Picked up a "Ready Kit" by Home Guard Inc. today at Home Depot for $27.

The kit from Home Depot came with:
-- Orange, cordura-like pack
-- 50 sq ft of plastic sheeting and duct tape
-- 12 x 200 cal lifeboat ration bars; 10 x 4.2 oz water packs
-- Turnoff wrench
-- 1 2D flashlight
-- 1 2AAA AM/FM radio
-- 4 D and 4 AAA batts
-- 1 pr disposable sani gloves; 2 bio-hzd bags, 1 2-gal water carrier bag, 1 N95 mask
-- small first-aid kit
-- whistle
--emergency booklet and form for family contact info

For the money, it seems like a nice start for an in-house bag. Flashlight was absolute junk, so it's been replaced. Other stuff seemed OK for what it was. Little AM/FM radio actually works pretty well.

Naturally, being an ETS person, I've already supplemented the livin' heck out of the contents of the orange backpack... and nearly all of it from stuff I already had here at the apartment. Odd what this site does to a guy ... I already had a bag full of odds & ends longing for a home in a kit. (and that bag's still far from empty!)

For my purposes, I probably wouldn't mind havin' some more visqueen, some water blocks and a case of MREs stowed, but otherwise feelin' fairly well set up for the apartment, the truck and my EDC.

I don't remember the manufacturer, but I saw a 72 hour kit yesterday at Home Depot, but it was $79.
I will have to go back and look at it today (have to make a trip anyway).

I bought the same kit minus the radio at Wal-mart for $9. It was in a shopping cart on clearance. I looked for more but couldn't find any. It is a great kit and worth $30. I like the water, bag, plastic, and food stuff. The information was also very handy. The flash light was very lame but it still took me 6 months to through it away after salvaging the bulb. It is hard for me to get rid of anything that might be use full some day.

Good find, Lazermonkey.

I busted the orange flashlight opening it up to see how to put the batts in. Replaced it w/one of those yellow Ray-O-Vac contractor flashlights I grabbed for $5 at Wally World. I generally keep one of those in each of my closets, anyway. They're OK lights for what they cost.

Ya now that I think about it that light was worthless. Any flashlight that works when you need it is good in my book. That light didn't even work when you didn't need it. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Have fun filling all the extra space in that bag. I fit a t-shirt, flanal pants, 4 X .5 liter bottles of water, and an MRE.

The plastic & duct tape are for sealing a room against toxins & radioactive debris, right?

Okay, I've got 1872 cubic feet of air in here... How long will that last? If one Evacu-8 hood lasts for 20 minutes, I would need.... (poking claculator)... 216 hoods & cannisters to survive for 3 days.

Oh-oh, what about the dog and three cats? If I stick the dog's tennis ball in her mouth before I put her hood on, will it slow down her breathing? Can I stick an entire cat inside a hood? I wonder if anyone has tested how long the air lasts per cat? Does size matter?

Maybe SCBA tanks would be more cost effective.

WAIT! Plants absorb carbon dioxide & produce oxygen, right? How many plants would I need to support the five of us? Do they only produce oxygen when exposed to light? If so, just how many flashlights will I need? How many extra batteries? If the cats use that rubber plant for a scatching post, does that make it produce less oxygen?

Is it better to die from suffocation or something else? Does a kings-X work if it was a false alarm?

This all seems rather complicated to me. I think I need to work out a few more details.... <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Sue

Nuts...I was just at Home Depot last week, never thought to look for something like that there. But then again I would have had to deal with the ungodly Tenn. sales tax too...!

<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> RFLMAO

"Can I stick an entire cat inside a hood?"

LOL - let's try it - then we can all practice with sutures and crazy glue!

maybe bugging OUT is a more viable option, after all ...???... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The literature that come with the kit tells you how many cubic feet are needed for each person. I does say anything about pets. Does anyone really know.

I really like that concept. My cat did not find it amusing.

Lazermonkey, my simple rule for gear is that if it won't work when I'm just putzin' around with it, then I get rid of it. Pronto.

In the past ten years, I've walked nearly four-digit figures (in miles) in just about every weather and over all kinds of terrain while chasin' pheasants, and I've wasted the GNP of a small country tryin' out gear that wasn't quite right.

I can honestly say the one thing I've learned about good gear is that it works when you need it to and doesn't even draw your attention when you don't. Anything else is simply a PIA or a PIA waiting to happen.

Maybe the only other thing I've learned about gear is that if you find something that works really well and doesn't cost a heck of lot, they'll stop makin' it. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Pets, not livestock, right? That means they've been raised to think they are a kind of people. Count 'em each as a people. This kind of thing, better to low ball your estimate than figure out how long have until everyone passes out vs when everyone dies. .