking even baby steps. For me, it was storage. I like an organized and orderly environment and don't like to bring things into my home unless I have a place for them.

Over the last year, my wife and I have accumulated about 50 gallons of water in one-gallon jugs and a handful of cases of bottled water. Since we didn't have any place to put it, we ended up with all of it in the middle of the floor in a room in the basement we don't use. We also add a few canned goods and dried food pouches to a shelf in that same basement room.

I didn't really want to add anything more because we just didn't have a good place to put it. Storage was very much a barrier for me. Two weekends ago, I decided to do something about it and built a new set of shelves in our spare basement room. The center trunk is 72 inches wide, 48 inches tall, and 24 inches deep. I plan to build out shelves on top of that when we need it. The two side sections are 36 inches wide, 18 inches deep, and 40 inches tall. The sides have 12-inch deep shelves that run all the way to the ceiling.

Now we have a ton of storage room for both food and other items we will need to be prepared. We already moved everything from our small kitchen pantry to this larger pantry so we can keep everything in one place. Each week when we do a meal plan, we'll move items for that week's menu from the basement to the kitchen's pantry so we should be able to keep things rotated, and we'll review what's in the pantry as we make each week's meal plan.

We also took this opportunity to purge our basement of a lot of old furniture, electronics, books, and magazines we no longer need. This opened up even more storage space so for the foreseeable future, I'd say this barrier has been removed. And the extra cash we made selling a few unused items from the basement paid for the wood.

Disaster Preparedness Prioritization: Where to Start?

After putting together a handful of scenarios to help me identify what we might need, I feel like I'm in a better place to start prioritizing. This is what we're going to start with and our goal is complete all of it in the next six months.

1. Make sure we have contact information
2. Improve first aid kit for house/office
3. Resolve storage issues for food and water
4. Ensure we have a usable 7-day storage of food and water
5. Day pack for myself/wife
6. Car Pack for myself/wife
7. Address electricity-loss needs
8. Bug out Bag for myself/wife
9. Ensure we have a usable 14-day storage of food and water
10. Address additional water-loss needs
11. Ensure we have a usable 30-day storage of food and water
12. Address sewer-loss needs
13. Ensure we have a usable 90-day storage of food and water

Some Details

1. Make sure we have contact information
My wife and I have contact information for each other and our families in our phones, but I've been prone to jump in the river forgetting my phone is in my pocket. I know my home number and my Dad's home phone number, and might be able to remember my wife's cell phone, but that's kind of shaky and I don't have a clue what my Mom's home, or my brother's or Dad's cell phones are. Or my wife's family's phone numbers. No clue.

If a car broke down or there was another emergency and our phones were dead, we might be in a bit of trouble even if we could get to a pay phone or a passerby stopped.

To address this, I'm going to put all of our immediate family and close friend's contact numbers on a laminated card we can keep in our wallets, day packs, and bug out bags. I'll also include our insurance agent's and a few other numbers on larger cards in our day packs and bug-out bags.

Time: 1 hour including trip to Kinko's or Walgreens to get card laminated

Cost: A couple of bucks for the lamination

Target Completion Date: 10/10/2010 (Week 1)


2. Improve first aid kit for house/office
We have a handful of bandages and first aid supplies scattered around the house, but it's not well organized and I'm sure it can be better-stocked. I also have a store-bought first-aid kit at the office but I'm sure it too can be improved. I'm not sure yet what all I should keep in it, so I'll do some research, come up with a list, and likely build my own kits. I'll do a post just about this.

Time: 4-8 hours for research, shopping, and putting it together.

Cost: My budget is $100 to create kits for Home, Office, Day Bags, and Bug-out Bags

Target Completion Date: 10/17/2010 (Week 1)


3. Resolve Storage Issues for Food and Water
This has actually been a big barrier for us. Right now, our 50-gallon stash of water is sitting in the floor in the basement. We also have some canned and dried food down there that is on a shelf. It is stuff we normally use but we forget about it and just use what's in the pantry or what we buy from the store instead of rotating.
We don't have enough shelf storage to organize a stockpile, so it is difficult to rotate and inventory. I'll spend some time over the couple of weeks building nice built-in shelving in the basement office. I could do this a lot cheaper, but I want to build something nice that we can put doors on and paint if we sell the house.

