Sources & References

Official sources from CDC, American Red Cross, FEMA, USA.gov, and other emergency-management organizations referenced in our checklists and guides.

About this page

Overview

Official sources from CDC, American Red Cross, FEMA, USA.gov, and other emergency-management organizations referenced in our checklists and guides.

Sources behind the EmergencyKit.app checklist

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The CDC publishes preparedness guidance that focuses on protecting health before, during, and after a disaster. We use the CDC's "Personal Health Preparedness" and "Emergency Supplies" pages as the source of truth for medical supplies, sanitation items, and disease-prevention recommendations on the checklist.

American Red Cross

The American Red Cross publishes one of the most widely-used emergency-kit lists in the United States. Their guidance forms the backbone of the food, water, shelter, and family-communication recommendations on EmergencyKit.app.

USA.gov / Ready.gov

Ready.gov, run by FEMA, consolidates U.S. federal-government guidance on disaster preparedness. It is the source for evacuation planning, alert sign-up, and disaster-specific risk information that we surface in the preparedness guides.

BBK (Germany) and MSB (Sweden)

For an international perspective, we cross-reference the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. Both publish detailed household-preparedness brochures with strong overlap with the U.S. lists, plus a handful of items uncommon in U.S. guidance such as cash reserves and battery-powered radios tuned to local emergency frequencies.

Updates

The checklist is reviewed at least annually and whenever any of the source organisations updates its public guidance.

About the EmergencyKit.app checklist

How we built it

EmergencyKit.app combines the official emergency-kit recommendations published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Red Cross, USA.gov's Ready.gov campaign, and the German Federal Office of Civil Protection (BBK) and Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). Each item on the checklist is tagged with the organisations that recommend it so you can see at a glance how well-supported it is.

The 20% body-weight rule

A go-bag should weigh no more than roughly 20% of the carrier's body weight. Above that threshold, evacuating on foot becomes painful, slow, and risky for older or smaller adults and for children. The weight checker on the homepage estimates your kit's total weight from the items you select and warns you when you cross the limit, so you can swap heavier items for lighter alternatives before you actually need to leave.

Three days, then more

The baseline kit covers a 72-hour window because that is how long it typically takes public services to restore basic supplies after a major disaster. Households in high-risk regions for hurricanes, wildfires, or earthquakes should plan for at least two weeks of food, water, and prescription medication on top of the baseline kit.