Go-Bag Ready

How to complete Go-Bag Ready

A go-bag exists for the ten-minute window when a wildfire, flood, or gas leak means leaving now, with no time to hunt for passports or chargers. Building one takes a couple of calm-weather hours and deletes the worst-case scramble entirely.

1. Pick a backpack you can genuinely carry, one per adult, and stage it near your exit.
2. Add water — roughly one liter per person per day, or a filter — plus three days of no-cook food like bars and pouches.
3. Copy passports, IDs, insurance policies, and key phone numbers into a waterproof pouch; add a USB stick with scans.
4. Pack a first aid kit, flashlight with spare batteries, phone power bank, multi-tool, and a supply of any daily medications.
5. Add small-bill cash, since cards fail when the power does, plus a change of clothes in current sizes and season.
6. Set a six-month calendar reminder to rotate food, water, and meds and swap clothing for the season.

Tips

• Medications and kids' clothing expire or get outgrown fastest — check those more often than the rest.
• Skip the doomsday build: if you can't jog with it, you'll abandon it.
• Keep shoes you can walk miles in beside the bag, not buried inside it.

What counts as done

A packed, up-to-date bag sits by your exit covering documents, water, food, first aid, light, and cash for 72 hours.