Below are some additional items that we would recommend to be included in your emergency preparations.

• Hard-sole shoes
• Battery operated radio and flashlight
• Batteries
• First-aid kit, with a good manual (and take a good course in first aid!)
• Prescription drugs
• Extra pair of prescription glasses
• Contact lens supplies, extra contacts, and other special supplies
• Feminine products and toilet paper
• Toothpaste and extra toothbrushes
• Plastic sheeting (for broken windows or other)
• Candles (if no danger of broken gas lines) with deep holders
• Matches
• Fire Extinguisher
• Chlorine liquid bleach, iodine, or water purification tablets – for purifying water
• Plastic trash bags (waste disposal- can also keep you or items dry)
• Pocket knife, such as Boy Scout knife or Swiss Army knife
• Scissors
• Black plastic electrician’s tape
• Candy
• Saw
• Shovel
• Axe
• Vise grips
• Rubber “gripper”
• Crow bar
• Leather gloves
• Heavy Rope
• Special wrench for water and gas shut off

Here are some ideas from an email received from a friend of a friend who was in Japan during the earthquake. Here are some of the things she learned she needed to have on hand or suggestions she wished she would have known ahead of time.

1. Get an old school, corded phone.. If the power goes out, your cordless won't work.
2. Speaking of accountability, in an emergency, if you're going to leave your house-- leave a note on the door saying where you are going so when people coming looking, they'll know where you are.
3. When the power went out, people couldn’t get their cars out of their garage. Turns out there is a special crank to use but most of our friends didn't have it or know what it was.
4. We've been cooking with our camping equipment. Note to self: Buy a 20 pack of small propane tanks. We've also used our outdoor BBQ (in the cold) and I'm wishing I had a spare tank of Propane for that.
5. Do you have an extra refill of your prescriptions in your 72 hour kit? Also, the thought of my kids getting sick and not having enough Children's Advil and/or Tylenol made me pretty nervous until I verified we had some of each.
6. For ONCE I was glad to be doing Dave Ramsey yesterday when we had plenty of cash on hand to shop at the commissary. But we also have a cash and yen emergency fund hidden in the house for back-up which was very comforting.
7. While I'm making notes to myself: Buy a hand crank wheat grinder and blender! (We have a freezer full of frozen fruit to make smoothies but no way to blend anything.)
8. Flashlights are a pain in my butt. All of our stupid Brand Name crappy-**** batteries that I had stored for an emergency, LEAKED! So the flashlights are all slowly dying, being over used by the children, and being misplaced. The best source of light the last two nights has been the pillar candles I've had in the cupboard for fancy table settings. They seem to burn pretty slow and shed a lot of light. I've gone through 3 and have 1 left. Wish I had a 20 pack of those in my 72 hour pack. It would be nice not to worry about running out. Small, light weight, energy efficient lanterns would be nice too.
9. Also, my next house will have a wood burning fire place. This all would have been much easier if we could have been warm.
10. Also, I'm buying all my kids a down comforter. We have one on our bed and we've been fine at night, but the kids need 20 blankets piled up to stay warm. (Actually, the older boys each have a two layer fleece blanket which is pretty warm, but unfortunately, they're not very big.)
11. We would love to hear back from anyone who has additional ideas or who may have learned something from an emergency they have been though.