For people living in the United States, if a disaster occurs, such as a catastrophic weather event or other natural calamity, in almost all cases you can depend on either services being restored or help being dispatched within 72 hours or slightly longer. But, initially you will very likely either be entirely on your own or at least among thousands of others also needing assistance. For this reason, it’s important to have a 72 hour survival kit on-hand to serve the needs of your family. While the exact contents of the kit will vary somewhat depending on your individual needs, there are a few essentials that all 72 hour kits should contain. Having at least a 72 hour survival kit is the absolute minimum a prepper should have. The prepping mindset is that you will always be on your own and it’s YOUR responsibility to be prepared.

Food and Water

While most American households have plenty of food in the cupboards to sustain them for more than 72 hours, you must keep in mind that cooking will potentially be a problem. In almost all cases, electricity will be out and depending on the event, gas will also not be available. This means that a prepper either needs to stock food that doesn’t require cooking to be edible, or have an alternate source of fuel on which to cook it, such as a camp stove. Also remember that food in your refrigerator will quickly go bad without electricity and should be consumed first.

There are a variety of sources of emergency food you can stock up on that have shelf life of many years. Anything to consider is MRE’s. They are military rations that don’t need to be cooked to be edible. They aren’t very tasty but they will provide enough calories to survive.

Water is perhaps your most critical need. A human being will die from dehydration before they die from starvation. Water supplies will almost always be unavailable if the electricity is out. As a rule of thumb, you should have on hand at least one gallon of water per person in the household. This means a family of four would need at least twelve gallons of water to sit out a three day emergency. This should be sufficient for drinking cooking and personal hygiene. A good prepper will have a product called a waterBOB. This is a very sturdy plastic bag you can place into your bathtub to store up to 100 gallons of water. Its inexpensive and very simple to use.