Welcome!
Welcome to week #14 in the “72 Hour Kit Ideas: A week by week approach” series.
This series is all about making it simple and do-able to get a 72 hour kit put together for you and your family.
Creating such a kit can be overwhelming and financially difficult to do all at once. But through this series, I’ve broken it down for you into 26 small steps! You can see all the steps here. Just take one small baby step each week and in 6 months you will have a well stocked, personalized kit!
You can even go through the series a few times over a year or two adding just the most basic supplies the first six months and then a few more “extra” supplies each time you cycle through it again.
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Last Week:
I hope all of you were able to add needed medicines to your kit last week.
Week #13: Personal Care & Hygiene
Light isn’t essential for life, but it sure does make things a whole lot easier! And it gets dark once a day or so (if you haven’t noticed)…Soooo, you ought to be prepared to provide your own light at night, right?
This week, add a way to provide light at night to your 72 Hour Kit Supplies.
How About You?
Leave me a comment and tell me what you will be adding to your kit.
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| Week #12: Medicines | Week #15: Hand Tools | Week #1: Packaging Your Kit | Series Into: Survival Kit Series, A Week by Week Approach |
Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/59937401@N07/
I am going to purchase a battery powered LED lantern for home use. We live in Southern California too and during that last power outage we could of used an extra lantern or too to light things up after dark.
Thanks so much for this post! I will definitely be putting candles and flashlights in my kit this week! 🙂
This week I will be checking and adding batteries to our kits for the flashlights we have as well adding some of the hand crank flashlights for when our batteries run out! I would like to get bright sticks for the kids, I think that is a wonderful idea and I also like the idea of the headlamps for hands free work! Thanks again for all you do, it is very helpful!
We have a large maglite in our main pack, but it’s HEAVY! Going to add some crank lights, some mini-maglights and a few headlamps to the list. The LED flashlights are tiny but incredibly bright, so I might do those in the kids’ kits.
For our home, we have an oil lamp in each room…even mini ones in the bathrooms. For our kits, we have mini maglites and I also have a crank flashlight. We have plenty of emergency candles, so I’ll add a couple, along with our waterproof matches, to our kits. I also have glow sticks. I always stock up on them at halloween time. Some of the dollar stores also carry them year round. Thanks again for the tips!
Lights are important for sure but one thing we do at our house is practice moving around in the dark and using our senses. We have dogs and a really fun game for kids is “Ghosts in the Dark” 🙂 Perhaps for children who are scared easily a more pleasant name might be in order. The goal is to move slowly through the house with out getting touched by the dogs (the ghosts). They always find us but the idea is to be comfortable in familiar surroundings with out light. You could spread stuffed animals around and try and find them if you don’t have dogs. Anything to keep those senses sharp.
And remove the fear associated with dark.
So far we just have a small flash light w/extra batteries, matches and candles in the main bag. But plan on getting a head lamp and shake flashlights for the other bags.
I have a LED flashlight for each person with rechargeable batteries and a charger as well as some regular batteries. I also have a couple lanterns that run on oil easily available to grab on the way out if needed. I also carry 2 shake lights, 2 solar lights and 2 lights that sort of wind up (much better light than the shake lights) I also have added glow sticks (sticks, necklaces, and bracelets…) for the kids. Sometimes in the dark when they are scared it adds a bit of comfort and fun to the situation. I also have sparklers, wind and water proof lighters and matches. We are adding LED finger lights to the kids packs and LED head lamps to everyone’s pack and more batteries!
I also keep a little flashlight on my key chain and have a few inexpensive solar garden lights in a vase on a sunny windowsill. Even a cheap little dollar store key chain squeeze light is enough to brighten dark corners or find something lost under the car seat. The solar garden lights aren’t always pretty but they stay charged without any thought and switch on automatically when the room gets dark.
I be got my work cut out hunting up flash lights around the house, the kiddos find them, use up the batteries and then hide them! Do you suggest a certain brand of battery that will last.
Do you have a master list for each type of emergency kit? I am just really starting out and maybe missed something but not sure how to separate stuff.
If you get each child a crank light it will keep them entertained for hours and best of all…NO batteries.
We have matches, headlamps and flashlights in each kit. I need to add extra batteries. We have several candles for the house but I should add some to the kits. I really want to start working on solar powered items.
Also, you can put a headlamp around a milk jug filled with water and it makes a great lamp.
