Watching the heartbreaking news about the Kumamoto area after the earthquake the last few days. It has my mind back on our emergency supplies and kit for earthquakes. It is not a bad thing to make sure it is all set up considering the amount of quakes in Japan. Watching the people in Kumamoto deal with things has me thinking about two main areas.

The first is our emergency bag/kit. I would say it is pretty good but could be reorganized and leveled up. We definitely need to get a lot more water and food, I think. The recommendation is enough for a week, which we do not have currently. Also, we need to put some more clothes in it as well.

That could easily be solved with a simple solar panel and battery set up.

The second area is power. Watching the reports talk about struggles people are having, I kept thinking, "That could easily be solved with a simple solar panel and battery set up."

It has pushed me to the "going to just buy" level. I love solar panels anyways, so even if we never need it in an emergency, I will still play with it because it is fun/useful.

It could power the a/c in this room and heater, which are both like space heaters/coolers. They both use a lot of power, so I can justify the purchase just for those two units.

Then, if the power should go out, we'd have enough power to keep the fridge cool at least. We have a plug-in IH cooktop we could power for cooking and water boiling. We have a bunch of portable phone batteries with USC-C connectors to charge. LED Christmas lights for nighttime don't use lots of power.

After a quick bit of research, I am thinking about getting an Anker Solix S2000 and a 400W solar panel. The panel could change after some more digging around.