The first 72 hours after a disaster are critical. It is possible that it may take emergency first responders that long to provide you assistance. Regardless of where you live in North America you are susceptible to some type of natural disaster.

Some like hurricanes may provide some warning, others like earthquakes may have no warning whatsover. Don't think it can't happen to you. Everyone should have a 72 hour Disaster Survival Backpack or kit.

Emergency backpack and Disaster kits come in a number of sizes and varieties. Some are made to keep in an office or classroom setting and contain all the essential items needed for a small group of people, others are made specifically for use in your car or boat.

Quality disaster kits like the kind you'll find at the Survival Gear Outpost have been created with input from the Federal Emergency Mesponse Agency and contain just about everything you will need. If you wait until just before or just after a disaster, you will be battling hundreds of other people and be faced with empty shelves of water, toilet paper, batteries and other essentials.

These disaster kits are surprisingly affordable, if you want to build your, take a look at the contents of some of these kits and build your own. You will probably find some of the specialized items difficult to find or more expensive separately, my recommendation is to purchase a kit for each member of the family and then keep an additional water food, and toilet paper supply in a waterproof container.

Disaster Kits come for all occasions;

• College survival kits
• Earthquake survival kits
• Home survival kits
• Hurricane survival kits
• Survival backpacks
• Wilderness survival kits
• Automobile / RV / Boat survival kits
  

Visualize yourself in the center of a hurricane's path. Despite the weather bureau's original forecast indicating that the hurricane will come to pass some 45 miles south of your location, it's course has unexpectedly changed within the last half an hour. There is no time to evacuate the premises, and your hope for fleeing to a hotel or motel is slim to none as they are most likely all filled to capacity or closed down completely. There is one place that you and your family are fortunate enough to find shelter, however: your basement. Your worst fear becomes a reality as a tornado resulting from the hurricane roars through your home, destroying it almost entirely. When you emerge after the danger has passed, you see your furniture in shambles, splayed out over hundreds of yards. Everything that was sentimental to you, all of your household items, are broken or mangled, unable to be salvaged.

The most important thing, however, is that your family and yourself are safe. Once you have gathered your wits about you, you begin concentrating on matters needing your immediate attention. You are standing in the rain; there is no electricity; there is no running water, and you and your family are getting hungry and thirsty. As you look around you see that most of your neighbors are experiencing the same thing, yet because of impassable roads there is no way to tell what's happening in the areas surrounding your town. When help will arrive, or even if it will arrive, remains unknown.

This may be a grim image to conjure up in your mind, but almost every year it happens to people just like you. Take care of your family, as well as yourself, by preparing a 72-hour survival kit. Important items to include in your kit are sleeping bags and some sort of shelter such as a tent, drinking water, flashlights, non-perishable foods, an emergency radio, and a first aid kit; all of these things will help you survive the first 72 hours after a major disaster. All of these items are able to fit into a backpack, which each of your family members can carry as they move towards a safe haven.

By looking back at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we can all see how much devastation and misery natural disasters are capable of inflicting. And the truth is that there is nowhere in the country which isn't affected by some sort of natural disaster. Depending on your location, you might experience tornados, earthquakes, landslides, floods, even blizzards. And aside from natural disasters, there is always the threat of terrorist attacks and other pre-meditated cataclysms.

Thus, whether you ever end up using it or not, preparing a 72 hour survival kit can prove to be an invaluable and life-saving act.