Glow sticks are a great and relatively safe light source for the grandkids – they think they’re the neatest thing – a cool squishy tube of light! Only thing is the shelf life isn’t super long. If you can, stick them in the freezer – it slows the chemical clock. Just make sure to let them come to room temperature before cracking.
Supposedly if you put them in the freezer after cracking but before it dies you can remove them later and get some more life out of them. I can’t verify that though, we’ve never had an instance where we’ve needed them that didn’t last longer than the glow sticks did.
For flashlights, we’ve moved almost entirely to LED ones because they run cooler so there’s less chance of burnt piggies. Also the bulbs basically can’t break so there one less thing for them to cut themselves on. Oh, and they survive shocks (think toss the flashlight, whoops) MUCH better than incandescent bulbs.
We have several flashlights already. I am stocking up on batteries as they go on sale and I have coupons since hey have a shelf life of several years. I am planning on buying crank flashlights for our vehicles. For the house I want a crank flashlight/NOAA radio/USB charger and a few headlamps. We have a Coleman lantern that runs on propane that puts out a lot of light and some old fashioned oil lamps.
I recently purchased a Goal Zero Battery Pack, with small solar panel, and it also came with a hanging light. Going to try it out camping.
First, Congrats Theresa!
I carry a few of the light sticks. I have a couple in my purse in my 24 hour kit, a few in my 72 hour kit, and several in each camper and our cars. I get them after Halloween when they go on sale or at the Dollar Tree. I also have Large glow sticks in the campers and vehicles. They are longer and put out more light than the small ones. We found that the small ones worked great in the bathroom and kitchen areas for a safe way to light those areas when the lights went out for a few days. No worry about fires.
Also, I keep some outdoor solar lights in the vehicles and campers. You can put them outside during the light hours and bring them inside at night to light the house–even put them in the top of a mason jar or plastic mayo jar to make a little lantern. They glow for about 8 hours and then will be ready the next night after a day of light.
We have a lot of different flashlights and I have been stocking up on batteries. I just need to add some candles in our supplies.
For mine and my husbands kit we both have headlamps as well as small super bright LED mini flashlights. My son has a headlamp and 2 glow sticks
at https://www.uvpaqlite.com you can find glow-in-the-dark cards, sheets and small tubes which glow for hours. The smaller cards and tubes make great night lights for kids. The larger sheets–about the size of legal paper–can be useful in power outages. Light isn’t as bright as some glow sticks, but lasts much longer and is reusable.
We have shake lights, glow sticks, regular flashlights, a headlamp, and lanterns. And being a former Partylight consultant I have a ton of candles. I want to get another headlamp. We also need to make sure we have enough batteries for those lanterns and flashlights that take them. I found some pins on how to make your own emergency candles so I want to try that out next. Just picked up a kerosene lantern too which will give off both light and a little heat in the winter. Thanks for the good tips.
I just added over 80 candles and I am planning on purchasing some solar lights to keep in the house and 72 hour kits for additional light!
We recently purchased two Coleman lanterns that are battery powered and they have a rechargeable battery pack. Flashlights or candles just don’t cut it if you are staying home with no electricity. These lanterns are very bright, bright enough to read a book by or be able to see what you are doing while trying to get a meal together.
A word about flashlights – brighter is not always better. The brighter a light is, the shorter the run-time. Home Depot carries Rayovac “Indestructible” LED flashlights that come with both a high and low mode for saving power – they run about $15.
Those of you using tea candles, look at a “Hurricane lantern” – it’s a great way to use tea candles safely without worrying about wind or open flames. I found mine at REI for $12, give or take.
Thanks Trevor! I appreciate the tips!
this week is really easy for me…i already have everything listed!
Yay Callie!
We have several light sources available in our survival gear. A camping lantern that uses C batteries for a general light source, a keychain battery operated light stick with essential keys attached, small LED flashlights for each person, as well as a hand crank powered handheld flashlight/radio combo…. in case of battery failure! Oh, and a water bottle with a solar powered light in the cap stays in a windowsill so it’s always charged. :o) I think we have our light sources covered!
Way to go LeAnn!
Where did u find a water bottle with a light in it?
We’ve had the solar lighted water bottle for a while and I can’t remember where I ordered it… the brand name is SolLight – and it’s called The Lightcap. I think found them on sale – retail price is $29.95.
We have two small Maglites and also two keychain ones packed in the kits as well as a small lantern. For the house, I picked up a few candles after power outages earlier this spring and finally purchased a lighter earlier this week. I will wait to buy more candles until after the holidays.