How to Build an Emergency Kit (Encore)

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Speaker 13 I'm Christine Zier-Clissette. I'm Kyra Blockwell.

Speaker 14 I'm Rosie Guerin.

Speaker 15 And you're listening to The Wire Cutter Show.

Speaker 15 So Fam, we're trying something new today. We are re-airing an episode that we originally released last fall about emergency preparedness.

Speaker 15 It's sadly something that we should all be more and are more aware of, I think, with climate change increasing the intensity of certain types of disasters like wildfires and especially precipitation, extreme flooding, extreme snowstorms.

Speaker 14 Yeah, since we first aired this episode, there have been a number of severe natural disasters across the country. Just to name two, the LA wildfires and the Texas Hill Country floods.
It's scary.

Speaker 14 But getting prepared before something happens is the absolute best way to be ready if something does actually happen. And you don't have to panic by anything.

Speaker 13 That's right. Wirecutter has a ton of great coverage around emergency preparation.
We've been covering this for years.

Speaker 13 We have really great specific recommendations and we just published a whole suite of new coverage around this topic.

Speaker 13 One thing I'm really excited about is a new tool we published, which is an emergency toolkit builder.

Speaker 13 It will build you a customized list of emergency supplies that you should have based on your family dynamic, the kinds of disasters you might face, whether you want to stay at home, shelter in place, or whether you want to evacuate.

Speaker 13 It gives very specific kinds of things that you should have on hand. We also have some other coverage on, you know, building out an emergency pantry, how to pick out a generator.

Speaker 13 We even have this very interesting piece from two of our wirecutter writers who survived the LA fires on the things that they learned that they would want anyone to do in advance of any kind of disaster that they're facing.

Speaker 13 So it's a very, very cool group of articles. we just published and we'll drop links in the show notes.

Speaker 14 Yeah, it's so helpful. And because we just published this new tool, we decided to actually re-air this episode with one of our colleagues who knows a lot about emergency preparedness.

Speaker 14 His name is Harry Sawyers, and Harry is a senior editor who's overseen our emergency prep coverage for the last five years.

Speaker 15 I personally found this conversation to be hugely helpful. As you guys know, I had bought an emergency prep kit that wasn't all in one.

Speaker 15 And after the conversation, I realized that a lot of the things in the kit aren't things that would actually be practical for my my family and my family's situation.

Speaker 15 So I was able to go back and put together a kit that made more sense for me and for us.

Speaker 14 Yeah, so we're going to take a quick break right now. And when we're back, you'll hear our conversation with Harry Sawyers from 2024.

Speaker 13 Enjoy.

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Speaker 14 Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. Today, we're talking with Harry Sawyers, Wirecutter's senior editor, covering emergency preparation.

Speaker 14 Wirecutter has robust coverage on how to prepare for a range of natural disasters from wildfires to earthquakes to hurricanes. And Harry is the one who edits all of this coverage.

Speaker 14 We're going to be talking about a guide on our site. It's called the best emergency preparedness supplies.
And we've got a link to that in our show notes if you want to follow along.

Speaker 14 Harry also knows a ton about home repair and upkeep, which is relevant for flooding. And I'm super excited to hear about that because my bedroom is in a glorified basement.

Speaker 13 Woohoo! Yay! Hey, Harry, welcome to the show. Hello.
It's great to have you here. You've got some experience with natural disasters in your life.

Speaker 13 You live in LA, which is like ground zero for fires and earthquakes and all sorts of stuff, but you also, you grew up in Georgia. What was it like growing up with tornadoes?

Speaker 12 Well, one thing about living in LA and being worried about earthquakes is you never really know when to plan for anything.

Speaker 12 And, you know, not that it was easier to plan for a tornado, but at least you could kind of see it coming.

Speaker 12 You know, you had storms on the horizon, you had the forecast, and you kind of had a, you know, you had a little window of time to prepare.

Speaker 12 So the mindset is a little different where it's not, you always need to be ready and it could strike at any moment.

Speaker 12 It's more like 24 hours, get your stuff together and and let's get serious about this incoming storm.

Speaker 13 Did you ever have to kind of like hide out during a tornado?

Speaker 12 A lot. I spent countless hours in basements and huddled in school hallways just waiting out tornado sirens and warnings and it was terrifying and dull at the same time.

Speaker 14 But Harry, in your team's reporting, you guys always recommend that before you buy anything, people should actually have a communication plan.

Speaker 14 Can you walk us through what that might look like in real time?

Speaker 12 Yeah, one of the things that is necessary in addition to all the gear you need to have is just what some experts call soft resiliency, which is just, you know, knowing your neighbors, maybe being in a group text together, or having some means of communicating with people around you, having a way to communicate with people out of town that would be concerned about you and letting them know how you intend to communicate, and just really just having a plan that involves everyone that might be affected by you being affected so that they can at least stay in touch with you and provide help if needed, or at least just be reassured that you're doing okay.

