{"id":293325,"date":"2025-10-11T00:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T00:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293325\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T00:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T00:48:10","slug":"disaster-go-bag-what-to-include-and-how-to-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293325\/","title":{"rendered":"Disaster go-bag: What to include and how to plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This story is part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/whyy-news-climate-desk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>WHYY News Climate Desk<\/strong><\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n<p>From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\"><strong>Get in touch<\/strong><\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Picture this: A hurricane is barreling toward your community, and local emergency managers are telling people to evacuate. You decide to pack your family and pets into the car and hit the road. What do you bring with you?\n<\/p>\n<p>You could decide what to bring in the moment. Or you could decide before disaster strikes.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Disaster experts say packing a go-bag or emergency kit ahead of time is a good way to reduce stress during an evacuation, keep your family safe and comfortable if you\u2019re displaced and even help you recover from a disaster.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou never know when something could happen,\u201d said Taylor Quinland, project manager for place-based initiatives with Philadelphia\u2019s Office of Sustainability. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to get caught in a situation where you\u2019re suddenly having to think about what you need, when you need it.\u201d<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-718716\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/taylor-quinland-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Quinland, project manager for place-based initiatives with Philadelphia's Office of Sustainability, holds a tool that can break a car window and cut a seat belt in an emergency\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"  \/>Taylor Quinland, project manager for place-based initiatives with Philadelphia\u2019s Office of Sustainability, holds a tool that can break a car window and cut a seat belt in an emergency, such as a flash flood. The city distributed the tools as part of mini go-bags at a preparedness event in Eastwick earlier this month. (Sophia Schmidt\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what to consider when packing a go-bag.\n<\/p>\n<p>What is a go-bag?<\/p>\n<p>A go-bag is meant to provide your family with essentials in the event that you have to leave your home during a disaster such as a storm, flood or tornado. Go-bags can also work for other emergencies, such as power outages, gas leaks or a house fire next door.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou may have a few hours to prepare. You may have just a few minutes,\u201d said Alyssa Provencio, a professor of political science and director of the disaster management certificate at the University of Central Oklahoma. \u201cThat\u2019s when a go-bag is really helpful.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Go-bags can be useful when evacuating to a public shelter or to a friend\u2019s house, Provencio said.\n<\/p>\n<p>The supplies in your go-bag should last your family around 72 hours, said Jonathan Sury, a senior staff associate at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University.\u00a0 Anything beyond that and the bag may get too heavy to carry.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe items in the go-bag are really to help protect and preserve you and your family while you are displaced from your home,\u201d Sury said. \u201cThey\u2019re stop-gap measures.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":293326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,8072,8340,5522,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,49740],"class_list":{"0":"post-293325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-floods","10":"tag-house-fire","11":"tag-hurricane","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115352784793888113","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}