Bible Money Matters recently wrote a great series called “In the Event of an Emergency.”

This series inspired me to write a few posts that I thought would be beneficial towards emergency situations, too. Last week I wrote my first article that I thought would be applicable, Spring Cleaning Checklist: Medicine Cabinet. The article went over a few of the dangerous items in your medicine cabinet that you may not be aware of and what you should always keep on hand.

This week I am writing about something that most people I know don’t have… a roadside emergency kit. What should go in it and why? You will notice that this emergency kit strongly correlates to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. More specifically, the physiological needs which constitute the base of the pyramid.

Food

The Situation: You are miles from the nearest town and your engine overheats during a pretty bad storm. You can’t get in contact with a tow truck company that can get out to your location until the morning. You are stranded.

The Kit: You will want to make sure you have food in your kit to ensure that you have enough energy. But you can’t just pack bagels and cream cheese. Cars are exposed to some pretty extreme temperatures, both hot and cold. Most foods will spoil within a few days, if not the first day.

So what you are looking for is a food item that will not spoil and will provide you a lot of calories. A lot of companies have “emergency calorie bars,” and here are two such examples of emergency food rations: 2400 Calorie ER Bar and 3600 Calorie ER Bar. The benefits of products like these are that they are designed to be exposed to extreme temperatures while still maintaining flavor and nourishment. Unlike snack foods, they will not make you extra thirsty… thus lengthening the supply of your water.

Water

The Situation: You are driving through the desert on your way to the Grand Canyon. You take a wrong turn, wind up down some (seemingly) deserted street, and have no cell phone coverage. It’s the middle of the summer and its over 100 degrees. You get a flat and you are clueless about car repairs.

The Kit: Water is one of the most important needs that we, as humans, have. In fact, if you were to choose between water and food, you should always choose water. You can survive days without food. The same can not be said about water; you will dehydrate which leads to organ failure and finally death.

Perhaps this is one of those things that most people don’t think about. We take water for granted because of how much clean drinking water we have access to. When you find yourself in an emergency, you start realizing how important water really is. If you got hurt, water doubles as a cleaning aid. It’s a pretty amazing liquid.

Emergency drinking water comes in a few different forms, two of the more popular being drink boxes and foil pouches. Drink boxes: Aqua Blox EDW (Tetra Pack of 27, 8.45oz). Foil pouches: Mainstay EDW (60 Pack, 4.224oz). Both of these items have a shelf life of 5 years, unlike the normal bottled water you would purchase from a store.

Warmth

The Situation: You are on your way to Montreal and get stuck in a brutal ice storm in upstate New York. Your car slides off the road and you wind up in a ditch. It’s freezing cold and you have no idea when you will get help.

The Kit: Continuing through our basic physiological needs… next up is warmth. You can have gallons of water and an all you can eat buffet in your backseat, but if you are freezing you will still feel completely miserable.

If you know you are driving into an area that gets cold, you should bring a blanket. Wool is one of nature’s warmest fibers. Even when it’s wet! So a wool blanket could provide a lot of warmth (Premium Emergency Wool Blanket). Just make sure it hasn’t been modified with a bunch of synthetic fibers which help softness and washability, but hurt its “warmth abilities.” You can also go the direction of getting an emergency blanket (Emergency Thermal Blankets (4 Pack)) or sleeping bag that is rated for low temperatures (Wenzel Omega II/Great Falls Mummy 0-Degree Sleeping Bag with Hood). They fold up real well and keep you warm by reflecting 80% of your body heat back to keep you warm. If you haven’t tried one, they work real well. I have used them camping in a cold area and actually kept getting in and out because of how warm it was keeping me.

If you had to get out of the car and check on something, you may be completely drenched. To protect your clothes, you should consider bringing a poncho (Stearns .10mm Rainjammer Poncho). To warm your feet back up, warm packs can be very helpful (HeatMax Hand & Body Warmer (40 Count)). Just crack em, throw em in your shoes or gloves, and let them do their magic!

Light

The Situation: You get a flat and have to pull over to the side of the road. You know how to change a tire and have all the tools to do so. Except for a light. You can’t see a thing.

The Kit: As shown above, what good does being prepared do if you can’t see a thing? And if you do keep a flashlight, make sure you have extra batteries in the kit just in case the ones in the flashlight are dead. You can get a traditional flashlight (MAGLITE Flashlight) or a LED flashlight (Smith & Wesson LED Flashlight), which gets better battery life. When I was traveling across Europe, I actually found it very practical to bring a crank flashlight (Kaito Hand Crank Flashlight with AM/FM radio). You have to turn a handle around for a few minutes and the light stays charged for a few hours.

But this isn’t the only kind of light you need. If you are broken down, you need to alert drivers to the fact that their is a broken down car ahead with emergency flares (nothing on Amazon, check your local auto store!). Every car emergency kit could also use: light sticks (Light Stick 12-Hour | Pack of 10), emergency candles (Clear Mist 100 Hour Emergency Candle), and waterproof matches (Coghlans Waterproof Matches (10 Pack)).

Health

The Situation: You are driving through a forested area and a deer jumps out in front of your car. You swerve and successfully avoid it, only to wind up hitting the guard rail instead. You hit your head real hard and get a few scrapes and cuts.

The Kit: You are injured and need to take care of yourself immediately. To be safe there are a TON of things you should carry. Rather than list them all independently, I would suggest grabbing a first aid kit that comes with everything included (First Aid Kit, 205-Pieces). If you would like, you could always look at the contents and build one up yourself. A few of the important items are: Pain relievers, alcohol pads, bandages, gauze, etc.

To clean up any excess blood and wrap up your wounds, you should also consider keeping tissues, safety pins, and ace bandages.

Tools

There are a bunch of tools you should consider carrying that aren’t really situation dependent.

Tools like:

• a multipurpose tool (SOG S66 PowerAssist Multitool)
• a collapsible shovel (Ames True Temper Penguin Collapsible Shovel)
• a basic tool kit (Apollo Precision 39-Piece General Tool Set)
• and some duct tape (Duct Tape – 2in. x 180ft)

All of these should come in handy at some point.

Are You Prepared?

Do you have a roadside emergency kit?

Do you think I should add a few items? Take a few out? Give some input so that we can all make sure we are safe!

The links in this article were affiliate links to Amazon. I thought including product links would maximize the usefulness of this article by giving more information about each item. If you buy one of the items through Amazon, great, that will help me! But, you may be able to find a few of the items cheaper elsewhere, always research!