New guidance encourages UK residents to keep a 72-hour emergency kit in their homes, and this has led to questions about what items to include and how best to store essentials like canned beans and water. Oliver Dowden, the former Deputy Prime Minister, unveiled the “Prepare” website. The site provides advice on how UK households can protect themselves against various emergencies, such as floods, power outages, or disease outbreaks. The site states that an emergency pack should contain several vital items necessary in urgent situations.
The Government outlines that those unable to acquire all the recommended items immediately should gradually build up their stockpile and purchase items when possible. Similarly, the European Commission urges EU citizens to be prepared with sufficient food, water, and essential goods for 72 hours. This push forms part of a Europe-wide campaign to prepare for diverse disasters, including natural catastrophes, health crises, and military conflicts. The campaign aims to enhance public preparedness and coordinate EU-wide responses to potential pervasive dangers.
The Dutch Government urges its citizens to prepare 72-hour emergency kits to anticipate potential crises, which could encompass anything from natural disasters and cyber attacks to conflicts. Recommended items include drinking water, non-perishable food, a flashlight, batteries, a first aid kit, and essential medications, the Daily Record reports.
Experts have advised how and where to store these emergency supplies for those with limited storage space.
Not every home has room for a full-sized pantry, but even the smallest kitchens can house supplies for 72 hours.
Allocate one kitchen cupboard for durable food such as canned meals (like ravioli or baked beans with sausages), tinned fruit, dry pasta, UHT milk, and high-energy snacks like energy bars. Stocking a pantry all at once can be expensive, so mitigate the cost by adding a few extra items to your weekly grocery list and rotating them regularly to ensure they remain within their use-by dates. A mini pantry can be a lifesaver during power outages or if the household falls sick and can't get to the shops.
Emergency supplies are useless if you can’t find them when needed, so consider investing in stackable, clear storage boxes. These can store essentials such as spare power banks, batteries, torches, tools, first aid supplies, hygiene products, baby necessities, and additional blankets or foil blankets.
Once packed, label each box according to its contents and store them in a central yet inconspicuous spot, such as under the staircase or in a low kitchen cabinet. These should be easily accessible to all household members and kept indoors, not hidden away in the attic or garage.
This location is also perfect for storing bottled water and extra toilet paper.
In America, survival experts might call this a 'bug-out bag', but essentially, it’s a small bag filled with necessities you’d require if you had to evacuate your home quickly. This could be crucial during emergencies like flood evacuations or other local crises.
Choose a sturdy yet compact bag, roughly the size of a school backpack, and ensure it contains a flashlight, power banks (don’t forget the cables), a plastic envelope for medicines and important papers, snacks such as granola or energy bars, a few mini bottles of water, and any vital medication.
Ideally, this should be stored somewhere readily accessible to everyone, near the entrance – perhaps in a hallway closet. To make it immediately identifiable as the emergency grab bag, consider tying a bright ribbon around a handle so everyone can recognise which bag it is.
After assembling a 72-hour survival kit for your home, it's prudent to also prepare your vehicle. The boot is an ideal place for an emergency supply, invaluable during breakdowns or when trapped in traffic due to extreme weather conditions.
Key items to have on hand include blankets, lightweight yet warm clothing such as fleeces, a high-visibility jacket, snacks rich in energy, and bottled water.
Sarah Day, a storage expert from Pay Less for Storage, remarked: "While this news might understandably be worrying for some, remember it's not intended to scare you, just to ensure that everyone is well prepared in the event of an emergency. And remember, preparedness doesn’t mean panic buying or anxiously hoarding - it means planning for the worst and sensibly storing what you need.
"A pre-packed emergency kit can make a big difference in stressful situations, whether it's a blackout caused by cyber interference or flooding caused by mother nature. The key to this is accessibility and suitable storage: think boxes you can find in the dark, home insurance documents carefully placed to grab and go, the food you'll actually eat if the lights go out, and storage systems that fit your space.
"Many of us already have most of the items we need, but they're lost in cluttered cupboards or overstuffed drawers. With a few small tweaks, you can repurpose those spaces to make your home not just tidier, but more resilient too."
