The Ultimate Survival Preparedness Kit for Your Car
Whether you're planning a road trip to Dad's house or planning to drive across a remote wasteland, you want to be ready for anything. Here's our master list of items for the driver who's ready for anything.
1 The Ultimate Survival Preparedness Kit for Your Car
Canadian Arctic rescue teams suggest drivers carry a can of dog food in their cars. Sound crazy? It seems that when people crash their cars into a snow bank on the tundra, they tend to eat their emergency food too soon. The dog food is less palatable and so stranded motorists will wait to eat that can of puppy chow until they really need it.
You don't have to be driving the vast expanses of northern Canada to get stuck in your car. Take these stories from the past year: Rita Chretien, 56, was found in a remote part of Nevada in May 2011 after being stranded for seven weeks, her car stuck in the mud. Chretien used a plastic bag to catch rainwater to drink. Last December, 23-year-old Lauren Weinberg was stranded on a snowy forest road southeast of Winslow, Ariz., for nine days and survived on two candy bars and a bottle of water. This January, Lynn S. Keelser, 61, survived for a week on peanut butter M&Ms when she took a wrong turn in a rental car and got stuck in an Idaho dairy wastewater pond. None of these drivers had cellphones. But even more important, none had an emergency-preparedness kit.
Being prepared is not merely a good rule for travel in highly remote areas. If you take the occasional extended road trip, you should pack a survival kit of crucial emergency supplies. We've compiled eight categories of essential supplies to carry in your car, made up from suggestions from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Army, the American Automobile Association (AAA), the Red Cross, and regional search-and-rescue teams. None, however, include Alpo.
2. Sustenance
The first priority for any stuck situation is maintaining hydration. The biggest hurdle when carrying water: It weighs 8 pounds per gallon, and considering each person in the car will need to drink about a gallon a day, that's a heavy load to haul around. It's easiest to pack a case of 16 small drink boxes of water. One brand, Aqua Blox, comes in 8-ounce containers that are claimed to have a shelf life of five years.
Another option would be to carry refillable water bottles. When empty, they won't add unnecessary weight, and you can fill them if you think you might be driving into remote areas. If you bring empty water bottles, bring water purification tablets. Chlorine-based tablets that you can find at camping stores will kill waterborne organisms if you have to fill your water bottles from a stream or lake.
For food, high-calorie energy and protein bars are great solutions. They pack a lot of calories into a small space and can be found at a good camping store. Be sure to avoid many of the ones you see at the convenience store; they contain too much salt and sugar. The better ones have less of both so they won't make you thirsty. And at between 2400 and 3600 calories per bar, they'll keep you nourished in an emergency. The ER Emergency Food Bar, for example, claims to provide 72 hours of nutrition and has a shelf life of five years.
3. Survival
It's smart to pack a wool blanket and some chemical warm packs, too. A wool blanket works well even if it's damp. An emergency blanket (also known as a space blanket) is a metal-coated plastic sheet that marathoners use to keep warm after a race. It, too, can keep you warm in an emergency. Chemical heat packs react with air and can add warmth inside a blanket. They can be stopped and started for up to 15 hours.
Be sure to pack a flashlight, glow sticks, matches, and emergency candles. We like rechargeable flashlights that park in your car's 12-volt outlet. To help keep you dry, bring along a waterproof poncho with a hood. A plastic whistle with two chambers should also find space in this kit—it works much better then shouting for help.
Bring along a solar- and hand-crank-powered light/radio/cellphone charger. Be sure to buy one through a reputable source—we've heard many stories that some don't work long enough.
And, yes, you will need extra clothes and a good winter hat. We'd recommend packing a small tarp too, in case you need temporary shelter.