Speaker 13 Is there any kind of planning that you would recommend? Like, I have a family. Should we be making a plan about where we meet or

Speaker 13 what we do in specific types of emergencies?

Speaker 12 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, a lot of folks recommend just having just a plan. I mean, kind of whatever works for your family.

Speaker 12 A lot of the thing with this advice that we'll get into is it's consistent in that the sort of basic framework of what you need to do is pretty similar from place to place.

Speaker 12 But then from that point, things diverge into all sorts of specific considerations about

Speaker 12 where your house is, the type of house, and all that.

Speaker 12 And then if you have kids, then yeah, I mean, what your family needs are, who's going to be responsible, where you're going to meet, how you're going to do it.

Speaker 12 You know, yeah, getting your kids involved in the planning is just a great way to reassure everybody. Part of the preparation is just having a mindset and having a plan to begin with.

Speaker 12 Where you're going to meet and how you're going to be in touch is a big part of that.

Speaker 15 I remember when we were kids, the local fire department encouraged families like in the elementary school to go home, make a plan, work with your parents, or I guess maybe they were encouraging parents parents to work with their kids to make a plan.

Speaker 15 And I remember we had a plan, and it was, I think, fairly bare bones, but it was just that: like, if something happens, get your brother, meet at this place.

Speaker 15 And then, you know, I like to assume they had a plan after that because I think that's where we kind of jumped off.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I mean, for us, it was if the storm's coming, meet in the basement. If a fire, if the house catches on fire, meet at the mailbox.

Speaker 13 Meet at the mailbox.

Speaker 15 And Harry, we've referenced the guide a couple of times, but can I ask, how do you and your team approach writing a guide like this?

Speaker 15 Because obviously there are many different kinds of disasters someone might be dealing with.

Speaker 12 You know, one thing with this coverage, just to kind of be clear with you guys, you know, we're trying to hit such a broad swath of needs.

Speaker 12 You know, on the one extreme end, there's like a bunker person who has like just this extensive collection of prep tools.

Speaker 12 And then if you're super, super prepared, there's like a version of it where you're almost like an isolated person and you're going to really be self-reliant and fend for yourself, and that's a mindset.

Speaker 12 But it's so extensive and expensive that it's just not like all that realistic for everybody to consider. And then shifting a little bit, there's a huge range in these scenarios.

Speaker 12 You know, you look at the numbers and you have a handful of devastated homes that have been destroyed by tornadoes or completely flooded.

Speaker 12 And then you have hundreds of thousands of people without power.

Speaker 12 And their homes are essentially fine, but they're without power for an indefinite period of time, depending on how how long it takes to restore that power.

Speaker 12 And so we're really trying to span this huge range of needs.

Speaker 12 And we have things like fire starters and, you know, like almost wilderness survival tools in the mix, because it's not inappropriate to consider that.

Speaker 12 But it's also, some of it comes across as so extreme that it feels inappropriate in the context of like, for you to have just lost power for maybe a week, you might not need to go out and start a fire to deal with your needs, but you sure are going to want to be able to charge your phones, have some light light to get to the bathroom, be able to try to keep your food fresh, and you're still living in your home.

Speaker 12 It's just a really uncomfortable situation, and you need to be able to endure that using whatever means necessary.

Speaker 12 So, one of the reasons it's so broad is because we just want to give people the sort of full range of options and let them determine what they need and kind of make their own decisions about what to buy.

Speaker 12 But, you know, it's a topic that's just kind of difficult to talk about because it's just like

Speaker 12 the needs just vary so much, even within the same event.

Speaker 15 And they're so personal, too.

Speaker 15 All right. So if someone wants to start making an emergency preparedness kit, what kind of container would you recommend they put all of this stuff in?

Speaker 15 Because we're about to kind of jump into talking about a lot of things you might want to think about getting, but this seems like a good first step. What do you want to put it in?

Speaker 12 Well, the first thing that it needs to be is just accessible. And for some people, maybe a waterproof storage bin would make sense.

Speaker 12 For others, maybe something like a backpack or a go bag would make more sense. But whatever it is, it's got to be reachable in the the time of the crisis.

Speaker 12 So I was just talking to another editor here about earthquake prep and how her stuff is in her garage.

Speaker 12 And she's concerned that if a huge earthquake hit, she's in the San Francisco Bay Area, that it would like pancake her house and flatten her garage, and then she wouldn't be able to reach her stuff.

Speaker 13 Our stuff in L.A.

Speaker 12 is in a closet that we feel would probably be accessible.

Speaker 12 It all really depends on the configuration of your house and kind of what you think you can get to.

Speaker 12 And if you had a shed or something that you felt was relatively protected from building situation, if you couldn't enter the building afterward, then that would be great. In Georgia,

Speaker 12 things were in the basement. They were just kind of down there where we would be anyway.

