72-Hour Kit Checklist for a Family of Four

The household checklist, counted for one specific house: two adults, two kids, three days, in bins. Everything here comes from our post What Should Be in a 72-Hour Emergency Kit for a Family of 4? — the same Ready.gov arithmetic (a gallon of water and about 2,000 calories per person per day), multiplied by four people and three days, with the kid-specific edges the general list cannot carry.

Version 1.0 — October 30, 2026. Tick each item as you confirm it is in place. The full list this variant was drawn from is the The Household Emergency Checklist — also printable as a PDF (v1.0).

The count for four

• 12 gallons of water, stored — One gallon per person per day, times four people, times three days. Cool, dark place, food-grade containers or unopened bottled water; write the month on tape on the lid and replace home-filled water about every six months.
• Water for the pets, on top — The one-gallon figure covers people only. Pets get their own extra water, three days of their food, and their medicines, leash, and carrier counted with the kit.
• 36 meals — about 24,000 calories — Three meals a day for four people for three days, from food that needs no fridge and little or no cooking: canned meats, beans, peanut butter, crackers, dried fruit, shelf-stable milk. Food your family already eats, rotated through the kitchen.
• Energy bars on the no-cook shelf — Millennium energy bars are one of the four bought items our 72-hour kit post carries — the shelf layer that works with zero cooking at all.
• A manual can opener, plus paper plates and cups — The electric opener is furniture in an outage. Paper plates and cups save drinking water that would otherwise go to washing up.

Kids, counted first

• Ready-to-feed formula and diapers, if there is a baby — Ready-to-feed, because safe water for mixing may be scarce.
• Each child’s daily medicine, counted before the general kit — Count the children’s medicines first, before the first aid kit — plus at least three days of every person’s prescriptions for the whole family.
• A comfort item and something to do for each child — Books, cards, a game. Small, personal, and worth more on day two than most gear.
• Each child’s small things in their own pouch inside the bin — So a grab-and-go moment does not become a sorting exercise.

Light, news, and phones

• One main lantern for the room everyone gathers in — Our kit post’s lantern pick is the Goal Zero Lighthouse 600 — its low setting is rated in hundreds of hours, which is the setting an outage actually uses.
• A plain light in each bedroom and the bathroom — Layers, not one hero lantern — plus spare batteries stored beside each light, not in a different drawer.
• A weather radio programmed for your county — The Midland WR120B is how the house learns whether the storm has passed and whether the water is safe when phones and internet are down.
• One large power bank, one charging window a day — The Anker PowerCore 20000 covers several full phone charges. Low-power mode, and texts instead of calls — texts slip through a congested network that voice calls cannot.

Bins, warmth, and the paper layer

• The whole kit in one or two easy-to-carry bins, in one closet — One place everyone in the house can find in the dark — not spread across four rooms.
• A blanket or sleeping bag for each person — Four sets, one per person. A house without heat cools faster than people expect.
• A basic first aid kit, and a spare pair of glasses for anyone who wears them — The unglamorous half of the kit is the half that keeps small problems small.
• Sanitation basics: moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties, soap, hand sanitizer, toilet paper — The exact items Ready.gov lists for personal sanitation when the water is off.
• Copies of insurance policies, identification, and bank details in a waterproof pouch — Plus a written list of family contacts, with one out-of-area person everyone checks in with.
• $300 in small bills — Mostly fives and ones, nothing over a twenty — three days of essential spending if the card machines are down.
• The twice-a-year check — Swap the stored water, eat down and replace the food before its dates, test the lantern and radio, and re-count the medicines after any prescription change.

Recheck twice a year — the weekends the clocks change are the usual anchor — because batteries fade, food ages out, and seasons turn.

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