15 Items The Red Cross Wants You To Stockpile Today!

Welcome back survivors 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 preserve. in your emergency kit and these specific

items

will help you build an overall emergency kit and help you in any number of man-made natural disasters that we often see here in the United States, whether we're talking about massive wildfires . in California or winter blackouts in Texas or even double hurricanes hitting the Gulf Coast, these specific items can help you and your family survive any of these scenarios and create a general emergency supply kit now that you have these 15 items essential, do not hesitate to expand them. your equipment and really customize it more based on the scenario that is most likely to occur in your area, but make sure you have at least these 15 basic items first, so

today

I'm going to go over what are these 15 items that the American Red Cross

wants

you to have in your house I'll give you some examples of them I'll also give you my opinion on them and then at the end of the video I'll give you some additional bonus items that I also highly recommend you add to your emergency kit so the first item they want that you have in your house is a good multi tool that you meet very often in life, it all comes down to having the right tool for the job, if you have the right tool, most jobs are pretty easy and there it really is where the multi tool comes in handy because it's a general purpose tool that can help you in many different scenarios now like most things you don't necessarily want to use the cheapest multi tool out there if you see a five or ten dollar multi tool, Chances are they'll break the first time you use them, you'll probably have to spend at least forty to fifty dollars to get a decent multitool and I'm a big fan of it.

Gerber multi tools just because I've been using them for years, however there are other really good multi tools out there as well and most of the Mate tools have very similar designs where they have the pliers on the top and then they have a series. of different tools that can be deployed from the individual handles, so for me the tools that I use most frequently with this are probably number one, it's probably the pliers here, I find myself using this all the time, but you also have a a flathead screwdriver and a Phillips head screwdriver, which is actually very useful.

You don't have to look for those tools. You already have those tools in your pocket and then of course I use the knife blade that comes with it. about this quite often also what is this one here I use that knife quite often so as long as your multitool has those main functions this thing could literally be a lifesaver in an emergency situation but definitely have a multitool in Your emergency kit will help you in many, many different scenarios. I recommend that you have one in your emergency kit and also one in your car. Below I will have a link with a description of a good multi-tool. tool that I recommend on Amazon, as well as links to many of the other items that we will talk about

today

, so the next item that they want you to keep in your house for emergencies is effective and this may surprise a lot of people. but yes, they recommend that you have a large wad of bills in your house at all times, preferably in the smallest denomination possible if you have a couple of hundred dollar bills that may not help you in the emergency situation and the reason This is that if there is a widespread power outage in your community, many of your stores may still be open and have resources they can sell to you, but they will not accept credit and debit cards and also many ATMs will close again. rely on power and it's just going to be off, so you may suddenly find yourself in a situation where you need to do some shopping or buy some gas, but those stores only accept cash and all you have is a debit card and credit and I'm just out of luck and that's why I personally always have at least a thousand dollars in cash inside my house somewhere just for emergency situations like that and if a disaster scenario is bad enough and goes on long enough , you may find yourself trying to purchase resources. your neighbors or trying to pay your neighbors to help you in some way, such as cutting down a tree that fell during a bad storm, it is not uncommon here in the United States for communities to experience a disaster and then have to wait up to a week . with no power in that area and if you don't have cash before that massive power outage, you're just out of luck, you'll have no way to pay other people for resources or services, so the next article I want you to have in your home emergency kit are winter blankets and I'm sure many of those homeowners in Texas who experienced that multi-day winter blackout wish they had some extra warm blankets, now obviously you can have extra blankets of any kind, but I recommend that you invest in some thick wool blankets.

These things are incredibly versatile and 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. These things are actually very versatile and they are very thick and very warm and during an emergency situation you will really want a thick blanket like this. Now there are many people who go hammock camping and this is what they really bring with them. First they put this in their hammocks and then they put their sleeping bag on top just because they're so thick and heavy they just provide that extra layer of insulation now if you're in an area that has a chance of flooding I do.

I recommend that you keep this extra blanket and your emergency kit on the second floor in case the entire first floor floods. You know it's very easy to see a scenario where your first floor floods and all your beds and blankets are ruined and you'll be very grateful to have some extra blankets like this that are dry and on the second floor, so get some blankets. extra warm to have an emergency kit if you want to go the extra mile, invest in some nice fleece blankets like This The next item they want you to have is water and, like Fema, they recommend one gallon of water per person in your home for three days, so if you have five people in your household, you're going to want to have 15 gallons of water like this and you can just go out and buy one of these gallon containers at your grocery store for about a dollar, actually a little less.