Speaker 12 And it was a mix of, you know, real legit emergency prep items and also just like the same old board games that we busted out every time a storm came through.

Speaker 15 Trevor Burrus: Is there a situation where you would ever want to have something outside of your home? accessible, like outside of the basement or outside of the actual home?

Speaker 12 I mean, a lot of people keep items in their car.

Speaker 12 If they're, you know, if it's more of a bug out bag situation and they're just planning to evacuate they would just keep it ready to go and so you wouldn't have to gather it up if you've had just you know minutes to make your way

Speaker 13 so we're going to talk about all the things that you might want to have in a kit and i would imagine some of these things are maybe things people already have in their homes that they just need to gather together but in our emergency preparation guide we kind of bucket the different types of emergency supplies you might want to have into five basic categories we want to talk about today the first one is food and water

Speaker 14 Second is first aid.

Speaker 13 Third, you want to have light.

Speaker 13 Fourth, power and communication.

Speaker 13 And the fifth is tools.

Speaker 13 Now, walk us through these categories and what you recommend in each. Let's start with water and food.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I mean, a lot of the experts we talk to really begin with water and food as the kind of first and foremost consideration because that's the most crucial need that you're going to have to meet after something happens.

Speaker 13 Aaron Powell, what would you want to have on hand for water in an emergency?

Speaker 12 So, with water, even though it seems like a specific thing, it really varies how you go about it, depending on how you would normally get your water and what kind of threat you expect to face.

Speaker 12 I mean, the most basic way to do it would just be to stockpile water in big imperme containers that you can just keep and refresh and rotate out as needed.

Speaker 12 For other folks, it might make more sense to freeze water.

Speaker 12 If you're expecting a loss of power, you can prolong the freshness of your food when you do lose power and give you some potable water to drink.

Speaker 12 For other folks, it might make sense to get a filtration system that you can use contaminated water in. And for others, it might make sense to look at purification tablets or some way to treat water.

Speaker 13 Is there an amount, like a recommended amount of water you should have on hand?

Speaker 12 So FEMA recommends a gallon per person per day.

Speaker 14 FEMA being the Federal Emergency Management Agency, right?

Speaker 12 Yeah. And you're going to need to look at at least a three-day supply to just have a basic preparation set up.
And ideally, you could get by for more like two weeks.

Speaker 13 Okay, great. And if you, you know, let's say you're in the mindset of just prepping your basement with like all this water or whatever.

Speaker 13 Can you just like fill it up once and you're done and you can just wait? Or is there some like time period that water goes, I mean, I hate to say it, but does water go bad in containers?

Speaker 13 Or should you be changing out the water?

Speaker 12 One of the things about emergency prep that is so difficult for people is that it's not just a one and done thing. It's really more of a practice and a routine.

Speaker 12 And even water, you think you've got your water covered, but in fact, really, it's six months is the cutoff that FEMA recommends for the amount of time that it's really able to be used for any purpose, drinking and cooking.

Speaker 12 So for a lot of folks, you know, the challenge becomes,

Speaker 12 how do I get into a practice where I'm really thinking about this and where I'm able to maintain my supplies, whether it's water or food as well, and all the other things that need to be just kind of just continually thought of?

Speaker 12 And how do you stay in that mindset when you'd probably rather not think about an emergency at all do you think harry that it's worth investing in specific water bottles that are like for emergency situations we have these blue yeah they're called aquatainer yeah is it worth getting those or can you just get by with like buying a bunch of gallons from the supermarket I like the aquatainers because I mean they're seven gallons so they're pretty big um they're balanced really nicely I don't know if you've ever used like a water cooler bottle but when it's pretty unwieldy the handle's on the side versus these aquatainers with the handles on the top so you know you're lugging it around.

Speaker 12 I mean, it is upwards of 60 to 70 pounds. So it's not easy to lift, but it is nicely balanced and just has a little couple of convenience features.

Speaker 12 There's a little valve that just makes it easier to pour. And the plastic is just really thick.
So it's durable. It can withstand things falling on it.
You don't get UV light in there.

Speaker 12 So there's just other kinds of protection that it has.

Speaker 14 What about a personal water filter? Like I've heard about these life straws.

Speaker 14 It's all over my TikTok with like the preppers who are like, if you don't have a supply of water on hand, then this thing can make any non-potable water drinkable, essentially, right?

Speaker 12 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the LifeStraw itself that we see advertised is really kind of a backpacker's tool and it totally, it works.

Speaker 12 The filtration media is, you know, it's, it's tested, it's reliable. That is a pretty small amount of water per use.
And so for a single person, it could be totally adequate.

Speaker 12 LifeStraw does make a larger filtration system that we've tested, which is, you know, really capable of producing an amount of water that a family or a couple of families on a street could use.

Speaker 12 And it's a bit more of an investment. But yeah, their technology is, you know, it's proven.

