How much food should I carry during an evacuation?
“I have to set up emergency food
in my backpack to last at least 3 days, right?”
“My emergency backpack will be full from just a 3 days’ supply of water!!”
“There are many kinds of food I want to bring……
I have no idea…”
When you have to evacuate from your home, it will be a battle against time. Can you make a plan for evacuation from your home without panicking? Especially if you have kids. They will drive you to rush, to run away quickly, to hurry. Remember, haste makes waste. Preparing for an emergency evacuation in advance is an essential strategy. The time to calmly prepare your emergency evacuation bag is now.
I talked about the compact emergency bag in my previous post (post #51). Today we’ll discuss the next step.
The emergency evacuation bag will be any kind of bag which you can use to carry heavy emergency supplies from your home to an evacuation shelter or safe space. When you have to leave your home and move to a safe area, you need to bring the emergency evacuation bags and move as quickly as possible.
The time to calmly prepare your emergency evacuation bag is now.
Many emergency preppers say you need to set up at least 3 days of food (post #3) in your emergency bag, but in reality, that will be difficult. I recommend setting up 1 full day of food, per person, in your bag, and when the time comes to use it, rationing it out for 3 or more days. Even 1 full day of food per person might be a lot to carry, especially if you have small kids or a baby. And if you have a big family, you can guess how difficult it would be to carry 3 full days of food for everybody. Even for just 1 person, 3 meals a day for 3 days is 9 meals. Ultimately, I think we need to give up on expecting full meals, during an emergency. You can not run with a heavy bag. I have 4 family members, and I set up 3 meals per person in my bag; we can eat 3 in 1 day, or 1 meal per day for 3 days, or we can try to spread it out over an even longer timespan. If you have the space to make a separate bag for each family member, you might set up more food. But remember, each person will have to grab their bag, immediately after or during the big earthquake (for example).
Important
• Unbreakable food.
• Food that can be eaten at room temperature, without cooking.
• Food that does not require any dishes. Washing dishes or throwing away paper plates will be difficult. Try to avoid making trash.
• Food without a strong smell and food that can be eaten quietly. You do not want to attract attention in an evacuation shelter.
These foods are in my evacuation bag. I have more food in my car, but we don’t know if we’ll be able to evacuate by car. It will depend on the situation.
The emergency evacuation bag will be needed when you can not drive a car. If you are lucky and you can evacuate by car, you will be able to bring more emergency supples. It’s important to set up emergency supplies in the car too. The best situation, of course, will be one where there is no threat of damage to your home and you can stay in the home…
See you next time.
Remember, “Protect your life by yourself” （自分の命は自分で守る). You need to survive first, and then you need your emergency supply. No matter how well you prepared your emergency supplies, if you die, then all of your preparations will have been for nothing. First and foremost, keep your health up all the time. Build your stamina so that if you need to, you can evacuate as quickly as possible. Stay healthy.