Time: 1-2 days

Cost: $400. You could do this much easier by buying an $80 shelving unit at Lowes, but I haven't had the opportunity to do any woodworking lately so I'll build some nice built ins. Got to work some fun into this.

Target Completion Date: 10/17/2010 (Week 3)


4. Ensure we have a 7-day supply of food and water
We have this now, but due to our storage issues, we're not really sure what we have. My long term goal will be to replace "going to the store" with "going to the basement" to figure out what we want to put on the meal plan for the week. Going to the store will become restocking the "store" we have in the basement. This obviously won't apply to produce and fresh meat, but most of our meals make some use of the items in our stockpile, and we could transition 100% to our stockpile if needed, substituting canned meats, vegetables and fruit.

As part of this exercise, I'll create a 7-day meal plan and make sure what we have in our stockpile will suffice. If we have any gaps, I'll fill them.

We also need to rotate our water stored in store-bought 1 gallon jugs with something that will last longer. I've ordered 10 5-gallon mylar bags/boxes that I will transition our water into, and take the gallon jugs to the office where I will use it. I'm also going to put a couple of 30-gallon trash cans in the basement next to the water heater that I will fill with water. We can use this as gray water to flush the toilets since I don't want to waste our stockpile on that. Long term, I would like to replace the trash cans with containers that can store potable water, but the money for that can be spent elsewhere right now, and I'm just trying to get us through a 7-day outage at this point. My scenario showed we'd use half our water just to flush toilets and this gray water will be fine for that.

Time: 4-6 hours

Cost: $125 for the mylar bags/boxes, trash cans for non-potable water storage, and any food we need to fill holes in the stockpile.

Target Completion Date: 10/24/2010 (Week 3)


5. Day Pack for Myself/Wife
A good day pack with things that would be helpful in an emergency situation will be my next priority. Short term we may not take as much of a survival approach as many recommend, but we want something with us that will provide for some basic needs if we find ourselves away from our normal daily lives due to an emergency. We'll keep survival items like a knife and multitool, fire starting supplies, food, water, flashlight, para cord, etc., as well as some hygiene items like a toothbrush, hand sanitizer and sanitization wipes. Exactly what we'll keep in each pack I'm not sure. We'll have some discussions and figure that in time. I ordered a Kodiak GearSlinger Backpack that will replace my laptop bag. I'm not sure what my wife will do. I'll post more on our day packs once we put those together.

Time: 1 day to research, buy, and organize packs

Cost: $100 budget but I'm not really sure at this point, and that does not include the packs as my wife may want to use something she already has. I was about to go buy a new laptop bag anyway, just bought something slightly different than I would have.

Target Completion Date: 11/7/2010 (Week 5)


6. Car Pack for Myself/Wife
My guess is my Day Pack will be more extensive, and my Car Pack smaller, and my Wife's Day Pack will be smaller and her Car Pack larger. We'll have to figure that out. For the car, I want to make sure we have some additional emergency supplies including water, additional food, emergency blankets, road flares, jumper cables, etc. Where I might go a bit light on traditional survival gear in the Day Packs – especially for my wife – I'll go heavier with survival gear in the car, especially my wife's.

Time: 1 day to research, buy, and organize

Cost: $100 budget but I'm not really sure at this point

Target Completion Date: 11/7/2010 (Week 5)


7. Address electricity-loss needs
I originally had Bug Out Bags prioritized above this, but as we're in November I think it would be smart to take care of how we would survive a loss of electricity in the winter. This will likely be our most expensive preparation but also one of our most important. We were lucky over the past few years that we didn't have power outages for more than a few hours when many people in our city lost power for up to a week. I can tell you though, it's a terrible feeling to be standing in your kitchen with a foot of snow on the ground and your power goes out. We got lucky. By the time we gathered up some essentials and were preparing to leave, the power came back on. Next time I want to be prepared.

