Organizing Your Emergency Response Kit

Who hasn't heard about some tragedy on the evening news lately? Does anyone really want to be faced with the possibility that they could find themselves without resources or a plan in the event of an emergency? Instead of sitting around and saying that it will never happen to you, why not take a little time and prepare, just incase? You will be surprised at how easy it is to organize your emergency response kit.

• Identify potential threats. The very first task for organizing your emergency response kit is to begin identifying potential emergencies or threats. This step, often called a threat assessment, will allow you to begin formulating some plans of actions, and give you a list of items that you may need. You do need to be careful though that you don't get carried away.
• Prepare for the most likely. It would be exceptionally easy to sit down and think that you would like to prepare for every threat imaginable. However, this is impossible. Instead you should focus your energies on the ones that are most likely. For example spend time thinking about, and preparing for a house fire, rather than a zombie invasion. Be realistic, and prepare for the most likely emergencies.
• Develop a plan. Part of a emergency response kit is a plan of what you will need to do in the event of an emergency. For a house fire, who will get the kids out? Will you worry about the pets? What about your important papers? Do you have any blankets that you can grab quickly? What about emergency food? Think about the "what if's" and plan accordingly.
• Practice your plan. When you think that you have a plan developed, practice it. This will help you know what to do incase of any real emergency, and help you identify any potential holes in your plan. This is why you see the military, police, and emergency responders always training, so that they know by "instinct" what to do when an emergency happens.
• Maintain your kit. While you are practicing your plan, keep an eye out for any items that you may find that you need, and add them to your kit later on. If your emergency kit will have some kind of food, water, or perishable (such as batteries) be sure that you are rotating those items out periodically. You want your kit to be as ready to face an emergency as possible.