Disasters can strike suddenly, leaving you without access to essentials for days or forcing you to leave your home. After a disaster, aid personnel will arrive at the site, but they might not be able to reach you right away. You must be organized. Knowing what to do in the event of a crisis, such as a flood, tornado, earthquake, or other emergencies, can significantly lessen the danger and suffering your family may experience.
Why Should You Plan for Urban Disasters?
When a calamity strikes, you’re most likely to be at home or work. That is why you should be prepared for these everyday situations and think about items that will help you survive a long-term emergency. The better prepared you are, the higher your chances of survival, which also applies to concrete jungles. We already confront many obstacles in our “urban” lifestyles, but picture how things might turn out if calamity struck. Millions of other people share the same metropolitan infrastructure and other resources, and you would not want to be at the mercy of others in the event of a major disaster.
What Gears Are Needed for Survival?
Be practical and useful in your preparation for urban mayhem. Avoid buying the newest, most popular gadgets. When everyone is running for the hills, there is no need to brag. Think about portable tools with a variety of uses.
Foldable Knife
One of the best multipurpose tools that can be quickly concealed is a foldable knife. Any survival kit should include it as a standard item, but make sure to check the legislation. In several nations, it is forbidden to carry a blade of any size in public. Your constant friend in the city should be a nice folding knife. Choose wisely because there are strict regulations on knife style, action, and blade length in many significant urban regions. Your foldable knife needs to be reliable, able to handle cutting jobs for emergencies, and keep you out of trouble with the police.
Fire Starter
Even though you live in the city, you might occasionally need to build a fire to stay warm. Just ask one of the many thousands of homeless people who live there. It might mean the difference between staying alive and freezing to death, whether it’s in a park, a barrel, or just a tiny fire contained by bricks or cinder blocks. So, having a fire starter is essential.
Mobile Phone
For city inhabitants, a mobile phone is equivalent to oxygen. Yes, you can charge it right now anywhere—at work, in your car, and even in public spaces—but what will happen if a major catastrophe occurs? Whether you love them or detest them, mobile phones are a necessary component of modern life. In addition to acting as a central hub for voice conversations, emails, and text messages, your mobile phone may carry out a variety of other crucial survival functions like storing contact information, maps, survival guides, and more. However, it is useless without electricity, so be sure to keep it charged.
A Multi-Tool
In any survival circumstance, a multi-tool is invaluable, and for many everyday chores, it can successfully take the place of a bulky, hefty tool bag or toolbox. Whichever flavor you favor, keep it nearby and within easy reach.
First-Aid Kit
Every crisis offers innumerable opportunities for injury, and disaster-affected cities offer even more opportunities. Broken glass, exposed nails and rebar, craggy brickwork, twisted metal, and the list goes on and on. Make sure you have a first aid package that can treat all of the common injuries and illnesses you can encounter in a metropolis, as well as knowledge of how to use it.
Flashlight
Another item that no self-respecting survivalist should ever leave the house without is a flashlight. Humans struggle in the dark because our eyes, which are also our main senses, struggle to function without plenty of light to see. The use of a flashlight can dispel the shadows, and despite popular belief that cities are generally well-lit, you can count on the lights going out as soon as a significant problem arises. In addition, many buildings’ interiors are completely dark if they aren’t lit.
Paracord
Another basic survival item that you will continuously discover uses for is cordage, and I won’t even try to list them all here. Nevertheless, it is unquestionably necessary for some urban-focused chores like locking doors and doorknobs or building early warning systems. If you want something even lighter, a little bundle of supplemental cord or paracord takes up almost no room in your pack and weighs almost nothing. There are countless applications for paracord.
Sharpie
The humble Sharpie, or any other comparable permanent marker, may seem like an odd addition to your urban survival gear, but it makes a lot of sense. A sharpie works fantastically for leaving permanent markings that other members of your organization can recognize and for taking notes that you cannot risk wearing out or washing away. In some casualty care operations, such as marking the time of an intervention on the patient’s forehead or another readily visible area of their body, they are also essential.
A Portable Personal Water Filter
A water filter must be included in any comprehensive survival pack. Given the abundance of taps, faucets, and mountains of bottled water around you, you may assume that finding drinking water won’t be too tough in an urban setting. Everyone will be competing for the relatively small supply of bottled water that will soon run out because many municipal water systems are only operational and safe to drink thanks to a pumping and processing infrastructure that is subject to damage. A water filter will enable you to safely drink from water sources that might be contaminated by dissolved solids and contain bacterial or virus risks in that circumstance, as well as at any other time.
Respirator Mask
A city crisis, perhaps more than any other environment, will fill the air with choking dust and other particulates, stuff that can easily asphyxiate you and even if it doesn’t kill you, create serious long-term health problems down the road. This is especially true if major fires or building collapses are the cause of the crisis. You must be equipped with a respirator that is rated N95 or above to mitigate this risk. Invest in a quality dust mask rather than taking a chance with a cheap one.
Consider important survival tools like a first aid kit. It’s made to rescue you from difficult situations and act promptly in an emergency. Threats in urban settings are distinct from those we could encounter in the wild. This means that in light of the contemporary challenges that urban people today confront, we must also appropriately prepare.