Our initial thought is we will need to acquire the following:

• A generator capable of running two portable radiator heaters we already own, as well as the microwave, coffee maker, TV, and some lighting. Powering the refrigerator may be nice but is not a requirement as we don't stockpile a lot of frozen goods.
• Enough fuel to power the generator 16 hours a day for seven days
• Six 50-foot extension cords
• A hot plate that will work on propane for the grill
• We already keep one full propane spare on hand at all times, we'll bump that up to two
• Lockable outdoor storage for the generator fuel and extra propane
• Additional plastic sheeting and tarps to help seal off the family room/kitchen from the rest of the house

Time: 1-2 days

Cost: $1,500 budget, but it may be less if we don't need a very large generator

Target Completion Date: 11/28/2010 (week 8)


8. Bug-out Bags for Myself/Wife
The idea for a bug-out bag is it's something you can grab and run out the door if you need to escape your home in a hurry. As with the Day Pack, I'll likely take a less survival approach short term and just try to ensure we have a few day's clothes, some basic protection from inclement weather, and any important documents. Basically, I'll try to address what we might need if the house is on fire and we throw these bags out the window before we climb down the ladder, or if there is a chemical spill close by that requires and immediate evacuation. I'll deal with some of the other hard-core scenarios down the road.

Time: 1 day

Cost: $200 budget. We'll likely need to buy some packs for this, but we should have most everything else we'll need except maybe some good rip-stop nylon ponchos/pants.

Target Completion Date: 12/12/2010 (Week 10)


9. Ensure we have a usable 14-storage of food and water
Now that we've addressed most of the realistic short-term emergencies, we'll start to build up our food and water stockpile. At this point, I may try to replace the trash cans in the basement with potable water, look into water filtration systems although we will have to travel one mile to the nearest stream, and build out the food supply. I'll do a lot more sample menus during this time so I can ensure we have some variety to our meals.

Time: 1 day

Cost: $250 budget but as I get into the planning, it might need to be adjusted.

Target Completion Date: 12/30/2010 (Week 12)


10. Address additional water-loss needs
By this point, we will have some basic provisions in place to deal with a loss of water for up to 14 days. When running through the scenarios, there were some additional items I noted might be helpful if we do not have potable tap water for an extended period of time. These included various vessels that could make living without tap water easier, as well as possibly some ways to help capture and process rain water. Many of these will not be expensive preparations, but since other scenarios have a higher probability, we have prioritized this to here.

Time: 1 day

Cost: $250 budget but I'm really not sure yet. Some basic stuff would cost less than $50.

Target Completion Date: 1/16/2011 (Week 14)


11. Ensure we have a usable 30 day storage of food and water, or the ability to process water after day 14
Now we're getting into some serious stockpiling of food and water. The likelihood we will need these kinds of resources is very small, but we will be happy to have them for ourselves and possibly to help others in time of a major disruption of services. This will take some solid planning of menus to ensure we are stockpiling things we actually use in our day-to-day lives so we don't acquire a bunch of things that just go to waste. I'll have more thoughts on this down the road.

Cost: Not sure yet.

Target Completion Date: 1/30/2011 (week 16)


12. Address sewer-loss needs
Given our house sits on top of a hill in one of the highest areas of our county, I'm very hopeful we won't have any sewer issues. It's more likely a tree in our yard will break our sewer line than we'll lose sewer service due to some other emergency. There are a few things I identified that would make living without sewers more sanitary. Again, these are not very expensive preps but given the likelihood that we'll need them, it's a lower priority.

