72-Hour Emergency Kit: What Supplies to Get for Staying Home

Emergency-management agencies tell households to be ready to get by on their own for at least a few days. Ready.gov puts it plainly: after an emergency, you may need to survive on your own for several days. A 72-hour kit is the first layer of preparedness at home. It’s enough water, food, light and basics to stay safe and reasonably comfortable if the power, water or stores are out.

It’s also the layer you’ll use most. Most real disruptions are a storm that takes out power for a day or two, a water main break, or a heat wave with rolling outages. Not the end of the world. Just a few uncomfortable days that go much better with a little planning.

Free download: 72-Hour Emergency Kit (PDF). It includes a fill-in table and checkboxes.

The quantities (the math is simple)

Item	Per person	Family of 4, 72 hours
Water (drinking + sanitation)	1 gallon per day	12 gallons
Food	about 2,000 calories per day	about 24,000 calories
Light	1 headlamp or flashlight	4 plus spare batteries
Cash	$50–100 per adult, small bills	$200–400

The one gallon per person per day figure comes straight from Ready.gov and the Red Cross, and it covers drinking plus basic sanitation. Plan for more in hot climates, for nursing mothers, for anyone who is sick, and for pets. The Red Cross recommends going beyond 72 hours to a 2-week supply at home once the basics are covered. That’s what our 30-day plan builds toward.

1. Water

Water is the first thing to fix, and the cheapest.

• Store it. For a family of four, 12 gallons is two 7-gallon Aqua-Tainers or a few cases of bottled water. A full 7-gallon jug weighs about 58 lb, so store it low. Smaller households or apartments may prefer 2.5-gallon jugs that one person can carry.
• Rotate it. Store-bought bottled water keeps until its date. Water you fill yourself in clean, food-grade containers should be replaced about every six months.
• Have a way to make more. If local officials issue a boil-water notice and you can’t boil, the EPA’s method uses unscented household bleach: 8 drops of 6% bleach (or 6 drops of 8.25%) per gallon, stir, and wait 30 minutes. Double the dose if the water is cloudy or very cold. Use only regular, unscented bleach that’s under a year old. Purification tablets are a lighter backup.
• Know your hidden water. A tank water heater holds 30–50 gallons of usable water. Learn how to shut off the inlet and drain it safely before you need it (turn off the power or gas to the heater first). The EPA also lists melted ice cubes and the water in your pipes as emergency sources.

2. Food and cooking

Three days of food is easier than it sounds, because you probably have most of it already.

• Choose no-cook or low-cook foods you’ll actually eat: canned meat, fish, beans and fruit, bars, peanut butter, crackers, dried fruit, nuts, cereal and shelf-stable milk.
• A manual can opener. Electric ones don’t help in a power outage. A basic EZ-DUZ-IT manual opener is cheap and well-reviewed.
• Paper plates, cups and utensils save precious water on dishes.
• Special diets: baby formula and food, allergy-safe foods and pet food.
• Eat the fridge first. FoodSafety.gov advises that an unopened refrigerator keeps food safe for about 4 hours. A full freezer holds its temperature for about 48 hours (24 if half full) if you keep the door closed. Plan to eat perishables first and save the canned food for later.

Cooking without power: a camp stove like the Gas One GS-3400P dual-fuel stove lets you heat water and food. Use it outdoors only. Never run a stove, grill, or generator inside a home or garage, even with the door open. The CDC warns that carbon monoxide from these devices can build up quickly and can kill.

3. Light, power and information

When the grid goes down, light and information matter most.

• A light for everyone. LED headlamps or flashlights, one per person, with spare batteries. A rechargeable LED lantern lights a whole room and is much safer than candles. The CDC recommends flashlights instead of candles during outages because of the fire risk.
• Phone power. Charged power banks, a car charger and the right cables. The Anker Zolo 20K holds several phone charges.
• A portable power station (optional). If you have a medical device, a fridge you want to save or a long outage risk, a battery power station is a safe indoor option with no fumes. A Jackery Explorer 300 (292 Wh) handles phones, lights, a fan or a small device for hours. Check your device’s wattage first.
• A NOAA weather radio. Ready.gov lists a battery or hand-crank radio with NOAA weather alerts as a basic kit item. The Midland ER310 is a popular crank model.
• Paper backups. A written contact list, including an out-of-area contact, and a local paper map.

4. First aid and health

• A family first aid kit and a first aid guide. A kit like the First Aid Only 298-piece is a solid base. Add your own medications.
• 7 or more days of prescription medications, plus basic over-the-counter medicines: pain reliever, antacid, anti-diarrheal and allergy medicine.
• A thermometer, tweezers, scissors, disposable gloves and N95 masks.
• Spare glasses, contact lens supplies and hearing-aid batteries.
• For anyone who relies on powered medical equipment, talk to your doctor and your utility about a backup plan. Many utilities keep a medical-baseline or priority list.

The single best addition is free or close to it: a first aid and CPR class. The Red Cross and many fire departments offer them.

5. Sanitation (the part everyone forgets)

If water service is out, toilets stop being simple. Plan for it now and it’s a minor inconvenience instead of a crisis.

• A 5-gallon bucket toilet. The Reliance Luggable Loo is a bucket with a snap-on seat. Use it with heavy bag liners and kitty litter or sawdust to control odor.
• Heavy trash bags with ties. Contractor bags are thicker than kitchen bags and work as liners, rain covers or a ground sheet.
• Toilet paper, wet wipes, soap, hand sanitizer, feminine supplies and diapers.
• Ready.gov’s kit list includes moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties “for personal sanitation.” This is why.

6. Warmth, shelter and safety

• Blankets or a sleeping bag for each person. Cold nights without heat are dangerous, especially for babies and older adults.
• Seasonal clothing and sturdy shoes.
• A fire extinguisher (Ready.gov lists one in its supplies) and working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. If you’ll be using any fuel-burning device, a battery-powered CO alarm is essential.
• Plastic sheeting and duct tape, for a broken window or a leak.
• A wrench or pliers to turn off utilities. Find your gas, water and electric shutoffs this week and label them. Only shut off gas if you smell it or officials tell you to. Once it’s off, the utility has to turn it back on.

Where to keep it

Store the kit in one or two easy-to-carry bins or a duffel in a closet you can reach in the dark, not in the attic. Ready.gov suggests airtight plastic bags inside the bins. Keep canned food in a cool, dry place, and tell everyone in the household where the kit is.

A 24-hour test

Once the kit is together, try one evening of “lights off”: no power, no tap water, cook outside. You’ll find the gaps fast: the flashlight with dead batteries, the can opener nobody can find, the phone cable for the wrong phone. Fix those, and your kit is real.

Shop the list

I’ve collected the items I’d shop for on the Emergency Preparedness gear page. Those are affiliate links. Buy in this order: water and a can opener, light and phone power, first aid and medications, then sanitation. Once you have 72 hours covered, build up with the 30-day plan, and keep a lighter go bag for leaving fast.

Sources

• Ready.gov (FEMA), Build a Kit: basic kit list, 1 gallon per person per day, NOAA radio, sanitation items, storage tips.
• American Red Cross, Survival Kit Supplies: 3-day evacuation and 2-week home supply, 7-day medications.
• U.S. EPA, Emergency Disinfection of Drinking Water: bleach dosing table and other water sources.
• FoodSafety.gov, Food Safety During Power Outage: refrigerator and freezer timelines.
• CDC, Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: generators, grills and stoves outdoors only.

General guidance, not professional advice. Follow your local emergency officials. Gear picks are based on public specs and reviews; we haven’t hands-on tested every item.