Are You Prepared to Survive In an Emergency or Disaster?
by John C. Krull
Gun Week Production Manager
I’ve always considered myself to be prepared. I guess it was instilled in me way back in the Boy Scouts. And then my Marine Corps training added more skills to my preparedness. But over the last couple of years I’ve found that I wasn’t as prepared as I might have thought I was.
Early in 2004 I heard about a program called CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). I signed up for the classes and completed the eight weeks of training. Classes were held one night a week for four hours per night. Subjects covered included fires, first aid, terrorism, search and rescue, and more.
It seems that the CERT list was then given to the Red Cross, who asked if any of us wanted to take their disaster action training. I had some nights available and did want to learn more, so I attended several weeks of additional classes with much of the information learned overlapping. So now I’m on the Red Cross’ local DAT (Disaster Action Team) and am certified as being able to even open up a disaster shelter.
At one of our quarterly town CERT meetings the people from SMART (Specialized Medical Assistance Response Team) showed up as guest speakers. Okay, so I took all their training, too, and am now on the SMART team.
Badly Prepared
Throughout all of this training I have learned how badly prepared most of us are for any disaster that might enter our lives, especially if it has long-term effects.
Both CERT and SMART come under the authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). You remember them; the ones that got blamed for the people’s suffering in New Orleans after Katrina. If the people of Louisiana had taken any of these courses they would have been trained better in helping themselves. In the FEMA “Are You Ready? A Guide to Citizen Preparedness” manual they would have learned that when the system of first responders are overloaded you can expect to have to take care of yourself for at least the first 72 hours.
All that gets us to the subject of this article. Seventy-two hours! Just three days! It’s not a long time, but is a very critical time. And during that time you should be prepared to take care of yourself.
For years I have maintained a three-month supply of supplies for my family, but if we had to leave our home we couldn’t take all those supplies with us. And besides they were all neatly stored on shelves in the basement and the pantry. We didn’t have anything that was ready to go if we had to leave.
Discipline?
Each of the above organizations can provide you with a list of what you should have ready in case you have to evacuate your home. But human nature being what it is, when will you get to putting a 72-hour bag together? Will you borrow stuff out of it and not replace it? Will you let items expire and not replace them? I know this was my problem. I own everything I need and have been putting the supplies together, but still haven’t actually made up my own 72-hour bag.
And then one morning last Fall while on the World Net Daily (WND) news website there was an article about being prepared and a commercially available 72-hour bag.
I read the article. I went to their website, liked what I saw, but put it off as we so often do.
A few days later I came across the same article. Only this time I called them. It took a couple of calls, but I finally got through to Randy. He was very helpful and said he’d send a bag for me to evaluate.
The Red Cross has two different versions of what they call their Emergency Preparedness Kit, one is basic and the other a more deluxe model. While both of these do contain some of the items that you need, they are both still lacking.
Ready Freddy
The product advertised on WND was called the Ready Freddy. This is like no other 72-hour bag I have ever seen. A lot of thought went into this product.
The Ready Freddy starts out as a red colored backpack. There are two outside pockets that are empty, ready for you to fill with additional items you will think that you might need and want to take along.
The inside has five color-coded bags, each containing similar types of gear. The black bag is marked “Personal” and contains just a few items. They are: a small pad; a pen; a deck of cards, and a pill container, with room for more personal items. I’ve added several additional items to this bag.
Protection
There is a blue bag that’s labeled “Protection” and contains: some dust masks; two space blankets; two emergency ponchos; a couple of small-sized orange garbage bags, and a combination whistle, compass and thermometer unit. All are very nicely packed.
When I think of protection, I don’t usually think of the items that they have in the Ready Freddy protection bag. I think more along the lines of guns and ammo.
So I guess this is as good a time as any to remind you to pack an extra box of ammo for whatever pistol and/or rifle that you are carrying during this disaster. There are the unruly out there who will attempt to take your supplies from you, so you may need to protect yourself and your family. The guns I think of off hand are the new Smith & Wesson M&P (Military & Police). This is a .40-caliber pistol with 15-round magazines, or the Bushmaster Carbon 15 AR-15 rifle (reported on in the Feb. 1 issue of Gun Week).
First Aid Kit
The red bag is marked “First Aid” and contains the usual stuff you would expect in a first aid kit. There are: assorted bandages; an instant cold pack; gauze; 4x4 and 2x2 gauze sponges; hydrogen peroxide; tweezers; rubber gloves; scissors; burn crème; eye pads; antibacterial ointment packets, and a triangular bandage. These are all things that can help to keep you healthy if you acquire minor injuries.
The first aid supplies came in a plastic bag, but not one that would have kept water out, so I have replaced that bag with freezer-quality Hefty bags. I would recommend that anything that could become damaged or even useless if gotten wet be put into these types of bags. One can also be used for medical waste and should be marked beforehand.
The red bag also contains two small packs of tissues, which would be one of the first items that I would increase.
Communications
The green bag, which was marked “Light Power Communications,” was most interesting. It contains several very, very useful items. The first thing I took out of the green bag was a candle. Don’t tell the Red Cross this because they are dead set against 
candles. Well, I’m not, and neither is Ready Freddy. We both know the value a candle can have in this type of kit. There is a warning label on the candle that gives several safety precautions when using a candle—what to do and what not to do. These are mostly common sense, but should still be read.
