Section — Launch Co-Lead
Preparedness: Systems for the First 72 Hours
Most emergencies are boring: a storm, a boil-water notice, a highway closed for a day, a paycheck that's late. Readiness for those is a household logistics problem, and it solves with checklists and arithmetic — not bunkers. Prepared, not paranoid.
The systems
Build these two first
System 02
The 72-Hour Readiness System
Power, water, food, light, and information for a household of four for three days — with the calorie and watt-hour math shown, and a printable checklist.
Read the guide →System 01
The Vehicle Emergency Kit
The kit that lives in the truck year-round: recovery, repair, warmth, light, and the jump starter that makes you the hero of every parking lot.
Read the guide →The order of operations (and why)
1. Water before food
A person can miss meals for days; nobody misses water for long. One gallon per person per day for drinking and basic sanitation is the standard planning figure. Storage first, then filtration (a $30 squeeze filter treats up to 100,000 gallons by its manufacturer's rating) covers the long tail.
2. Power is a force multiplier
A modest power station keeps the fridge cold, the phones charged, the CPAP running, and the lights on — which together cover most of what makes an outage miserable. Size it with the calculator, not with a guess.
3. Food you already eat
The best emergency food plan is a deeper pantry of normal food, rotated. Freeze-dried kits fill the gap for grab-and-go storage. Plan on roughly 2,000 calories per adult per day and read serving counts skeptically — many "72-hour kits" are 1,200-calorie days wearing a costume.
Gear that anchors the systems
4Patriots 72-Hour Survival Food Kit
Freeze-dried meals · 25-year shelf life claim · tote-stored
Sold direct; price varies with promotions
The grab-and-go layer of the food plan. Like every kit in this category, count the actual calories on the label before trusting the '72-hour' name — our 72-Hour System page does the math for this kit and its competitors.
Check PriceSawyer Squeeze Water Filter
0.1 micron hollow-fiber · rated to 100,000 gallons · 3 oz
Around $30
The highest-leverage $30 in preparedness. Screws onto standard water bottles and the included pouches; backflush to maintain flow. Pair two — one in the house kit, one in the vehicle kit.
Check PriceMidland ER310 Emergency Radio
AM/FM + NOAA weather · hand crank + solar + rechargeable · USB phone charging
Around $70
Information is a system too. NOAA alerts, a flashlight, and a USB port that can top up a phone, all rechargeable three ways. The one to beat in its class on published specs.
Check Price