The 72-Hour Emergency Kit: What Every Household Actually Needs

Direct answer: a household emergency kit should keep everyone in your home alive and functioning for at least 72 hours with no water supply, no electricity, no shops and no help. The core is roughly 4 litres of water per person per day, food that needs no cooking, a week of prescription medicines, light, a battery or hand-crank radio, a charged power bank, first-aid supplies, small-denomination cash, and waterproof copies of your key documents.

Why 72 hours?

Three days is the interval that national emergency agencies — from Ready.gov in the United States to the IFRC internationally — use as the planning baseline. It is not a promise that help arrives on day four. It is the realistic minimum time it takes for outside assistance to organise, reach a damaged area and start distributing at scale. After a major earthquake or a flood that cuts road access, it can easily be longer, which is why many agencies now suggest planning for a week where you can.

Water — the part people get wrong

Water is the heaviest and most commonly under-stocked item. The standard figure is 4 litres per person per day: roughly half for drinking, half for cooking, hygiene and medical use. For three days that is 12 litres per person, so a family of five needs 60 litres.

• Increase it in hot climates, for pregnant or nursing women, for young children, and for anyone with a medical condition.
• Commercially bottled water keeps well; rotate home-filled containers every six months.
• Add a backup treatment method — purification tablets, unscented household bleach with a dosing guide, or a filter — because stored water eventually runs out and floodwater is never safe to drink.
• Store containers off the floor and out of sunlight. Do not reuse containers that held milk or fruit juice.

Food

Choose food that needs no cooking, no refrigeration and no water to prepare, because you may have none of the three:

• Tinned beans, fish, meat and vegetables — plus a manual can opener, which is the single most-forgotten item in the whole kit.
• Dried fruit, nuts, biscuits, energy bars, peanut butter, dates.
• Ready-to-eat packaged meals.
• Foods your household will actually eat. Stress and disruption suppress appetite; unfamiliar food goes uneaten.

Rotate stock every 6 to 12 months. The easiest system is to buy your emergency food from your normal shopping and eat the oldest tin each month.

Power, light and information

Assume mains power, mobile data and the internet all fail simultaneously — in most large disasters they do, and mobile networks additionally congest before they fail.

• Torches with spare batteries, one per person. Head torches are better than handheld — they leave both hands free.
• No candles. Open flame after an earthquake, in a gas-leak environment, is a genuine cause of secondary fires.
• A battery or hand-crank radio. When the internet is down, official broadcast radio is the channel that still reaches you. Many hand-crank models include a phone charger and a torch.
• Power banks, kept charged. Check them every few months — lithium cells self-discharge.
• A written list of emergency numbers and family contacts. If your phone dies, everything memorised inside it is gone.

Medicine and first aid

• At least a 7-day supply of every prescription medicine in the household, rotated before expiry.
• Basic first aid: dressings, bandages, antiseptic, tape, gloves, scissors, tweezers, pain relief, oral rehydration salts.
• Anything medically specific to your household — insulin and a cool storage plan, inhalers, an EpiPen, wound care supplies.
• Spare glasses, hearing-aid batteries, and a plan for any mobility aid that requires charging.

Documents and cash

Put copies of ID, passports, property and insurance documents, prescriptions, bank details and emergency contacts in a sealed waterproof bag — plus an encrypted copy in cloud storage you can reach from someone else's device.

Keep small-denomination cash. Card terminals and ATMs both depend on power and connectivity, and in the days after a disaster nobody has change.

The things people forget

• A manual can opener
• Infant formula, bottles and nappies
• Pet food, water, a carrier and a lead — many shelters will not accept loose animals
• Sanitary products and basic hygiene supplies
• Sturdy shoes and work gloves beside the bed — broken glass is the most common injury after an earthquake
• A whistle, to signal for help without shouting yourself hoarse
• Dust masks, for smoke, ash or collapsed building dust
• A local paper map, when navigation apps are unavailable
• Spare house and car keys

Where to keep it

Split the kit. Keep the main supply somewhere you can reach it in the dark without going through the most damage-prone part of the house, and keep a smaller go-bag by the exit that you can carry if you have to evacuate in two minutes. Put a copy of essentials in the car if you have one, and a small kit at work.

Build it over months, not in one day

A complete kit is expensive bought all at once and cheap bought gradually. Add two or three items to each normal shopping trip. Water and a torch first, then food, then medicine, then the rest. A half-built kit beats a planned kit every time.

The plan matters as much as the kit

Agree in advance: where the household meets if the home is unusable, who collects children, an out-of-area contact everyone calls when local lines are congested, and how to shut off gas, water and electricity. Practise it once a year, and check the kit at the same time.

For hazard-specific guidance, see the earthquake, flood, wildfire and hurricane safety guides.

Frequently asked questions

How much water should I store per person?

At least 4 litres per person per day, for a minimum of three days — so 12 litres per person. Store more in hot climates, and for children, pregnant women and anyone with a medical condition.

How often should I check my kit?

Every six months. Rotate food and home-stored water, replace expired medicines, test torches and the radio, and top up power banks. Tying the check to a fixed date such as a clock change makes it stick.

Why 72 hours and not longer?

Three days is the planning baseline used by emergency agencies worldwide — the realistic minimum for outside help to organise and reach a damaged area. Many agencies now recommend a week where storage allows, because road and port damage can delay relief.

What is the most commonly forgotten item?

A manual can opener, closely followed by sturdy shoes kept beside the bed and a written list of phone numbers. All three fail exactly when you need them.

Should I buy a ready-made emergency kit?

A commercial kit is a reasonable starting point but is rarely complete. It will not contain your prescription medicines, your documents, your children's or pets' needs, or food your household will actually eat — add those yourself.

Sources

• Ready.gov — Build a Kit
• Ready.gov — Water storage and treatment
• IFRC — Disaster preparedness
• WHO — Health emergencies
• Red Cross — Survival Kit Supplies

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