The 72-Hour Outage Kit: A Printable Checklist for Your Home

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Illustration: an entryway at night during a rainstorm with a packed outage kit: a clear bin of bottled water and canned food, a crank radio, a bin with a first aid kit and flashlight, a duffel bag, and a battery lantern

Bottom line: A 72-hour kit covers water, food, light, information, first aid, and power for 3 days, so you can stay home safely while crews work. Start with Ready.gov’s basic list, then add the seasonal items below for the outages your area gets.

Ready.gov says you may need to get by on your own for several days after an emergency (Ready.gov). Big outages can run past three days. One example:

Newspaper-style graphic: August 14, 2003 blackout darkens an area home to 50 million people
Recreated newsprint-style graphic, not an actual newspaper page. Source: U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force final report (April 2004).

The core kit (from Ready.gov)

Ready.gov's 11 basic kit items: water at 1 gallon per person per day, several days of non-perishable food and a manual can opener, a battery or hand-crank radio plus a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert, flashlights and extra batteries, a first aid kit, a whistle, dust masks with plastic sheeting, scissors and duct tape, moist towelettes with garbage bags and plastic ties, a wrench or pliers, local maps, and a phone with chargers and a backup battery; 3 days is a first goal, then a week
Sources: Ready.gov, Build a Kit and Ready.gov, Power Outages.

All 11 come from Ready.gov’s Build a Kit list; the flashlight-per-person tip is from Ready.gov’s power outage page. Our guides go deeper on three of them: emergency light bulbs for stairs and hallways, the first aid checklist, and how many phone charges to plan for, plus which power bank to buy.

Seasonal add-ons

Seasonal kit add-ons in four groups. Winter freeze: blankets, sleeping bags and warm layers, an electric blanket with a power station (60 to 100 watts vs. 750 to 1,500 for a space heater), CO detectors with battery backup on every level, and pipe insulation before the freeze. Hurricane season, June 1 to Nov. 30: copies of insurance and ID, battery fans, extra water. Wildfire season and planned shutoffs: an N95 mask per person, charged phones and backup chargers, utility outage alerts. Every home: prescriptions and a plan for refrigerated meds, fridge and freezer thermometers, cash in small bills, pet supplies, and a written list of phone numbers
Sources: Ready.gov (winter weather, hurricanes, water, wildfires, power outages), Virginia Cooperative Extension (watts), American Red Cross (frozen pipes), and NOAA (cash).

Sources: Ready.gov on winter weather, hurricanes, water, wildfires, and power outages; Virginia Cooperative Extension for the blanket and heater watts; the Red Cross on frozen pipes; and NOAA on cash. Planned shutoffs are real: in California, for example, utilities may cut power on purpose during dangerous fire weather (CPUC). Our wildfire power shutoff guide covers notice, how long shutoffs last, and backup power, and our food safety guide covers the thermometers.

Optional: backup power

A portable power station can keep a fridge, CPAP, phones, and lights going for part of an outage. Size it before you buy: see our power station sizing guide.

Keep it working

  • ☐ Store the kit in one or two easy-to-carry containers (Ready.gov suggests plastic bins or a duffel bag)
  • ☐ Check it twice a year. Before hurricane season (May) and before winter (November) is a good rhythm.
  • ☐ Rotate water every 6 months if self-filled (Ready.gov). Need containers? See our water storage container picks

The named gear from this kit is collected on our Gear page.

Printable version: Download the free one-page checklist (PDF)

This checklist is built from government sources; we haven’t hands-on tested specific kit products yet. Sources checked Oct 18, 2026.

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