Medical, medicines, hygiene

What belongs in the box

Ready.gov lists a first-aid kit in the basic supplies. The American Red Cross teaches a practical home kit: assorted bandages, gauze, tape, gloves, antiseptic wipes, tweezers, scissors, a thermometer, instant cold packs, and personal medicines. Add what your household actually uses. Check dates twice a year. A kit in a hall closet you cannot find at night is not a kit.

This manual will not walk you through procedures that belong in a class. Bleeding you cannot stop, chest pain, trouble breathing, a seizure, a head injury with confusion, and signs of stroke or heat stroke are 911 calls. While you wait, follow the dispatcher. They are better at this than a webpage.

• Ask your pharmacist or clinician about an extra supply of daily prescriptions. Laws and insurance rules vary. Do not skip doses to “build a stash.”
• Write the drug names and doses on paper. Phones die.
• Spare glasses, hearing-aid batteries, and copies of key medical cards.
• Stop the Bleed is a national public course in direct pressure and packing for life-threatening bleeding. Take the class. Do not freelance from a video in the moment if you have never practiced.

Hygiene is medical

After a disruption, handwashing prevents more illness than a drawer of exotic supplies. CDC’s emergency hygiene message is ordinary and serious: soap and clean water when you have them, alcohol-based sanitizer (at least 60% alcohol) when you do not, and waste bagged so it does not draw pests. The sanitation sheet covers toilets if the sewer or the water pressure fails.

Keep a small reserve of the unglamorous things: prescriptions, fever medicine you already use as labeled, anti-diarrheal if your clinician agrees, menstrual supplies, diapers, baby wipes, toilet paper, trash bags, and gloves.