Speaker 14 So you would like, the picture that they have on Amazon cracks me up because it's just a dude in a creek sucking out of this straw. Like you would do that.
You trust it?

Speaker 12 I think if I were going to use it, I would probably try to gather up some water and let sediment settle out and then try to just filter kind of like a little less sediment-rich water.

Speaker 12 But I mean, that's what the product is designed to do.

Speaker 13 Harry, part of this first category is, in addition to water, is also food. So what would you want to have on hand when it comes to food for an emergency?

Speaker 12 I mean, you're going to want to have things that are appealing to eat. So things that you would normally want to go through and just shelf-sable versions of that.
You'll need canned foods.

Speaker 12 You'll need a can opener. And you're just going to need to have something that can get you by for a while.

Speaker 13 Great. So you don't necessarily need to go out and get like special food for an emergency.

Speaker 14 Don't be an aspirational shopper.

Speaker 13 Dark aspirational shopper. But Harry, what you're basically saying is, you know, get things that you like to eat.

Speaker 12 You don't want to have a bunch of stuff in your pantry that your family doesn't like to eat right that'll just sit there forever and you may not want to eat in an emergency anyways yeah and ideally you're rotating that stuff out too just kind of keeping it fresh and just once in a while having you know canned food gourmet and restocking everything you've got uh in there and maybe testing some stuff out and making some improvements for things you might like better taste testing your apocalypse menu i like it i think that's a good plan

Speaker 14 The second category here is first aid.

Speaker 14 I'm wondering, because I don't want to buy anything new, but I do have this very old first aid kit that I threw under my kitchen sink and now it's soggy because obviously my kitchen sink leaks.

Speaker 14 Do I need to replace that? Can I use it?

Speaker 13 It's a rhetorical question, maybe.

Speaker 13 Kyra.

Speaker 13 I don't know.

Speaker 14 Like maybe there's a chance.

Speaker 12 You do need to keep an eye on expiration dates. I was recently digging through my backpacking backpack and I found some medicine that expired in 2007.
So I probably would not be taking that.

Speaker 12 But you'd need to look at that. And, you know, we recommend a lot of pre-stocked first aid kits, which are just pretty useful to have on hand for general needs.

Speaker 12 But there are also ways to supplement those kits with things that are more particular to your needs. And certainly for any prescription medications, that's a part of all the recommendations.

Speaker 12 It's just have your medication sorted out.

Speaker 15 What are the other everyday things? Like, is it, you know, I assume hand sanitizer is one of them.

Speaker 12 Yeah, hand sanitizer comes up. I mean, if you have very limited water, you're going to want to use sanitizer to preserve your water supplies.

Speaker 12 Mosquitoes get really bad, especially in severe storm situations when you have standing water. So bug spray is on a lot of experts list as a top-of-mind item to have.

Speaker 12 And then, you know, just for cleanup and just kind of starting your aftermath work, just an endless amount of heavy-duty garbage bags, very useful contractor bags for just, you know, cleaning up debris, cleaning up storm branches and things that have come down, or also just splitting them open to use them as tarps to drag things around and maybe even, you know, cover a few things for just emergency waterproofing right as the storm approaches.

Speaker 15 Aaron Powell, Jr.: And then the other thing that we all hopefully have on hand based on the last several years, masks, right?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I mean, that's something that in wildfire concerns, they're just a constant for smoke inhalation. But just, you know, in general, it can just be kind of a useful thing to have.

Speaker 12 You know, air quality can get compromised.

Speaker 13 Okay.

Speaker 14 I feel like I do have most of those things at home, actually. So you don't have to buy everything new, just maybe a few select things.

Speaker 13 I mean, I feel like half this stuff or most of this stuff is in my camping gear that I barely ever use, but I should go check the expiration dates. But I've got a lot of this stuff already.

Speaker 13 Why would you go camping? I mean, Rosie, I am an aspirational camper as well.

Speaker 14 We're going to take a quick break, and then when we come back, we're going to talk about keeping things lit during an emergency, but like not fun lit, like literally lit.

Speaker 12 Yeah, like light.

Speaker 14 And how to keep your devices running during an emergency.

Speaker 13 Be right back.

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Speaker 7 Get started today with smarter tools and guidance from real mortgage experts.

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Speaker 14 Welcome back to the Wirecutter Show. Our guest this episode is Harry Sawyers, Wirecutter's senior editor overseeing all of the site's emergency prep coverage.

Speaker 13 Before the break, we discussed how to create an emergency communication plan and the first two categories of basics that you should really have on hand.

Speaker 13 And those include food and water and your first aid setup. These are going to be helpful in any kind of emergency or natural disaster.
So now we're going to get into number three, light.

Speaker 13 When I was a kid, I lived in the country. The power would go out all the time and we had kerosene lamps.
They seem kind of, in retrospect, kind of dangerous.