Now I will say that these things sometimes break down over time, the plastic just gives way and they end up spilling, but you can buy some five gallon containers to hold that water. Now the American Red Cross is exceeding what Fema recommends for water, so they say they want you to have a gallon of water per person per day for three days in case you need to evacuate so you can take the water with you, but they also recommend that Have a two-week supply of water in your home in case you need to shelter in place and your water becomes contaminated again.

We saw this. In Texas, during this winter blackout, many of those homeowners couldn't even drink the water coming out of their taps and their water also became contaminated, which is why the American Red Cross recommends having a two-week 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 is a serious forest fire for example, and you need to evacuate, you can carry that water and put it in the back of your vehicle and the The next item they recommend you

stockpile

is non-perishable food and again they recommend that you have three days of non-perishable food in case you need to evacuate so hopefully this food will be mobile and the containers you can use. you could grab and go and they also recommend that you have two weeks worth of food in your house for you and your family in case you need to shelter in place for a longer period of time.

There are a couple different routes you can take when you're stockpiling food, I recommend you buy a handful of these freeze dried food kits and these things last 25 years so this one here is from Wise Company it has 60 servings of meals there are already lots of variety in them and many To these you just need to add hot water and mix them and you will have a decent meal ready for you and your family, so I will calculate how many servings you and your family need. This one has 60 servings and then I will buy that amount.

Provide it and keep it in your house somewhere. What I love is that these things are also mobile so if you had to evacuate you could easily put one, two or three of these in the back of your car and leave or just put this in your attic and just forget about it. it until you really need it, that's the nice thing about having this long shelf life, so this is definitely an option that I recommend and I'll have a couple of links in the description below again for some of these products. I recommend that, but now you have some other options.

Another easier option is to simply buy canned food and buy it at the grocery store every time you go to the grocery store, buy two or three additional canned items and store them in your pantry. Now if you choose this option, canned foods have a long shelf life, but it's not as long as an emergency kit like that, so what I recommend you do is buy canned foods from items that you actually eat, consume and that circulate. Go through your inventory using it, so put the newer cans in the back and use the cans in the front of your pantry.

I would just set a goal that every time I go to the grocery store I buy two, three, four extra cans like this to go. home and stock your pantry now, another route you can go with this, which may be the most affordable option, is simply ramen noodles. Now ramen noodles have a bad reputation in the cooking community and simply because they have virtually no nutritional value. eating cardboard, but my argument for this is that most emergencies only last a day or two, but you might be without power for a day, two days, three days, and the fact that you won't get much nutrition This is not so relevant in those cases. shorter terms now, if you're without power for up to a week and rely on nothing but ramen noodles for that entire week, that's probably not good, you probably won't feel very well after that, but for short term emergencies I have No There's a problem with just buying some ramen noodles, but you can buy a whole box of this stuff for five to ten dollars, and if you're just starting to get your preparations and emergency kit together, that can be a good place to start shopping. a great quantity. container of these and then try adding extra protein and extra vegetables to your emergency food supply.

Now the last option, probably one of the most expensive, is that you can buy some of these. This is a ready to eat meal and this is what the military gives their service members when they are in the field and these things are very calorie dense, they have a lot of calories and honestly one of these is probably more like two Servings You can get three servings or three meals from one of these kits, but they're actually not that cheap. You can get something like this for nine or ten dollars, so it's not the most affordable option, but they have a lot of variety and they are completely sealed and packaged and have a very long shelf life, so the next item they want you to have in your house is a flashlight and I recommend that you not only have one flashlight, but several because they are so important and I recommend that you pay attention to the types of batteries they use and try to make sure that all your flashlights use exactly the 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 just use a simple traditional flashlight that you can buy at Home Depot, but I also really like headlamps. The good thing about these is that they free up your hands, so if you are working on some type of project, your hands can be free for you to work on it if you have to go get the circuit panel in your house or you have to turn on a fire, something like that, having your hands free is incredibly useful, there are a couple more options you can get with flashlights.

Additionally, I recommend having at least one hand-cranked flashlight in your house. It's really nice to have these things. I'll be honest: if this were your main flashlight, they're a pain in the ass, but at least it's nice. have one of these as a backup in case all your batteries die, they are usually not as bright as thetraditional flashlights and it's a pain to turn them on, but this is a good last resort, it has a couple Other options I'm also a big fan of having an omnidirectional flashlight in your house, so something like this, which is essentially a flashlight, but Every time I run out of power, it's the first thing I use and it lights up the entire room. just having a little spotlight working on something, so again this gives me a lot of hands-free options where I can put this and I can prepare food or use the bathroom, do whatever I need hands-free instead of having to hold somewhat a flashlight when you're trying to work on something, so I recommend getting some omnidirectional lights which are essentially a flashlight and again, this one only runs on batteries, so I can swap those batteries in and out as needed.

