Hopefully, you and your family have purchased or assembled items for your emergency kit.   If you haven’t, you can purchase a kit or assemble a kit using online resources like Ready.gov, RedCross.org, RedCross.ca, and GetPrepared.ca.  Remember, most emergency and relief agencies warn that citizens need to be prepared to fend for themselves for 3 days. Some agencies have extended that timeframe to 5 days.

Every kit should have basic essentials such as:

• 1 gallon or 4 litres of water per day per person. For a family of four, the kit will need 12 gallons or 48 litres of water.
• Ready-to-eat canned or packaged goods that your family will eat, e.g. fruit, vegetables, and meats. Remember, you may not have access to stoves or be unable to light grills or fires.
• Can Opener and Knife
• Season-appropriate clothing
• Medications
• First Aid Kit
• Radio & Batteries, or opt for a hand crank version.
• Flashlight & Batteries, or opt for a hand crank version.
• Copy of your household’s plan, including contact numbers, numbers to pet shelters/hotels with pet friendly policies and meeting locations.

Additional items can be added based upon your family’s needs, e.g. elderly, differently abled, pets, small children.  Once the basics are taken care of, add comfort items. Make it a family affair and ask each family member what they absolutely can’t live without that should go in the kit.

What’s Holding Your Kit?
What you choose to store your kit in will depend on the type of disaster you’ll likely face. If you need to evacuate, portable storage containers, like bins and duffle bags, may be easier to load into a car trunk than a 33-gallon rubber trashcan.  

Bear in mind, your emergency kit will be heavy.  A gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. or 3.6 kg. So a three-day supply of water for a family of four weighs about 100 lbs or 45 kg.  You may wish to split up your kit into packs for each member of the family.

Storing your Kit
Keep your kit near an exit of your home so you can grab it on the way out if you are ordered to evacuate.  Some families choose to keep their kit in the garage where they can put it into the back of the car and drive out.

Closet Tailors can design your custom storage solution to include a home for your Emergency Kit.  Having a dedicated spot for you kit will ensure that you can find your kit quickly when it’s needed. Additionally, knowing where your kit is will encourage you to replenish your kit regularly to ensure freshness.

Having a fully-stocked emergency kit and knowing where it is will give you and your family a little more peace of mind in the event of a disaster.

In 2003, Duracell commissioned a Harris Interactive Study to determine how many U.S. households were prepared for disaster. Stunningly, 64 percent of surveyed households lacked a plan, and 38 percent of respondents reported that being prepared for a disaster is not a personal priority.

Government and relief organizations in the U.S. and Canada recommend that citizens be prepared to fend for themselves for 72 hours.  The reason for this is emergency crews will be busy putting out fires, shutting off gas mains, diverting water or moving earth to secure the safety of many.  In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, some agencies are increasing that recommendation from 72 hours to 120 hours or 5 days.

Closet Tailors encourages homeowners to get prepared. Start by assembling a kit, making a plan and learning about the types of disasters you and your family may face.

Purchase or assemble an emergency supply kit using online resources, such as Ready.gov, RedCross.org, Red Cross.ca or GetPrepared.ca.

Remember, an organized home can be evacuated more quickly and efficiently than an disorganized one.  Additionally, an organized home is easier to defend and easier to assess before disaster strikes and after the disaster passes.  

Storage solutions by Closet Tailors can help you get organized so you’re ready for whatever is thrown at you down the road.

It’s that time of year when homeowners around the country clean out basements, garages, attics, closets and other storage areas. We diligently pull stuff we haven’t seen in months, years, perhaps decades from the recesses of our homes. What we do with it?

Over the next couple posts, you’ll get a clean-out plan and options on what to do with all the stuff you no longer want to store in your home, whether you want to hold a yard sale, sell your items online or donate them to charity and take the tax credit. 

Let’s start with the clean-out plan.

If you’re like me, the mere thought of cleaning out a room makes me want to watch television; then I stumble upon one of the programs that shows a house with a runaway clutter problem.  That usually inspires me to get off the couch and toss the junk mail, the silly email printouts and circulars into the recycle bin. But what if the task is larger? Rest assured, it can be done, and without a visit from a television crew.  The key is having a plan.