Speaker 13 Is there a better option these days than keeping like live flame going inside your home?

Speaker 12 Well, I don't know if I can reproduce that warm kerosene glow, but one of the things that keeps people able to stock their kits and moving forward toward preparation is just recommending things that are just useful in day-to-day life and also an emergency.

Speaker 12 And so one of the more popular items in our kit recommendations is this flashlight. That's part of our flashlight guide.

Speaker 12 We've tested against a lot of others, and we landed on Through Night Archer 2A V3.

Speaker 12 And one of the great things about it is it has this firefly mode that can just project this really dim light, and the batteries can last for days with it like that.

Speaker 12 And so in routine power outages, a lot of our testers have just like hung it in the bathroom as kind of a night light just so you can see your way through there.

Speaker 12 And it's just a really powerful beam when you need to just actually use it like a regular flashlight flashlight for finding something.

Speaker 12 It's just once you start using it, you just really never go back to the flashlight on your phone. It's just so much better.

Speaker 12 I mean, so, you know, in addition to a flashlight, sometimes you really need your hands free, especially if you're dealing with some flood water and you're dealing with some cleanup.

Speaker 12 So our headlamp recommendation is one of those things that just comes in handy a lot.

Speaker 12 I was just talking to a staff member whose house has been flooded a few times and she picked up the headlamp and it was just a revelation for her just how much easier it was to just get down there and deal with things with her hands free.

Speaker 12 And another thing that we have found when we're interviewing people post-disaster, especially when there's floods, are floating lanterns, which was kind of a new item for us and something that we've just been testing now.

Speaker 13 What are they? Yeah, what do they look like?

Speaker 12 Probably a little like Christine's old kerosene lamps, but, you know, way more plastic, way more waterproof.

Speaker 13 Like it's got like a bulb at the bottom and like a kind of like a hurricane lantern type on the top.

Speaker 14 And you hold it like an old man going, who goes there?

Speaker 12 Yeah, you go down in the crypt and

Speaker 13 shine your light and

Speaker 12 bring up a couple of bottles of port.

Speaker 12 They're handy too because they're a little techier and they have a little charger on there. There's a USB on a lot of them.
They can charge with a small solar panel and we've tested it and it works.

Speaker 12 You know, one of our intentions with a lot of this material is to just do more on-the-ground reporting in the aftermath of disaster. This one is more a mix of stage testing, which is super useful.

Speaker 12 I mean, the solar lanterns testing was set up and our correspondent Ellen Earhart tested them in a bathtub and just, you know, left them floating there, immersed them a little pushed them around and just kind of recreated some rough conditions but you know more so than a lot of other guides the reason the stage testing even happened was just due to first-hand reporting and just seeing what people were actually using in the field

Speaker 15 so we're moving to this fourth category which is power

Speaker 15 I remember after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the lower part of Manhattan was out of power for days. You know, there were people coming uptown to charge their phones.

Speaker 15 People were running extension cords out of their windows to let other people charge their phones. It was a mess.
So what should you have on hand if the power goes out?

Speaker 12 Yeah, Sandy was a wake-up call for us, too.

Speaker 12 At the time, we had some battery backup, but things have come a long way in the past 12 years.

Speaker 12 I mean, there's always gas generators that are just the kind of tried and true for certain people, depending on your living situation.

Speaker 12 If you can use those outdoors, if if you have the space, the ability to store gas, then a generator is by far the preferred method just in terms of how much time you can get out of it and how much power you can get out of it.

Speaker 12 But generators are not for everybody. We've seen a ton of development in rechargeables and

Speaker 12 power inverters that can use power tool batteries and portable power stations that we've tested as part of our powering coverage. And you can get, you know, sometimes days of use out of them.

Speaker 12 But one thing that people almost in any living situation might want to consider are any portable solar panels that can just plug and play, go out on the balcony, put them out in the window, out in the yard, and just generate a limited amount of power, but certainly enough to get a phone charged, enough to get a lamp running if you just need just a little bit of light to supplement your flashlight and headlamp operation.

Speaker 12 One of the ones we recommend in our emergency prep guide is one that we've really been using for years called the Big Blue 28 watt.

Speaker 12 It's a usb solar charger it is not the newest but it's really reliable and i think it's a great starting point for a lot of people who are just kind of maybe new to the idea of a little foldable portable solar panel if anyone just wants to have just a basic step toward preparation and just have something that they can rely on it's a great place to start and really like the flashlight it is something that you may find useful in your day-to-day life if you're camping absolutely How do they work?

Speaker 15 And what do they actually look like?

Speaker 12 The big blue is a smaller one. That's one of the reasons we recommend it.
It can easily just tuck into an emergency kit or a bag. It's quite portable.

Speaker 12 And how they work, I mean, they just, you know, they're just little solar panels that collect power. You can bank it if you have a place to store it, if you have a power bank.