Cost: $100

Target Completion Date: 2/13/2011 (week 18)


13. Ensure we have a usable 90-day storage of food and water, or the ability to process water after day 14
Again, the likelihood that food supply will be interrupted for this long is slim, but we want to be prepared and have the ability to help others during shorter emergencies. My goal is for our basement storeroom to become our grocery store, and we go to the grocery mostly for produce and fresh meat and to restock our "store". I think we could probably get our "store" up to a one-year supply, but we've got to weigh if it's more likely we will abandon our home after 90 days, or if we think we'll homestead in our current location should food shortages get this limited.

Cost: Don't know yet

Target Completion Date: 3/27/2011 (week 24)

My guess is once we get to this point, we'll have invested a handful of weekends and about $4,000. We could definitely do things cheaper but I think we'd feel more comfortable with $4,000 in good supplies and food we'll eat anyway instead of an extra $4,000 in the bank. We don't make that much money, but we don't have any debt other than our mortgage and are frugal which allows us the freedom to use our resources as we see fit. My advice to anyone in debt is to get out! You'll be surprised how much you make and how much freedom you have when you aren't a slave to the banks!

Once we get to this point, we'll have likely identified some other scenarios we believe it is important to prepare for. We'll start thinking more about security and an enjoyable life instead of just basic survival. Next spring we'll likely plant a garden and begin to develop some other skills that we'll need if we were to ever end up in a homesteading situation. But we've got to get though the list above first!

I'll keep you posted.

Scenario 4: Loss of Sewers for 1-7 Days

Sewers are a tough one. If we lose sewers, we may still have access to tap water, but will need to capture any drain water and we will be unable to flush any toilets.

Likely causes of this would be a plumbing issue inside the house, or an underground sewer line being damaged in the yard, or some kind of system wide failure caused by an earthquake or some other large disaster. We live in one of the highest areas in the county so widespread flooding or even flash flooding is not an issue for our home. If our home floods, we better have enough wood on hand to build an ark.

Here are the options I can come up with in no particular order:

Option 1:  If the office still has services, we can hang out there. With no shower, personal hygiene will be tough but we can manage.

Option 2: Stay with a family member or friend who still has services. Needs would be similar to a stay at the office, but we'd have someplace to shower.

Option 3: Stay in a hotel.  Needs would be similar to the first two options but would cost money. If damage is widespread, availability will be limited and cost will likely be high as it was a couple of years ago. Cooking may be limited in a hotel so we would need a good supply of open restaurants.

Option 4: Stay in the home.

Without sewers in the home, we would lose the following:

• Washing machine
• Dishwasher
• All toilets, sinks, and showers

What we currently have/would retain:

• Water from the tap and all other services, appliances

A day in the life at home with no power based on current provisions:

• I get up whenever
• I cannot use the toilet because it cannot be flushed. I can go outside and pee on a tree but the wife isn't down with that. We can put plastic in one of the toilets, but we'll have to dispose of that someplace and I don't really want to bury the plastic. I can construct a makeshift toilet over a bucket in the garage, throw in some sand after each use, and bury the waste in a hole behind our property once or twice a day. Shit this sucks.
• We make coffee and breakfast as normal but cannot use our sink
• We cannot take showers but can use hot tap water clean up with, capturing and disposing gray water in bucket for later disposal
• If this isn't caused by some larger situation, we'd likely go to work
• Cooking dinner shouldn't be an issue but if we wash any foods we'll need to retain the waste water. It might be hard to be sanitary when cooking chicken or other poultry where I need to wash my hands afterwards
• After dinner, I'd wash and dry all of the dishes for the day, dumping the waste water in a larger bucket to be disposed of later
• Before going to bed, I'd have to dig a hole at least a couple of feet deep in the field behind our house and dump the day's waste from the make-shift toilet. I could then probably use the waste water to rinse out the bucket, and then back fill the hole. 

