Grab Bag - What is it and what to put in it?
What is a Grab Bag and why would you need one?There’s a loud, urgent banging on your front door. The doorbell rings, over and over. You fumble to turn the light-switch on, pull on a pair of jeans, stumble down the stairs and open the door to be faced by emergency services personnel. You have to leave. You have just a few minutes to gather your family, your pets, whatever else you need and walk out of the door. What would you take? In the last twelve months, right here in the UK, emergency evacuations and relocations have been ordered for safety reasons in the face of fires, floods, gas leaks, chemical spills, building structural failures and explosions. |
| Emergency services are recommending that households, businesses and even schools have a grab-bag to hand containing ‘essentials’ in case of emergency evacuation, with many suggesting that an emergency grab bag is a useful addition to vehicles (cars, vans, lorries), particularly during winter months, but what would you pack in your grab bag? Every pack, every grab bag, would differ in size and content depending on the number of people to be catered for and taking in to account any particular ‘special’ requirements, but British emergency services are recommending a generic contents list which can be scaled and tailored to suit. The list of grab-bag contents isn’t designed for dramatic post-apocalyptic ‘zombie-apocalypse’ situations, the development of a grab-bag is being recommended for scenarios which have a higher probability of occurring, from an emergency evacuation to getting stuck in your car in bad weather. The purpose of the grab-bag is to increase personal, family and community resilience so that if an evacuation situation should ever arise, then the impact is reduced. What would you add to the list to suit you and your family? Join the discussion in our KarrimorSF Facebook community and let us know your thoughts. |
Suggested Grab or Go Bag contents:
|
| For the grab-bag itself, we recommend packs from the Karrimor SF ‘Nordic’ range. Our Nordic range of rucksacks and daypacks use a ‘clamshell’ opening system - the zipper pulls all around the front of the pack - which gives you immediate entry to the entire capacity of the interior space, making it easy to compartmentalise, view and access the full contents of your grab-bag. The smallest daypack in the KarrimorSF ‘Nordic’ range is the Modi 15, a fifteen litre volume pack which would offer sufficient capacity for a small occupancy household or property and would be a perfect size for a grab-bag to be carried in a vehicle. To scale up your emergency grab bag for larger occupancy premises we also have the ‘Magni 25’, ‘Thor 40’ and ‘Odin 75’ rucksacks in the Nordic range with the same ‘clamshell opening’ design. Your emergency grab-bag should be periodically checked to verify that your listed contents are present and that perishable or time-sensitive items, such as food, first aid or medical products, are still in date. Everyone in the property should know the location of and be able to access your emergency grab-bag and we suggest clearly labelling your go-bag with a customisable and easily visible tag from KitTags. |
| Don’t forget to join the discussion about grab-bags in our Facebook community. Be safe! Further reading gov.uk https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/preparing-for-emergencies/preparing-for-emergencies First Aid Training http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/training-courses.aspx Kent Fire and Rescue https://www.kent.fire-uk.org/your-safety/business-safety/top-tips-for-businesses/preparing-an-emergency-grab-bag/ Follow on Twitter: #30days30ways #30days30waysuk #grabbag |