Speaker 12 That's probably the most versatile way to do it because then you can just really optimize conditions. You don't have to just like sit out there in the blazing sun yourself.

Speaker 15 The solar panel connects to a power bank to collect the power that is coming from the sun. And then you would take the power bank and go charge your phone or something like that.

Speaker 12 Yeah, and run things off the power bank. And a lot of the panels that we recommend, you can plug directly into the panel.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 12 So that's a convenience. But again, you're kind of out in the sun.

Speaker 14 That's pretty cool.

Speaker 12 It's so much better than nothing. Like being able to generate just a trickle of a charge on a phone.
I mean, just for the functionality of it and also just the reduction of anxiety.

Speaker 12 Even if you don't have self-service at the time, it's usually one of the first things to go.

Speaker 12 Just knowing that you're not out on a limb with no way to charge a dying battery is just, I don't know, we're so reliant on our phones.

Speaker 12 I think it's just, if you can just take that off the table of all the anxieties you're dealing with in the aftermath of a storm as a, as a sort of a side benefit, just be able to run lamps and other small electronics as needed.

Speaker 12 You know, I don't even think I'd even be able to get anything done at my house because my kids would be hounding me about their iPads the entire time.

Speaker 12 And so I would at least be able to charge that and then focus on how I was going to feed everybody that night.

Speaker 14 Trevor Burrus: Okay, so what if you don't have cell service or a TV or anything, but you want to keep up with what's going on? What would you recommend in that situation?

Speaker 12 We love our emergency weather radios.

Speaker 12 The Midland ER310 is a stalwart. Emergency weather radios are one of these categories that I never really gave much thought to before I got into this coverage.

Speaker 12 And it just came up again and again, very consistently with a lot of experts. And so we tested some and we could really see why.
They're hand crank, which is kind of fun for a little while.

Speaker 12 You know, they have batteries as well, so they can run on batteries. But if push comes to shove, you can just make it half power.

Speaker 12 They're just, you know, long-range radios that are just tuned to weather bands and could just give you some, you know, we're talking about a serious disaster where you're getting, you know, emergency messages from the local authorities.

Speaker 12 You'll be able to at least receive that and just have a sense of what's going on and what the rescue effort's looking like.

Speaker 13 Fun fact, these radios are also really fun for little kids. They find them very fun to do.
Crank cradle. They're cranks.
I have one and my daughters love to play it.

Speaker 14 If your iPad is dead.

Speaker 13 Yeah, if your iPad is dead, it's dead, quote unquote, dead. Go play with the weather radio.

Speaker 15 It's a annual favorite when you see stations

Speaker 15 doing pledge.

Speaker 13 Oh, I got mine from WNYC. Thanks to WNYC.

Speaker 15 Yeah, shout out to WNYC for sure.

Speaker 13 All right, this brings us to our final category, tools.

Speaker 13 Harry, you are the person I always go to on staff when I have some kind of question about like what tool I should get.

Speaker 13 But if somebody is not a handy person, they don't have like a wood shop or a bunch of tools in their garage, what are the tools someone might want to consider investing in to be ready for an emergency?

Speaker 12 We often talk about starting with a multi-tool. Just, again, it's so useful.
People carry them every day.

Speaker 12 You may not be the kind of person that thinks you need a screwdriver in your pocket at all times.

Speaker 12 But one thing we hear is a lot of people just get so accustomed to having that tool on them that we published an ode to this one tool, the Leatherman Skeletool CX, that the writer described as feeling naked without it.

Speaker 12 So it's a good place to start. It's just a really basic thing.
It's a great gift if you are looking for somebody that needs it.

Speaker 12 It's a stripped down version of a Leatherman that just has a knife, pliers, and some driver bits just to meet the most basic needs. And it's one of the things we feature in our multi-tool coverage.

Speaker 12 And we have full-featured tools too that can do more if you feel like that's not enough for you. One thing that always happened with with severe storms in Georgia was you would have downed trees.

Speaker 12 Downed trees would hit power lines and cause power outages and they would block roads and the advice often was stay away from it, especially if there's a downed power line.

Speaker 12 But for the other 80% or so of all these downed branches that are just on people's properties, they've got to just clear them out and start cleaning up.

Speaker 12 We have coverage on some electric chainsaws that are super capable and they're wonderful tools that maybe overkill for just a few small branches.

Speaker 12 And one of the things that we love to talk about that's just one small step short of a chainsaw are pruning saws. We like ones by Silky.

Speaker 12 My longtime collaborator, Doug Mahoney, thinks I am sponsored by Silky because I'm constantly talking about Silky saws, but they are amazing.

Speaker 12 So the one we have recommended forever is called The Pocket Boy. Ooh.

Speaker 13 Silky Pocket Boy.

Speaker 12 The Silky Pocket Boy.

