The One Item Every Family Needs In Their Emergency Kits
I'm 68. I've raised three kids and lived through more floods, storms and blackouts than I can count. This year I finally did the one thing I should have done decades ago.
This year has felt different.
War in the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz closed. Oil past $100 a barrel for the first time in years. Grocery prices climbing every time I go to the store. Forty thousand flights canceled.
Robert reads the news out loud over breakfast now. Most mornings I ask him to stop.
I'm not a worrier. You don't get to 68 as a worrier. But I've been around long enough to know what it looks like when things start to wobble.
I've sat out hurricane warnings with three kids under the kitchen table. I've had the power go out for a week after a storm. I've lost count of the boil water notices.
And if there's one thing all those years taught me, it's this.
It's never the food that runs out first. It's the water.
The last time a big storm came through, the bottled water was gone from our grocery store before lunch. Not low. Gone. I remember standing in that aisle looking at empty shelves, thinking about my kids.
They're grown up now. They have kids of their own. Seven grandchildren, across three different houses. Two of them arrived this year.
And that's what changed everything for me.
Because when something happens now, I can't get to all of them. Some days I'd struggle to get to one.
"When they were little, I could keep them safe. Now they're spread across three houses, and I had to ask myself: who's looking after the water?"
What I Didn't Know About Our Tap Water
So I did what I always do when something's bothering me. I sat down and read everything I could find.
I'd always assumed tap water was either on or off. Safe or not safe.
That's not how it works.
Water treatment needs electricity. Pumps, chemical feeders, filters, all of it. When the power goes out and stays out, the treatment starts failing. Within 24 to 48 hours, what comes out of your tap may no longer be treated at all.
It might still run. It might look perfectly fine.
But it's no longer safe to drink without boiling it first.
And if the power's out, you may not be able to boil it.
Source: Texas 2021 winter storm reporting
The part that really stopped me was this: it doesn't fail one house at a time. It fails for everyone at once. Our place, our daughter's place, our son's place across town. Nobody can drive over with a case of water, because everyone's in the same boat.
Our House Was Covered. The Grandkids Weren't.
Robert was quite proud of our water supply. Three cases in the garage.
Then I did the math.
The Honest Math: Our Garage
| Supply | Lasts a family of four |
|---|---|
| 1 case (24 x 16.9oz) | about 1 day |
| 3 cases in the garage | about 3.5 days |
| How long Texas water was unsafe in some areas (2021) | up to 42 days |
Three and a half days. And that was only if everyone could get to our garage.
So I asked myself a different question. Not how much water do we have. Where is everyone when it happens?
On a normal Tuesday afternoon:
- Robert's at golf
- I'm at home
- The older grandkids are at school
- The little ones are at their houses, one of them an hour away
Our three cases of water were sitting in one garage. They weren't going to help a single one of those children.
Our plan covered our house. It didn't cover our people.
The Little Blue Straw
The answer, it turned out, wasn't more bottles.
Everything I read said the same thing. The families who got through long water outages weren't the ones with the biggest stockpiles. Those ran out in a few days. They were the ones who could make water safe from whatever was nearby.
A rainwater tank. A creek. A neighbor's pool.
Water is everywhere. The problem is making it safe to drink.
That's where the filter straw comes in. It looks like nothing much. A little blue tube about the length of a pencil. But inside is a membrane with holes so small that bacteria and parasites physically can't fit through.
"It's not chemistry. It's geometry. The holes are smaller than the germs."
You put one end in the water and drink through the other. No batteries. No power. No tablets. Nothing to boil.
Robert, being Robert, didn't believe it. So he tested it on our rainwater tank in the backyard.
He took a sip, thought about it, and said, "Tastes like water."
Which, from Robert, is high praise.
So We Bought One For Each Of Them
This is the part I want every grandparent to hear.
A straw is personal. One person drinks through it, wherever they are. It can't be passed around a family spread across three houses.
So one in our drawer wasn't going to do it.
We bought one for every grandchild. Robert wrote their names on little tags and we tucked one into each of their emergency kits. School bags for the older ones. The diaper bag for the baby.
When the two new ones arrived this year, we added two more. Seven in total.
They each have one.
"It's the cheapest bit of peace of mind I've ever bought. And the only present the grandkids will never grow out of."
The One We Chose: ClearX Pro™ from Standby Supply
There are plenty of filter straws out there. Most are made for camping trips. We went with the ClearX Pro™ from Standby Supply for three reasons:
It lasts. Each straw filters up to 400 gallons. That's a long time for one child.
It never expires. No shelf life. It sits in a kit for years and works the day you need it.
It's simple enough for a child. Our eldest grandson worked it out in about ten seconds.
- Filters down to 0.1 microns, smaller than bacteria and parasites
- Removes E. coli, Giardia, Salmonella, Cryptosporidium, Cholera
- 400 gallons per straw
- Weighs 2 ounces. Fits a school bag, purse, glove compartment or emergency kit
- No power, no batteries, no chemicals, no setup
- No shelf life
- Lifetime guarantee. If it ever fails, it's replaced
How many people are you looking after?
Count your immediate household. We recommend two straws per person, one to keep at home and one in the car, so nobody's ever caught without one.
Looking after more than 4? Add 2 straws for every extra person, one for home, one for the car.
Lifetime Warranty · 30-Day Returns · Free Shipping
What Other Families Are Saying
"I was skeptical. I'm a pretty rational person and 'emergency prep' content usually sets off my alarm bells. But the math on the stored water thing got me. We had maybe two days. Tested the ClearX on our rainwater tank. Tasted completely normal. Ordered four more for the family."
James T., Charleston, SC
[INSERT REAL REVIEW: a grandparent or parent who bought for another household. Search your review platform for "grandkids", "each", "one for", "my parents".]
[Name, Location]
"Former Army. I've used filters like this in the field. The ClearX Pro™ is the same technology, consumer packaged, at a fraction of the price. It does exactly what it says. Every household should have at least two."
David M., Scottsdale, AZ
"We had a major flood event cut off our town's water supply for 11 days. I'd bought the ClearX Pro™ six months earlier after reading something like this article. My family had clean water the entire time. Neighbors were lining up at relief trucks from day two. I will never not have one of these in my home."
Karen R., Asheville, NC
[INSERT REAL REVIEW: a parent who put one in each child's school bag or kit.]
[Name, Location]
"My husband said I was being dramatic. Then we had a 5-day power outage after a storm and the city put out a boil water advisory. He's the one telling our neighbors about it now."
Michelle D., Baton Rouge, LA
One Last Thing
I'm not a prepper. I don't have a bunker. I don't have a year of tinned food under the house.
I'm just a grandmother who's seen enough to know that the water is always the first thing to go.
So let me ask you the question I asked myself.
If the tap water stopped being safe tomorrow, and your family wasn't all under one roof, who would have a way to make it safe?
Go through them one by one. You. Your partner. Your kids. Your grandkids.
For us, the honest answer used to be nobody.
Now it's all seven.
Test one on your rainwater tank or the creek down the road. Then put one in every kit, and don't think about it again.
Until the day you need it. And then you'll be very glad you did.
Standby Supply offer a 30-day money back guarantee and a lifetime warranty, so there's nothing to lose by trying.
Cover Your Whole Family
Seven straws. Seven grandchildren. One less thing to worry about.
Cover Your Whole Family, Risk Free →