I wish there was another option that I really like and that's this one which is my luminaid so this is an LED light so it's a very low voltage light it has a solar charger on there and the body is actually inflatable and the purpose of this body is actually just to diffuse that light and surprisingly this thing gives off a good amount of light and the idea behind it is that you leave it outside during the day and it charges and then you bring it in and it's enough light so you could prepare a meal and do some kind of work and these things are pretty inexpensive so you might want to buy three or four of these just to keep them in your house in case of emergencies and then at night take them out and load them and it has some different um, it has a flash mode for ss sos mode and everything, but these things are really cool.

I like to take them camping and definitely recommend checking them out with luminaid. Go get them and try some. These new emergency kits again. I'll have links in the description where you can find them so the next item they want you to have is a hand crank radio that runs on batteries so I'm a big fan of these and I think this. It should be one of the first items you buy for your emergency kit so like I said there is a battery here so you have a replaceable battery but you also have a rechargeable battery that you can charge with this crank and also with the panels solar on top and it has a built in flashlight most importantly it has a built in emergency radio so you can listen to the weather updates and there are a lot of different types and variations that they have here so this one just has more lights on. and what I like about this one is that again it has replaceable batteries and then it has the rechargeable battery in there and I can plug in other devices like a cell phone and essentially use it to charge my cell phone or charge other flashlights or anything else that runs on USB power and I can even plug it into my car and charge it from my car, so if you know a big storm is coming ahead of time, you can just charge it from a wall outlet like a cell phone charger and now you know that at least you'll have your radio emergency, you will have a flashlight here and you will have a possible cell phone charger, as a backup with this as well, so there are a lot of There are different brands and you can buy something like this for 30 or 40 dollars and I'm a big fan of making this one of the first items you purchase for your emergency kit just because of how important communication is in an emergency and you can use it to listen to the emergency radio broadcast channel and hear any updates from your local community and local authorities so that The next item you want in your house is just extra batteries and I like to keep all of mine in this Tupperware container. on top of a shelf so if my house ever floods these things still need to be safe and waterproof up there and you just need to make sure you have the right batteries that you really need and that's why I recommend you pay for it. attention, put some thought into this and try to have all your equipment use exactly the same batteries, so if your flashlight uses double batteries, make sure all your flashlight uses double batteries, make sure the emergency radio uses batteries too doubles and it just makes things a lot simpler instead of having to buy three four different types of batteries.

Try to keep them high in case your house floods and try to leave them to centrally locate a place where you and your family will all know where to go to find extra batteries. The next item they want you to have is a simple first aid kit and I don't think you need anything fancy, just a simple 15 x 20 kit. This one here has 66 items at times. You'll see some that say we had a thousand items or 5000 items, but you don't need any of that for a home, just something simple, just to take care of those minor cuts and injuries and keep them clean so you don't get infected, so don't think too much about it.

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 another somewhere else just because they are so important. They have this in your house, the next item they want you to have is seven days of any medication you may be taking. This is especially true if you are taking some type of life-saving medication that you really want to pay attention to. this and don't wait until you have the last one or two doses left before you go get a refill and if you know there's a storm coming, a hurricane, a blizzard, go out and get that refill sooner rather than later, I don't want to stay stuck in a situation where in the middle of a bad snow storm you run out of medicine, you have to go to the pharmacy and put yourself at risk just to try to get more medicine, so try to have at least a supply of one week of whatever medication you are taking and in fact I would go a little further and make sure that you also have some other more generic medication like ibuprofen and melatonin, have that stock built up in your house as well in case you need it during that emergency.

The next items they want you to stock are additional sanitary items. These will be things like extra toilet paper, paper towels, and wipes, but also maybe some extra toothbrushes and toothpaste in case you have company. shelter in place with you and honestly you can buy toothbrushes and toothpaste for so little money it's worth it just to get a dollar, overall spend ten bucks on some extra sanitary items like this, keep them in your emergency kit and leave them there. For an emergency these things have an incredible lifespan, they could stay there for five years and you would be perfectly fine using them, so think about what sanitary items you use on a daily basis, try to buy a few extras and set them up. set aside somewhere in your emergency kit, so the next thing you'll want to have are copies of important documents, so they'll be things like marriage certificates and copies of your insurance on deeds, your home and your medical records, print all of this and save it.

