72 hour kits and cloth diapers

Last monday night for Family Home Evening we went through and updated our 72-hour emergency kits. We have a bunch of MREs (fake army food) and divided them up between four backpacks (including a super tiny backpack for Lola). We got the MREs from a family that moved south. There is a lot of food there, but no dates on it anywhere. Chris mentioned that it could be surplus meals left over from Desert Storm or even the Vietnam era. We sampled one of the pieces of fortified snack bread (it was heavily smothered with a packet of strawberry jam to make it palatable). Wow, pretty gross. I could tell it was food that you would eat to keep from starving to death, that's all. So now my new plan is to get real food from the grocery store (tuna, saltines, fruit roll-ups, granola bars, etc.) to use instead of the MREs. Then rotate that food every six months. I've heard of people that do the rotating at conference time. The family gathers around the TV (in our case, the online audio stream) for two days to listen to the prophets council while they have a picnic-type feast on all their emergency food. That sounds like it could be a fun family tradition (but not if it involves MREs). So I need to stock up some good emergency food.

We also went over some lists I have collected over the years of what should be in your 72-hour kit. (Here is an example list, there are many other lists online.) We inventoried what we already had and made a shopping list of extra things we need, like light sticks (waterproof, just in case we have to hike through the woods in a downpour at midnight, you never know). I pulled out the little hygiene kit I made for myself a few years ago. Wow, I don't even use most of that stuff anymore (shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, deodorant). I should dump all that stuff and just put in some little containers of baking soda & vinegar! And maybe one bar of soap. Another thing on my list is to make copies of important documents (birth certificates, insurance policies, etc.) to bring with us if we ever have to evacuate.

One of the things I have been struggling with in the emergency kits is what to do for diapers. Lola is still in diapers and it could be a real bummer if we didn't have any for her. Disposable diapers are the natural solution in an emergency situation, but I just can't bring myself to buy those trashy diapers. I just hate them. Plus, if I had enough trashies to last for 72 hours, then what? Things might not be back to normal yet. I could grab some cloth diapers from the normal stash on the way out the door, but chances are rare that I would have a whole clean stash. Usually about half of them are dirty. And chances are that in an emergency situation I would be down to about 3 or 4 clean ones. Finally I came up with a solution that would work. I'm going to get flat diapers & pins to use for the emergency kit. Flat diapers are super easy to make out of cotton flannel sheets, receiving blankets, or those ten yards of white cotton birdseye that are buried somewhere in my sewing room. Then I'll make a few (five or six should be plenty) waterproof PUL snap covers. The beauty of this system is that the flat diapers can be folded to fit any size of baby. Then they wash easily and dry quickly. The covers come in three different sizes, if I have another baby I'll just make sure that I have the right size of cover stashed in the kit. I will also include laundry soap, clothesline, and clothespins. And possibly a bucket for washing. I'm sure we'll want to wash more than just diapers, this will be useful for washing our clothes, too!

We have everything stashed close to the front door so we can be out of the house in a hurry (if necessary). Chances are pretty rare that we would have an emergency here that would send us packing on foot (or canoe?). Most likely we would experience something that would have us housebound without power (like a big snow storm). But if our house is on fire or we have to evacuate from the path of a REALLY big tsunami (big enough to make it over Gravina Island), then we are ready!