You will need shelter in any emergency situation, whether you end up spending 3 days or 3 months surviving a disaster. Speaking of 3s, you can survive at least 3 weeks without emergency food, and only 3 days without emergency water. But after just 3 hours without a regulated body temperature (shelter), your chances for survival plummet rapidly. And any survival expert or disaster preparedness veteran will tell you that prioritizing your basic survival skills means the following as far as emergency supplies goes – get shelter first, then water, then food.

You may be fortunate enough to be able to stay in your present living quarters when disaster strikes. But how do you know that will be the case? You need to prepare a minimum mobile emergency shelter, such as a sleeping bag and tent, for you and everyone in your family just in case. And even if you have built a survival shelter and stocked it with 10 years of food and supplies, you should definitely pick up a couple of emergency preparedness books which teach you how to build a survival shelter in both urban and rural environments. You just never know where you will be when disaster forces you into a survival situation.

What to Remember When Building an Emergency Shelter

What considerations should you allow for when you are building your own emergency shelter? You want to make sure that you hunker down away from any hazards. This also means getting off the beaten path, where you can exist without worrying about other post-disaster survivors making life even more difficult for you. You also want to insulate yourself properly from the elements. Which way does the wind blow? Where does the sun rise? Is the front of your tent facing down-slope? If you do not have enough water, you need to be near a replenishing source. Heat, either captured and stored from your own body or from fire, is also an emergency shelter consideration.

Clothes – Your Basic Emergency Shelter Consideration

And while you may not think of clothing as shelter, that is exactly what it is. Human beings wear clothes to shelter them from the elements, like the sun, rain and cold. This means that your survival preparedness plans should include durable and smart clothing for your particular environment. The clothes on your back or in your bug out bag may be the only shelter you have until you can create your own, or you make your way to your predesignated bug out location.

A mylar space blanket provides an incredibly inexpensive but well insulated shelter in a pinch. At bare minimum, you should provide a tarp, sleeping bag and tent space for everyone in your family. Do not worry about money here. There are many budget-friendly emergency shelter products available for convenient purchase online. For instance, a 2 person tube tent can be found for under $10. Heavy duty travel blankets and sleeping bags start at around $20. A solar emergency blanket which can be used as shelter will also cost you less than $10 in most situations.

You can even purchase pre-made shelters, shacks and buildings which were designed with disaster survival in mind. The key is in planning ahead. First accumulate the basics that your family will need and get them as quickly as possible. Then you can begin to prepare for extended, long-term emergency survival, creating a permanent shelter that can weather the elements. You never know where or when you are going to experience a survival shelter situation, so get prepared now.