Somewhere safe, soon enough you would put them in a plastic bag like this and put them in your emergency kit. I could go a step further and buy them as a fireproof safe, that's where I keep a lot of my important documents in case my house ever burns down, but there are many scenarios where people have had to rebuild. completely their lives from scratch. Just think about all the people who lost their homes in the wildfires in California, many of them lost important documents forever if they had just one copy of many of those essential documents it would make things much easier, think about many of the people who were flooded in New Orleans or the Gulf Coast when they were hit by that double hurricane last year, many people lost all of these essential documents if you just had copies of them, rebuilding your life and starting from scratch would be much easier , so definitely print copies of important documents, store them in a waterproof container, and also keep them in your emergency kit to make the next one pretty simple. but you want extra cell phone chargers and honestly these things are so cheap and inexpensive nowadays that you might as well buy two or three of these to include in your emergency kit and I recommend you have a few different USB cables like this one for about how many different types of phones just in case, again you have someone else sheltering with you or maybe you change phones in a few years but you forgot to update the cell phone charger in your emergency kit, you know, you just have a variety of things there you can use it to charge your phones this way if there is an emergency you can go to your car and charge your phone with something like this or you can use this cable and charge your phone from your emergency radio but you only have one on at least one charger cell phone, if not a few, and try to have a variety in the type of connections you have for those as well, so next they want you to have printouts of your family and friends' contact information, so have a sheet with All your friends' phone numbers and mailing addresses are there in case you need to evacuate your area in a pinch and maybe your cell phone doesn't work or maybe your kids need to find their uncle's house, print it out and have your address there.

This will make things much easier. You know, the truth is, all that information is only on our cell phones these days. You know we don't memorize people's phone numbers as much these days, so have records of that in case your cell phone isn't. No longer available, it could literally be a lifesaver right there, so print them all out, store them in a waterproof container, and keep the contact information and addresses of your family and friends in your emergency kit, as well as the next item they want that you save to your Home is a physical map of the area, so again we rely too much on our GPS and that could disappear very easily.

You know, having a physical map that you can use to evacuate an area and find your way could come up again. be a lifesaver, you know, if I had to navigate to my uncle's house in the next state without a map, uh, and without my phone, it would be incredibly challenging, so having a map like this could be really important if you need to evacuate and for some reason your phone just doesn't work, you don't want to be 100% dependent on your phone, you want to have some backup options, so I'm definitely okay with spending five bucks at your local gas station and getting a physical map to keep in your house. and keep them in your emergency kit so that's all the items that the American Red Cross

wants

you to have in your home, but I have a few additional additional items that I personally recommend that you also keep in your emergency kit and one of them goes to be a water filtration system and again, there are a couple different routes you can go with this option with a couple different prices.

This is by survivor filter and you can literally take contaminated water, dirty water and pump it through this filter. and it pumps out pretty clean drinking water that you can drink, so that's one option: buy a filtration kit like this now. Ideally you would have enough water for you and your family for longer, but you know everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face, that's a Mike Tyson quote, so I think having a backup plan for drinking water Clean 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 built-in filtration system, so you can literally get some water from a stream and as you drink through the mouthpiece here it sucks the water through a carbon filter and this can filter out 99.9 of all the bacteria in it so this is just a much simpler and more affordable option for many people.

This thing costs maybe twenty dollars and you get one of these. You can also buy a lifesaving straw and a lightweight straw. I have one lying around, but it's very similar to this one, except without the container, you're just drinking water directly through a water filter like that, so that's something I definitely recommend exploring, as well as having some sort of system. of water filtration in your emergency kit in case the disaster you find yourself in occurs. It drags on and you have to go several days without clean drinking water. Another item I'm a big fan of including in your emergency kit is a simple propane container like this one.

You can buy them at kmart or walmart for essentially a lot of camping. A lot of them come with a stand and then an accessory like this one that screws onto the top so you can get a little flame. In fact, you can boil some water and cook something on top of it. All together you can get this again for 15 20 at your kmartor your goal and this will be one that could help you boil water to disinfect it if your filter doesn't work or if you don't have enough pot of water, but you can also cook food with this and you can get a hot meal this way and just have a meal hot or a hot cup of coffee or something psychologically that could be a big boost and they are pretty cheap and economical just remember that if you are using a burner like that you really shouldn't be using it indoors because of the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning , so you want to use it outdoors, but still, having a simple little burner like that is pretty easy to use and pretty compact, which is definitely a great extra item to have in your emergency kit, so now you know what items the American Red Cross wants you to have in your home at all times.

Check out this video I made here talking about how to start preparing for emergencies and what those steps are to be prepared. Thank you. Lots to see and see you in the next video.