Speaker 13 It does not sound like a hand saw. Let me just tell you.

Speaker 12 It's a very, very capable Pocket Boy. The blade is about a foot long.

Speaker 12 It can cut pretty aggressively through a branch three to four inches in diameter no problem but um i was looking to see if anybody had tried the bigger version which is called the silky big boy

Speaker 12 and uh nobody had used the big boy but i did have our whose names are

Speaker 12 i didn't i didn't have any takers on the big boy but

Speaker 12 One of our writers, Tim Heffernan, had used the silky Zubot, which is a fixed blade version of it, to clear a bunch of pretty large branches in Virginia, and this is more storm cleanup.

Speaker 12 These were about six inch diameter maple branches and some ash, pretty tough hardwoods.

Speaker 12 If you watch a lot of survivalist YouTube videos, like I might, you see over and over a lot of these folks that are out building rustic cabins in the woods using no power tools.

Speaker 12 They're busting out a silky Zubot or a big boy. And you can just make pretty short work of some kind of amazingly thick branches.

Speaker 12 You wouldn't really think a handsaw could do it, but they're fantastic tools. They cut on the pull stroke, so it's not like you're like the old shipbuilding type saw.

Speaker 12 It's just a kind of an elegant blade that just slices right through it.

Speaker 15 So to recap, that's the pocket boy, the big boy, and the Zubot.

Speaker 13 What about for flooding?

Speaker 15 Any tools that would be particularly helpful for that?

Speaker 12 I mean, flooding is difficult because it doesn't take much water for it to be such a serious situation that it's beyond prep.

Speaker 12 But when you're trying to get ready for just a small amount of water entering the house,

Speaker 12 you are often going to want to at least have a mop on hand to be able to mop up. A wet dry vac is excellent too.

Speaker 12 And one thing that just a versatile thing that comes up so much is just a tarp. Having a tarp is something that you can use to just divert water.
It's so versatile and yet it's sometimes inadequate.

Speaker 12 So it's kind of hard to describe it in a way that's like, oh, you simply put a tarp up and all your problems are solved. It's like you can cover stuff with it, but also you you can drag stuff on it.

Speaker 12 So it's just this sort of like multi-purpose thing. I don't want to mislead people and say like, you know, you just like string up a tarp and everything's going to be okay.

Speaker 12 But it is, it's just, it's just one of those things that you just need to have because it just can come into play in so many different sort of minor like supplemental ways.

Speaker 12 But, you know, to get to Kyra's question, I mean.

Speaker 12 At the basic level, you've got a mop. You know, at the next step up, you've got a wet dry vac.

Speaker 12 At the sort of third level, if you have a chronic flooding situation, you're going to have a pump installed in your flood-prone area and you're going to pump the water out as much as you can and then you're going to go back with your wet dry vac get what's left and then you're going to mop up after that and it's i mean it's a serious serious situation i have like trepidation about talking about flooding because it's just like

Speaker 12 You can get an inch of water in your house and have to redo your baseboards, your drywall, your flooring. You can be in a situation where you can't sell your house over an inch of water.

Speaker 12 You can be in a situation where you can't insure your house anymore over an inch of water. And all you need to do is just like live near a creek.
You know,

Speaker 12 it's not like, it's not like you're clearly were like right on the ocean, like, you know, two inches from the shore.

Speaker 12 Like, you know, your first and primary step is going to be mitigating the risk by changing your yard and changing your rain.

Speaker 12 situation, like, you know, making sure your gutters are working properly, making sure you have like extenders on downspouts to just pull the water as far away from your place as possible and take every step you can so that when a flash flood starts to happen and water just starts to kind of like, you know, build up in the area, area that it at least has somewhere to go before it starts going into your house

Speaker 12 i really like i have this like image in my mind of my my cousin i'm talking about that inch of water thing because that's like a real example for my cousin who lived in asheville he was telling me about this this flood event they had and they really had a very hard time they were trying to sell their house they had a very hard time afterward because of this and he was telling me about it he was like we were standing there at the door and we were bailing it out bailing it out bailing out at a certain point we just looked at each other and just stopped because there was just there was just no stopping it And they just had to kind of just stand there and just sort of let it play out

Speaker 12 and just watch this water just like flow into their house. This is like, you know, like a hundred thirty thousand dollar house.
I mean, this is like kind of all they had.

Speaker 13 And we do have some coverage on the site, like a couple pieces on how to prepare for a potential flood and what to do afterwards, like kind of the steps you might want to take for cleaning out a basement, right?

Speaker 12 Yeah, we do. We have a piece on how to clean out a flooded basement, presuming it's clean outable.
And then we have one that's very personal. It's called How I Flood Proofed My House.

Speaker 12 And the ideas there are universally applicable when you read it a certain way, but they're so specific to that one property that it just really had to be just about this one person.

Speaker 15 You talked about watching a lot of survivalist videos on YouTube.

