How to Build a 72-Hour Emergency Kit

Seventy-two hours is the standard for a reason. It is roughly how long it takes for utilities, roads and supply chains to recover from a regional event — and it is the point where a household that has nothing starts making dangerous decisions.

A working kit has four layers, and the order matters.

1. Water and food

Twelve litres of water per person for three days, in containers you can pour from. Then three meals a day per person from food that needs no refrigeration: tinned goods, dry staples, nut butters and instant meals you already eat.

The single most-forgotten item is a manual can opener. Keep it with the food, not in the drawer you will be searching in the dark.

2. Light and information

One light per person, battery or rechargeable — never candles, which cause a large share of outage fires. Then a radio that works without a charger, because phone networks are usually the first utility to overload.

3. Warmth and shelter

One reflective bivvy or sleeping bag per person. In an unheated house in winter, the temperature becomes dangerous within hours, and warmth is the cheapest life-safety item you can buy.

Never use a barbecue, charcoal grill or camping stove indoors, in a garage or in an attached shed. Carbon monoxide is invisible, odourless and lethal. If you plan to heat one room, use an indoor-rated heater and follow its ventilation instructions exactly.

4. Documents and identity

Copies of ID, insurance, prescriptions and vaccination records in a waterproof folder, plus cash in small bills. These are the items genuinely hard to replace, and the ones people leave behind when they have five minutes to evacuate.

Buying a kit versus building one

A pre-built bag is a legitimate way to start — it removes the hardest part, which is beginning.

The trade-off is personalisation: a generic bag has generic medication, generic clothing and generic documents, which is to say none. Buy one as a shell, then add the four things only your household can supply: your medication, your documents, your clothing and your pet supplies.

What to leave out

Skip the tactical hardware, the dehydrated meals you would never choose to eat, and anything that needs fuel or assembly in the dark. A 72-hour kit is a bridge to the next normal day, not a lifestyle.