What might help the situation:

• A camping toilet, but I'm not sure if the investment would yield results much better than what I could build with some 2X4s, plywood, a bucket, and the seat from one of the toilets in the house
• A pick/pickaxe for digging a hole. I have plenty of shovels but if the ground is frozen, a pick might make it easier
• 3-5 buckets we don't mind using for waste and waste water. These could never be used for potable water gathering or storage
• A larger trash can that could be used for short-term storage of waste water
• Sand/Lime we can use to cover waste

Basic Preparation:

• How will you know if the sewers are damaged or otherwise not operational? Do you have to wait for toilets and drains to begin backing up or is there another way to find out? Pay attention to slow drains? Look for obvious signs of damage in the home? Know where your waste line exits your home and connects to the main and monitor the ground above that area? Seriously, if anyone knows let me know.
• Keep some 2X4s and plywood on hand. There's plenty in the basement. You might go ahead and build something now in knock-down form that you can just nail together if ever needed. That way, you aren't trying to build something from scratch if the power is also out.
• Keep some sand on hand to help keep smells at bay until you can bury the waste
• Make sure you have enough buckets to use for waste that you will never want to use for anything else

Purchases to consider:

• Pickaxe
• Sand/Lime
• More Buckets

Scenario 3: Loss of Natural Gas for 1-7 Days

The loss of natural gas in the summer is not a big issue as the only thing we'll lose is hot water. In the winter, we would also lose our heat.

Here are the options I can come up with in no particular order:

Option 1:  If the office still has services, we could sleep at the office. In the winter, we may also do basic personal hygiene stuff there since it has hot water but there is no shower.

Option 2: Stay with a family member or friend who still has services. Needs would be similar to a stay at the office, but we'd have someplace to shower.

Option 3: Stay in a hotel.  Needs would be similar to the first two options but would cost money. If service outage is widespread, availability will be limited and cost will likely be high as it was a couple of years ago. Cooking may be limited in a hotel so we would need a good supply of open restaurants.

Option 4: Stay in the home.

Without Natural Gas in the home, we would lose the following:

• Heat
• Washing machine for things that cannot be washed in cold water
• Dishwasher
• Frozen pipes could lead to loss of all water

What we currently have/would retain:

• Water from the tap and functioning sewers , unless the pipes freeze
• Cold Shower, unless the pipes freeze
• Stove
• Refrigerator
• Ice maker
• Enough clean clothes to last a week
• Ability to use washing machine with cold water

A day in the life at home with no Natural Gas based on current provisions:

• I get up whenever, probably because I'm too cold to sleep.
• Coffee and breakfast is no issue because we have electricity and cold tap water.
• We grab showers because we still have running water. In the winter this might be too cold but I can heat some water on the stove and transport it to a bathroom
• If this isn't part of a major situation, we would likely go to work.
• We could still prepare lunch and dinner from our normal supply or our stockpile if stuck for a few days.
• After dinner, I'd wash and dry all of the dishes for the day using water heated on the stove.

What might help the situation:

• We have two portable radiator heaters that we can use to heat a couple of rooms in the home if it's winter.
• Another portable heater or two that can be put in the basement to try to keep any pipes from freezing.
• An air mattress that can be set up in a closed off area with heaters in the winter.
• Cold weather sleeping bags.
• Plastic sheets to cover doors and help seal off one area of the house for easier heating.

Basic Preparation:

• Make sure to always have one week's supply of clean clothes and clean towels on hand, especially kitchen towels since they get nasty and there won't be an easy way to wash them.
• Keep enough cash on hand to pay for a few nights in a hotel and a few meals at restaurants in case payment networks are down. If it is that widespread, it is more likely we'd just stay at home.
• Keep some plastic and tarps around to block off areas of the house to make heating a small area easier.
• Better insulate any pipes that are near an outside wall.
• Make sure to have some buckets to drain the water lines in case we have to abandon the house.

Purchases to consider:

• Air Mattress
• Cold weather sleeping bags
• More plastic sheets and tarps
• Pipe insulation
• More buckets in case we have to drain the pipes