Next out of the green bag came a radio. This is not your everyday radio. Ready Freddy’s user’s manual calls it a radio dynamo with lantern, which means that it is powered by a hand crank. So no batteries are needed and the batteries can’t go dead—because there aren’t any. Good idea Freddy! The radio doesn’t have the normal dial for tuning in a station, but instead has a scan button that picks up the next station that has a strong signal. The purpose of the radio is to keep up on developments regarding the disaster, not for your entertainment. The lantern that is on it has three LEDs and gives a decent amount of light.
There is also a flashlight in the green bag. This is a shaker flashlight that, like the radio, has no batteries but is powered by shaking it back and forth horizontally. It is rather large and doesn’t give the light of a Maglite, but will give you light when you need it—without batteries.
The last item in this bag is a cell phone crank-charger. I have read about both these and solar cell phone chargers, but have not been able to find one on the market. So I’m glad that I finally have one. They do provide a warning that this charger will not charge a dead phone, but will keep one charged that is low on battery power. So a word to wise, charge it before it goes dead.
Tools, Food, Water
The last bag, which Ready Freddy says is yellow (I think it is gold) contains tools, supplies, food and water.
The tools consist of: duct tape; a wrench for turning off natural gas at the meter; a multi-tool; a length of orange nylon rope, and a pair of leather gloves.
The rope is the first item that I have found in the Ready Freddy that I really don’t like. It’s that nylon type of rope that really doesn’t hold a knot well and ravels rather easily. Personally I would replace this or add some parachute cord to the bag.
The water, included in the bag, consists of six 4.225-ounce containers of “Coast Guard Approved” emergency drinking water. I have already added six more to the yellow bag.
Mainstay 2400 emergency food rations are the food included in the bag. This food is something that I have wanted to try and just haven’t. It is a bar of some sort, that is well-wrapped and sealed in aluminum foil. It seems to be divided into six sections and is hard as a rock. The package says that each section is 400 calories, and that each person should consume two bars each day for a total of 800 calories. Well, I guess it will keep you alive, but isn’t a gourmet meal.
I do have several other packs of similar food stuff that I had ordered on a survival website, and someday I will open one and have a taste. The food and water I have also placed into freezer Hefty bags to keep the food dry and the water intact in case one of those packages breaks. I have it from a reliable source that the water bags are freezable. I was concerned about this with leaving a Ready Freddy in your car trunk or truck during the winter where up here in the north they are sure to freeze.
Two Manuals
The red, black and blue bags all attach at different levels on the inside front of the backpack with hook-and-loop fasteners, and the other two just lay inside. There is an inner compartment in the backpack that contains a package of heavy-duty plastic sheeting that can be used for creating a shelter with the rope, or to cover windows or doors with the duct tape. Also in this compartment are two books. The first being the Ready Freddy User Manual and the second is the FEMA authored “Are You Ready” book. These both should be read when you get your Ready Freddy and not at the time of the disaster. Be prepared!
One more item contained in the backpack is a door hook so that the Ready Freddy can be kept on the back of a door, handy and ready to be grabbed on the way out the door.
Don’t borrow stuff from your 72-hour bag. That is not what this is for. Also be sure to write down the dates that the items expire on. Our food expires in August 2010, the water I still have to check the date.
While this kit holds a lot, it only weighs 15 pounds. You have room to add to it and should. Some items you will want to add are: your own prescription drugs; Advil®; Tylenol®; Benadryl®; anti-diarrhea medication; an antacid; a tooth brush and tooth paste; additional 4x4 gauze pads; extra water or a water bottle that has it’s own filter, and an extra set of glasses if you wear them. Sunscreen also is always good to have, and so are: a small sewing kit; moistened towelettes; disinfectant soap, and extra underwear and socks. A head lamp works nicely, as does a collapsible cup, a first aid manual, a can opener, and a paperback to read.
I could go on and on but you get the idea. You must have anything that you might really need during that first 72 hours before help can arrive. This bag is just for one person, NOT for a family or even more than one person. So keep in mind that each person should have their own 72-hour bag. The needs of each person will dictate how big the bag is, what is in it, and how much it weighs.
I think that Ready Freddy has done a fantastic job of getting us all started on what we need if and when a disaster should happen to hit our area. Hopefully you will never need this, but then we also hope we will never need our vehicle, homeowner’s and health insurance either, but we spend big bucks on those policies.
Three Way Light
Also included as a free gift when you order from Ready Freddy is a three way light. This unit plugs into the wall and acts as a night light. Then, if there is a power failure, its main light comes on to give you light in the darkened building. This can be unplugged and used as a flashlight to exit the building or whatever else you’d use a flashlight for. I’d like to buy a couple extra of these also.
The Ready Freddy can be ordered on-line at: www.ReadyFreddy.com, or by calling customer service at: 800-731-2860. They say that the Ready Freddy is a $350 value and I can believe it. When you add that they have done all the work for you, it’s worth even more. They are priced at $149 each, plus shipping and handling, and are in my opinion a really great deal. They’ve done all the work for you; all you have to do is go on-line or make a phone call. I think these would also make a great gift for friends and family.
When you call the people at Ready Freddy be sure to tell them that John at Gun Week sent you.
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