Speaker 15 I wondered, do you experience any kind of burnout? like putting yourself in the mindset of

Speaker 15 people who are dealing with disasters or emergency situations, because you cover so many products, so many scenarios. You're thinking about so many different eventualities.

Speaker 15 I wonder, and you live in LA.

Speaker 15 Do you get fatigued? Or are you sort of hyped and anxious?

Speaker 12 I think I try to be realistic about how much of this people can tolerate, because it's a difficult thing to contemplate, and it's also super expensive to try to get yourself prepared all at once.

Speaker 12 So I try to look at it like, what is a realistic, like a routine that you could get into?

Speaker 12 Don't try to think of this all in one fell swoop, but think of it in terms of these categories like we're talking about today. Think of your food and water needs.
Think of your communication needs.

Speaker 12 Think of the tools you might need. Think of how you're going to get power.
And take it step by step and try to just apply all the generic advice to your own situation.

Speaker 12 Find a way to just make it affordable for you and something that you can feel. that you can rely on.

Speaker 12 And I wouldn't say that I feel burnout, but I just try to just stay realistic about a topic that is something that we can all prepare for and we can take seriously, just with the understanding that a lot of these threats are so far beyond consumer products that the advice that we give is, you know, not going to be sufficient all the time, but that the headline making things about people losing their homes are really just a part of any disaster.

Speaker 12 And for any of the people who are being severely affected, there are probably 100,000 more that are simply deeply inconvenienced for some amount of time.

Speaker 12 And a lot of the objective of what we're trying to do is just help people deal with that.

Speaker 14 On a lighter note, Harry, before we wrap, we ask all of our guests one final question. So what was the last thing that you bought recently that you really loved?

Speaker 12 Oh, man, I already blew my whole spiel on the silkies.

Speaker 15 Well, what is the thing that you bought recently?

Speaker 12 I have recently become the proud owner of about 144 chlorine dioxide water purification tablets.

Speaker 13 Congratulations.

Speaker 13 I hope.

Speaker 12 At least for the next few years until they expire.

Speaker 13 Are they just there for an emergency?

Speaker 12 They're for an emergency. I bought them more immediately because my kids were aghast at the shape of the water in our water rower, the exercise machine, which

Speaker 12 takes on a little bit of sunlight and had developed a nice culture of algae with them.

Speaker 12 And they said, Dad, Dada, clean your gross rower. And I said, I need to buy those water purification tablets anyway.

Speaker 13 What a perfect time.

Speaker 15 I've never heard of someone taking such good care of the water inside their rower.

Speaker 13 It was gross.

Speaker 15 Harry, thanks so much for joining us. This was really, really helpful.

Speaker 12 Thank you.

Speaker 13 All right, you guys.

Speaker 14 Do you feel prepared?

Speaker 13 Do you feel like you know what you need to get? I'm ready. You ready?

Speaker 14 I know what I need to get. I am not prepared.

Speaker 13 You're not prepared. Okay, Rosie, can you salvage anything from this kit you bought?

Speaker 15 I definitely can.

Speaker 15 There's some first aid stuff particularly that I think will be really useful. However, I have to look at expiration dates.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 13 I think the big takeaway here is that if you're feeling a little intimidated about building an emergency supply kit, you can really kind of simplify this by thinking about this like filling five categories, right?

Speaker 13 So that's food and water. Yep.
You got first aid, aid, right? Rosie, you're covered.

Speaker 14 I like, which is my fave because I'm a Leo.

Speaker 13 You're going to want some power and have your communication plan, like a radio, a weather radio. And then we got to have the tools, right?

Speaker 13 The tools are important. Got to have tools.
Yeah.

Speaker 14 Those folding saws.

Speaker 13 The folding saws, the names of those folding saws are a little intense, but will not be repeated here, but maybe have one.

Speaker 15 That's great.

Speaker 15 You can find more about Wirecutters Cutter's coverage and the products we recommended today at our website or in the show notes.

Speaker 15 Plus, we'll drop a link to that new emergency preparedness tool that's on the WireCutter website. You should check it out.
That's it for us. Till next week.

Speaker 13 Get prepared.

Speaker 13 Get prepared.

Speaker 13 Bye. Bye.

Speaker 14 The Wire Cutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddie Mazziello and Nick Pittman.
Today's episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson.

Speaker 14 Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Boot YouTube, and Diane Wong.

Speaker 14 Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief.

Speaker 13 I'm Kyra Blackwell. I'm Christine Sear Clissette.

Speaker 15 And I'm Rosie Guerin.

Speaker 14 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 13 Thank you.

Speaker 14 So, yeah, thank you so much. So sorry.

Speaker 13 We're almost done, buddy.

Speaker 13 You got this.

Speaker 14 I'm like, my last brain cell is just fighting for its life right now.

Speaker 13 You got it.

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