Basic Emergency Preparation – Shelter

If you’re stuck out in extreme cold or extreme heat without shelter, you can die. Then you’d be a dead survivalist. Don’t die. Instead, let’s be ready to shelter in an emergency.

We sometimes take for granted the benefit of reliable shelter. It’s handy to have a roof over our heads. Our ancient ancestors appreciated the value of shelter, and primitive cultures all over the world developed shelter solutions to fit their environments and the materials they had at-hand. The wide range of shelters used by our ancestors demonstrates their universal appeal: Wigwams, teepees, yurts, pueblos, lean-to’s, dugouts, igloos, hogans… And who doesn’t love a good cave?

Shelter is important for many reasons. It keeps us warm and dry when it’s cold and wet. It keeps us cool when it’s hot and dry. Shelter gives us a place to keep our stuff, some protection from danger, and the comfort of stability in our place in the world. There’s no place like home.

Lack of appropriate shelter is a common cause of suffering and death in emergencies, for all the reasons we want to build shelter in normal times. Without shelter, we get too cold or too hot. We don’t have a place to keep our stuff and ourselves safe, and we are… well, homeless. So we need to have a reliable shelter.

Different kinds of emergencies impact our shelter needs in different ways. In some cases, an emergency will require that we stay home when it’s hot outside, when it’s cold, when there is a pandemic or a storm or some sort of environmental danger. In other cases we may have to leave our house, perhaps with little or no notice. Sometimes you can’t leave, sometimes you don’t want to leave, and sometimes you MUST leave and find shelter elsewhere.

In this series, we’ll talk about basic preparation both from two different perspectives:

• Staying home, either because you want to or because you have to.
• Being away from home in an emergency, and keeping sheltered while on the move.

Emergency Shelter at Home

You’re probably already prepared to shelter at home for most circumstances. Your home is where you keep your clothes and your bedding. If the power and gas are on, you are probably able to stay comfortable. If the power and gas go out, you can probably still stay warm or cool enough to be safe. Just to be comprehensive here are some things you need to have on-hand:

• Warm Clothes
• Warm Boots / Shoes
• Warm Hat
• Warm Blankets
• Cool Clothes
• Washcloth to take ‘Sponge Bath’

Emergency Shelter Away From Home

Sheltering away from home is a great example of where skills and preparation win out over stuff. A tarp is an extremely handy shelter. Give me a tarp and a rope, and I can probably keep warm and dry. I can also use that tarp to stay out of the sun if it’s hot outside. If I leave the house in a hurry, I’m definitely grabbing a tarp. It’s actually one of a dozen items in my Go Bag. But let’s be honest – I’m not carrying a tarp with me when I leave the house for work tomorrow.

You need to be ready to improvise shelter in a variety of circumstances. Here are some examples:

• I drive to work, so my truck is a shelter.
• If I ever need to leave my truck and walk to shelter / safety, I have a tarp, rope, rain jacket, hat, and other essentials in my truck.
• In Pre-Pandemic world, I frequently traveled for work. The Transportation Safety Administration limits the items I can carry on an airplane (and I don’t like carrying tons of extra stuff anyway) but I still pack some essential items (hat, jacket, walking shoes, matches, paracord) in case of an emergency. If push comes to shove, I know I can grab a shower curtain, bedding, and other items from my hotel room to keep warm.
• Among the items I carry with me when I’m outdoors, I won’t hike without a rain jacket, hat, and fire-starting materials. If I’m ever caught in the elements, I can improvise a shelter and stay warm.

You’ll probably notice a trend here: Hat. Raincoat. Fire starting materials. With a few lightweight and convenient items (along with a little bit of knowledge) I’m ready to improvise adequate shelter in most circumstances.

Adjusting for Your Climate

I live in San Antonio. I frequently work in places like Erie, Pennsylvania and Omaha, Nebraska. I’ve also worked in Las Vegas, Seattle, and Sacramento. As you can imagine, your needs for shelter at home and on the road are very different depending on the climate you’re sheltered in.

In other words, the basics in San Antonio may not prepare you for sheltering in a snowstorm in Hartford CT. You should adjust accordingly as you plan for shelter in an emergency.

City	Local Climate Concern	Adjust Your Basic Shelter Preparations:
San Antonio	Heat / Sun	Sun covering / shade Loose, light clothes Battery-powered fans Cool sponge-baths
Seattle	Cold, Damp Rain	Better rain gear Firewood (if you have a fireplace or wood-burning stove) Portable heaters (if they are safe for your situation)
Hartford	Snow	Snow gear / Snow boots More warm clothing Firewood (if you have a fireplace or wood-burning stove) Portable heaters (if they are safe for your situation)
Omaha	Snow, Wind	Windbreaker More warm clothing Firewood (if you have a fireplace or wood-burning stove) Portable heaters (if they are safe for your situation)

These are some examples, but you should carefully think through the extremes you’re likely to encounter where you live and where you travel. Don’t just prepare for what’s normal – provision for calamity. While it doesn’t NORMALLY snow in Central Texas, I promise you it happens. And when it does, it’s disruptive.

A Checklist for Basic Shelter Preparation

Here is a list of things you will need to do and acquire for Basic Shelter Preparation.

You can also take a look at our checklist page for more comprehensive checklists.

Featured Image: I, Sbrools, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons