The home emergency kit, step by step

How long should you plan for? What different governments advise

There isn't one right answer, and I'm not going to give you one. Governments looking at the same kinds of risk (storms, long power cuts, water outages, cyber attacks) land on different numbers, from three days to ten. Here is what each one says, so you can pick a period that suits your home, your storage space and your budget. Whatever you choose, it's built the same way: a little extra with each normal shop.

Checked against each government's own website on 3 November 2026. Wording is summarised and translated where needed; follow the links for the full advice. Where a page doesn't give a figure, the table says so instead of guessing.

Whatever number you choose, three things are worth knowing. Responders put the people most at risk first, so every household that can manage for a while frees them up. Most outages last hours, and some last days; Storm Éowyn left some Northern Ireland homes without power for ten days. And a household with nothing put by starts to struggle quickly. The rest of this page deals with those problems: flat phones, no hot food, no news, and no way to boil water.

Water

The UK figure is 3 litres per person per day for drinking, plus some for cooking, teeth and the dog. For a family of four that's 12 litres a day before anything else; multiply by the number of days you've chosen from the table above. In the Cabinet Office's 2026 survey, 4% of UK adults said they had three days' bottled water at home. It's also the cheapest thing on this page: 5-litre supermarket bottles, a few at a time, rotated once a year.

• Bottled drinking water: 3 L per person per day, plus about 1 L a day per dog, for the period you're planning for. Supermarket own-brand 5 L bottles. Store cool and dark, off a concrete floor, away from cleaning chemicals.
• One 25 L food-grade container with a tap. Fill it from the kitchen tap the moment a warning comes in. Empty between uses so it doesn't go stale.25 L food-grade jerry can with tap ador6 × 25 L stackable jerry cans ad
• Water purification tablets. For when you're filling from a water bowser, a neighbour's tank or the bath. Kills bacteria and viruses.Aquatabs ×50 in my kit adorOasis purification tablets ad

More on quantities, filters and the bath trick on the water page.

Light and power

Be Ready says it plainly: torches, not candles. Candle fires and generator fumes killed people during the Iberian blackout. A household needs one head torch per adult (hands free for the stairs and the nappy), one lantern for the room everyone sits in, and a power bank big enough to recharge two phones twice.

• A 20,000 mAh power bank, kept charged. Charge it on the first of every month when you check the smoke alarm. Two phones, two full charges each.Anker Zolo 20,000 mAh in my kit adorINIU 20,000 mAh (budget) adorAnker 20K 87W ad
• A head torch per adult. Cheap LED ones are fine. Keep one in the bedside drawer.Lepro rechargeable head torch ×2 in my kit adorBlukar rechargeable head torch ×2 adorLedlenser HF4R (USB-C) ad
• One LED lantern for the living room. So everyone can sit together in the light.Solar / hand-crank / USB camping lantern in my kit adorflintronic USB lantern ×2 adorLedlenser ML4 (runs on AA) ad
• Spare AA and AAA batteries, sealed. Keep them out of the torches until needed; batteries left in unused torches leak.Duracell Plus AA ×24 ad

Knowing what's going on

When the power goes, broadband goes with it and mobile masts follow a few hours later when their batteries run down. The government's answer is a battery or wind-up radio tuned to local BBC. Buy one with AM and FM; DAB chews batteries and local stations stay on FM in an emergency.

• An FM/AM radio with a wind-up handle. Write the local BBC frequency on a bit of tape on the back.Mesqool wind-up AM/FM radio, 12,000 mAh in my kit adorDuronic Apex AM/FM wind-up radio adorMesqool DAB/FM solar radio ad
• A paper list of the numbers you'd need. 105 for power cuts, Floodline 0345 988 1188, your water company, the GP, school, partner, parents, the neighbour. Free.
• Emergency Alerts turned on and ICE contacts set on every phone. Free. Two minutes per phone.

Warmth

Most UK central heating needs electricity even if the boiler is gas. In a January power cut the house is cold within hours. The guidance for older people and babies is to keep one room at 18 °C; the practical version is blankets, layers and hot water bottles filled from the camping stove.

• Foil emergency blankets, one per person. They weigh almost nothing and fit in the grab bag.Bramble foil blankets ×10 adorFoil blankets multipack ad
• A fleece blanket per person, or sleeping bags. You probably own these already; make sure you know where they are.Bedsure fleece throw ad
• A hot water bottle per bed. Never with an electric blanket at the same time.Fashy 2 L hot water bottle ad

Food you can eat cold

Food that needs no fridge and no cooking, enough for the period you've chosen. Tinned fish, beans, fruit in juice, peanut butter, cereal bars, long-life milk, biscuits, and whatever your children will actually eat when they're cross and it's dark. A camping stove turns the whole store cupboard back on, but only if you keep the gas and only ever use it with a window open. The bigger store-cupboard larder, with quantities per adult, is on the food page.

• No-cook food for each person, for the period you're planning for. Write the date on each tin with a marker. Eat from the front.
• A manual tin opener that lives with the tins. Easy to forget until you're holding a tin you can't open.KitchenCraft heavy-duty tin opener ad
• A single-burner gas stove and four cartridges. Cooking, hot water bottles, tea. Window open, never in a sealed room, never in a tent indoors: carbon monoxide.GREEN HAVEN camping stove + 4 butane in my kit adorCampingaz Camp Bistro 3 adorCampingaz Camping Chef 2-burner ad
• A carbon monoxide alarm in the room you'd cook in. Fit one if you own the stove.FireAngel CO alarm (10-year) adorKidde 5CO alarm ad

Money and paperwork

If the power or the banking systems go down, cards, apps and cash machines can stop with them. Be Ready asks every household to keep some cash and printed copies of important documents. Two old-fashioned extras are worth having too: a cheque book, if your bank still issues one, and a recent printed bank statement. The reasons, and the limits, are on the house page.

• Notes and coins, enough for a few days of bread, milk and a taxi. £40 to £100 depending on the household. Free, apart from the discipline of not spending it.
• Copies of passports, birth certificates, insurance, prescriptions, in one waterproof pouch. Photograph them too, but phones die.JUNDUN fireproof, waterproof document bag adorJUNDUN fireproof document box with lock adorMaster Lock fire & water chest ad
• A written list of everyone's regular medicines and doses. Be Ready asks for this specifically. On the fridge and in the pouch.
• A cheque book, if your bank offers one. A back-up for paying people who know you. Most shops no longer take cheques, so it doesn't replace cash.
• A recent printed statement for each main account, in the pouch. Replace it every few months and shred the old one. It shows what you had if online banking is down for a while.
• Your bank's phone number and your account details, written on paper. Free. With the other numbers.

First aid and medicines

A proper first aid kit, a digital thermometer, and a sensible supply of the over-the-counter basics: paracetamol and ibuprofen (adult and children's), antihistamines, rehydration sachets, plasters. Order repeat prescriptions at least five working days before they run out, and keep a week in hand if your GP will allow it. Always read the label; ask a pharmacist, not a website, about doses.

• A family first aid kit. Plasters, dressings, bandages, antiseptic, gloves, tweezers, eyewash, tape.General Medi 210-piece first aid kit in my kit adorSt John Ambulance large kit adorLifesystems waterproof first aid kit ad
• A digital thermometer with a battery that works. Check it now.Omron Eco Temp digital thermometer ad
• Over-the-counter basics for adults and children, in date. Buy at the pharmacy or supermarket with your normal shop. Not linked here on purpose.

Hygiene and the loo

When the water is off, the loo will flush once and then stop. It's easy to leave off the list, so put it on now. A bucket with a lid, heavy-duty bin bags, wet wipes and hand sanitiser keep everyone well while the water is off.

• Wet wipes and hand sanitiser, a pack of each put aside. Supermarket. Part of the weekly shop.
• A bucket toilet with a lid and a roll of heavy-duty bin bags. Double-bag, tie, store outside. Cat litter or sawdust in the bag helps.Bucket toilet with lid adorThetford Porta Potti 335 ad

Children, pets and parents

That covers the house. Now the parts the official list treats as a single line each: your children, your pets and your parents.