International Disaster Kit, 3-Day Essentials
Frank Stratton 12.08.13
In 1989, Hurricane Hugo devastated the eastern Caribbean and the East coast of the United States. The devastation didn’t just affect the coastal towns; it spread for miles inland as well. So many of those that were able to evacuate still got caught in the tornadoes it spawned. A lot of them were not prepared for an emergency, thinking they had outrun it. They had no supplies with them when the trees fell and blocked the roads for miles.
Hugo is a good example of why you should always have food and water. I have found a good basic disaster kit to keep available in addition to anything else you have prepared. It is the Blackdog Survival Schools International Disaster Kit 3-Day essential pack. It contains the minimum nutrition and accessories to supply one person with three meals a day for three days.
The kit comes sealed in an aluminized pouch that is pretty impervious to anything, including storage in any temperature and environment. You can stash these anywhere and forget them for 5 years.
When you open the bag you will find everything neatly individually packaged. There are three 12.95oz 400kcal low sodium energy bars one each Cherry, Orange and tropical fruits. I haven’t tried one but have friends that say they are tasty to palatable.
The other food item enclosed is a fortified Rice-Lentil chicken flavored meal (6 supplemental servings) contained in another aluminized bag. Notice It is “chicken flavored” but does seem to have no meat in the ingredients so I think it is okay for vegetarians. With the energy bars and the rice you have your three basic minimal meals a day.
Now for water there are nine SOS 4.227floz water pouches. U.S. Coastguard approved three for each day as well.
To cook the rice and boil water you have four paper pots folded flat in a package. These are made by ENERGIA USA. I recommend you see them used on UTUBE. They do work and can be reused but are best used once. It is a commercial product to replace the paper sacks my grandfather taught me to cook with.
The key to using a paper pot is to only cook water or soup and never let the flames get higher than the liquid you are heating. You will need to make your own stand.
To start the fire needed for this, you have three zip lock packages with of 10 windproof matches with striker and three packages of INSTAFIRE fuel.
So you don’t have to eat the rice with your hands there are three accessory packs, just like takeout, plastic fork, spoon, knife with salt and pepper. A friend pointed out that it was missing the little hand wipe packages. I’d be more in need of the wipes if I didn’t have plastic ware and had to use my fingers.
Now for the shelter part of the kit you have the ever present invention of the NASA Space Program: the Aluminized emergency blanket. Now if they just put some packets of Tang in there you could play astronaut. For light and heat there are three 5.5 hour emergency candles.
Now this is not your MRE full meal, but it is a lot smaller and easy to have handy. You have three days of food and accessories in the about the same size package as one MRE meal.
This would make a good addition to The Henry survival kit that I previously reviewed here. The pair combined would give you a compact emergency kit that has a little food and water along with the tools to gather more. Both of these will fit easily in a small shoulder bag. If you added the AR-7 and a fifty round box of ammo, you would be well prepared.