If you have visited our blog in the past, you may have seen our first post Letting Go Of Your Inner Packrat, which may help you to overcome feelings of guilt associated with letting things go.  Once you decide that it’s time to clean out, decide on a room, corner, section and gather:

• Trash bin
• Hazardous waste bin – check with your refuse service about 1 – what qualifies as hazardous waste and 2 – how you need to dispose of it.
• Recycle bin – paper, plastic, steal, aluminum
• Keep bin
• Donate/Sell bin

Then, begin the process of picking up each item and deciding in what bin it belongs. Be realistic and a little ruthless when choosing which items go into what bin. If you’re saving an item that belongs to a project, e.g. stickers, papers, paint, wingnuts, set it in the “keep” bin for the moment. Then, when everything is put away in its place, decide if you’re truly going to complete the project or if the item needs to be eliminated. The reward is a cleaner home and more peace of mind that comes with organized surroundings.

Be sure to check back for more summer clean up tips or sign-up to receive blog update alerts.

One of the leading new year’s resolutions is to “be more organized.”  While you’re organizing everything from your garage to your sock drawer, it may be a good time to organize your In Case Of Emergency Grab and Go Documents kit. 

The Grab and Go kit should include all the important documents or copies of those documents that you would not want destroyed in fire, flood or some other element.  

There are some great products on the market that will help you get organized and may even help you think through what you need.  Here is a list of things your kit should include: 

• Birth certificates
• Social security cards
• Marriage licenses
• Passports
• Bank statements
• Tax Records
• Deeds
• Car Information
• Insurance policies
• Wills
• Credit Card Information
• Monthly billing information, e.g. utilities, phone bills, etc. 
• Medical Insurance Information
• Medical information, e.g. doctor’s name, address, phone, prescriptions
• Pet Information, e.g. veterinary records, vet name, license information, obedience certificates
• Contact numbers
• Computer backup
• Important photos or scans of photos on display
• Valuables log with receipt or receipt information.
• Extra keys to your home and vehicles.
• Check list of things to grab on your way out of the house.

Here are some other things to consider:

• Place these items in a waterproof container. It can be as simple as a Ziploc® bag.
• Invest in a fireproof safe. It should be large enough to hold your information and valuables, but small enough to carry out quickly.
• Consider keeping an electronic record on a CD or thumbdrive or external harddrive. Scan documents and keep PDFs.
• Keep a copy of this information with a trusted friend or family member in another area. 
• Let your family know where things are. 

Decorating the house is usually the kick-off for the holiday season. However, unscrambling lights, discovering broken heirlooms and scavenging for important items can dampen anyone’s holiday spirit.  Planning for success is the key to pleasant kick-off of the holiday season!  Get your stuff organized with storage solutions that have been designed specifically for your unique needs!  Take the time to install shelves, cabinets and overhead garage racks to store your holiday treasures during the off season, so you’ll know just where to find them when it’s time.

Here are some tips to make your holidays a little happier:

• Use clear plastic storage bins to hold items for each holiday project, e.g. outdoor lights, outdoor decoration, mantle decorations, tree decorations, dinnerware, etc. This will allow you to see what’s inside, grab a bin and complete the project without having to search for odds and ends.
• Store extra light clips with your outdoor lights so you don’t have to search far to replace clips that may have fallen.  Fascia board grip clips, which are available at hardware stores, are a great way to hang lights for the winter holidays and patriotic bunting for the summer holidays. 
• Use a labeler to identify project boxes at a glance and ensure decorations get back into the appropriate box
• Store treasured, one-of-a-kind family heirlooms, like ornaments, in smaller boxes with adequate padding before storing in a large box. This will protect them in the event the large box is jostled.
• When the season is over, edit your collection to eliminate broken or unwanted items.
• Cure Knick-knack Overload by giving your regular home accessories a holiday this season! Instead of adding to your display, replace regular décor items with holiday items. The benefits to you are less dusting, your regular items will look fresh again after the holidays and the house won’t appear empty.