The above photo is the vehicle emergency kit I have stored in my car. The smaller of the two is a First Aid Kit that I bought from AAA and the larger one has a few essentials for vehicle emergencies.
This is the inside of the contents of the Vehicle Emergency Kit and the First Aid Kit, closed, on top of it.
And this is the inside of the Vehicle First Aid Kit. I’m sharing the contents with readers because in my research to write Vehicle Emergency Kit: are you Ready? I realized these two kits, that have been in my car for years, are woefully lacking!
Vehicle Emergency Kit: are you Ready? is part of a continuing series about emergency planning and preparedness that I’ve run on this blog for 3 years now. Three years ago, I launched the first post in my 20-part series, called Any Way the Wind Blows, about the loss of our home in a wildfire in 2007. This year (actually yesterday) marks 8 years since our loss and I can remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.
Having personally experienced a catastrophic loss and the trauma leading up to and following that loss, emergency planning and preparedness are an important part of my life. I wrote that 20-part series not only because was it very cathartic for me to share with readers, but my hope is that by sharing, it will help others move forward whether in recovery from their own loss or just moving forward to becoming better prepared.
I realize that it is difficult to navigate back through a blog, especially a robust blog like this one, with almost 1,000 posts in 3 years. So, let me give you some help! If you haven’t read my 20-part series about the loss of our home and our rebuild, here are links to each chapter:
Prologue: Any Way the Wind Blows
Chapter 1: The Valley That Time Forgot
Chapter 2: Eye of the Storm
Chapter 3: In the Blink of an Eye
Chapter 3A: Too Far From Home (Tiffany’s story)
Chapter 4: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Chapter 5: In a Blue Funk
Chapter 6: Back to Square One
Chapter 7: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Chapter 8: Not Me! Why Me? Who Me? It’s Me.
Chapter 9: The Whole Kit and Caboodle
Chapter 10: Feathering the Nest
Chapter 11: The Blind Leading the Blind
Chapter 12: Apple Pie Order
Chapter 13: All Hands on Deck
Chapter 14: In the Lap of Luxury
Chapter 15: Much of Muchness
Chapter 16: The Backup Plan
Chapter 17: What’s in Your First Aid Kit?
Chapter 18: Emergency Planning Checklist
Chapter 19: Counting Our Blessings
Chapter 20: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
I’ve been told it’s “a good read”, but I must warn you – it’s long…a commitment. That’s why I broke it up into so many chapters!
And, if I’ve piqued your interest and you’ve decided to join in the prepper movement and become more prepared for emergencies, you can check out a few other posts that I’ve written over the years, which will help you with emergency planning and preparedness in small, bite-size chunks:
- Resolve to Be Ready 2014
- Water: are you Ready?
- Pet Owners: are you Ready?
- Emergency Food Supply: are you Ready?
- Fly-Away Kit: are you Ready?
- Resolve to Be Ready 2015
- Emergency Contact Sheet: are you Ready?
There are many, many more. To find them all easier, just click on the Emergency Planning tag above the title of this post (Vehicle Emergency Kit: are you Ready?) and it will take you to all of the posts on this site about emergency planning and preparedness.
Anyway, back to today’s post, Vehicle Emergency Kit: are you Ready?
I could give you my own list of supplies for your Vehicle Emergency Kit. But, there are so many good ones out there, all slightly different, and some more extensive than others. Since these great lists are already available to readers, for free, instead I’ll lead you to the source. You can read each and decide what works best for you, i.e., do you feel “the basics” will do at this point in your life or do you think “the ultimate” is more what you are striving to achieve. Here are some links to help you decide:
How to Pack an Emergency Kit (for vehicles) from DMV.org
Build A Kit: Car Safety from Ready.gov (FEMA’s site)
And, Lisa Bedford, The Survival Mom, wrote a great piece on Allstate’s blog called “The Ultimate Emergency Car Kit: How to Equip Yourself for Most Any Calamity” plus she has created a printable checklist, which you can access here: The Survival Mom Vehicle Emergency Kit Check-list. Her post, “Don’t Leave Home Without It: The Vehicle 72-Hour Kit”, which she wrote in 2010, is still timely today.
But, if I could only choose a few things to get done ASAP as respects my car and a vehicle emergency kit, this would be my Top 5:
Number One – Keep your car in good working order. Develop a regular maintenance strategy and stick to it. Preventive maintenance lessens the chance that you will be stranded. I give 100% credit to my husband, Charlie, for this part of the equation. Throughout our marriage, he has made vehicle maintenance his mission and has had our vehicles maintained like clockwork.
Number Two – Keep your gas tank full. Fill up regularly. If you have to evacuate from someplace, having a full tank of gas will lessen your stress level.
Number Three – Water. Keep water in your car. Even though plastic bottled water isn’t a “good thing” to keep in your car, especially in hot climates, having water in case of an emergency is better than not having water. A way to handle this in hotter climates is to make sure you grab water from your refrigerator every time you walk out the door to drive someplace in your car. That way, your water is always fresh. This is another thing that Charlie does well. When we drive someplace together, he’s the one that remembers to grab water. Plus, he always reminds me, if I’m leaving to venture out on my own.
Number Four – Keep a first aid kit in your car. Even if its a small one like mine.
Number Five – Buy a Vehicle Emergency Kit available online and keep that in your car (like mine above). You can start building a more robust kit from there and add to it. But, at least you’ll have some basics and again, some basics are better than nothing at all!
So, if you are now ready to build your Vehicle Emergency Kit AND work on other projects for emergency planning, click here (Resolve to Be Ready Project Checklist updated 10-23-2015) for the printable checklist I update every month and get started!
Here are some other posts you may have missed from the Archives:
What’s in Your First Aid Kit? (includes a FREE printable checklist)
Well, gotta run – as you can see from my flimsy photos, I’ve got a bit of work to do to build-up our Vehicle Emergency Kits, which are sorely lacking!
Tootles,
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