7 Reasons The Red Cross Lists Sanitation Supplies In Every Home Emergency Kit — And Almost No American Has Them
As a 24-year Red Cross Disaster Relief Coordinator, I've seen it all.
- Hurricanes.
- Ice storms.
- Extended grid failures that lasted days longer than anyone expected.
I've walked through neighborhoods in the aftermath across 14 states.
I've sat with hundreds of families in the days after an emergency.
And in 24 years, the thing that blindsides people most, every single time, isn't the storm.
It's the bathroom.
Specifically, the moment a family realizes their toilet stopped working and nobody has a plan for what comes next.
I've seen it happen to families who spent months preparing.
- Pantries rotated for months.
- Careful water storage.
- Generators.
- Go-bags by the front door.
Families who took this seriously and did the work, and still broke on day two — because nobody planned for the one thing every person in the house needs within four hours of an outage.
And almost every time, it traces back to one line on a supply list they already had — and skipped.
Here are the 7 things I want every American family to understand about emergency sanitation, before the next outage.
It's Right There On The Red Cross List. Almost Every Family Skips It.
The Red Cross recommends every American household keep 2 weeks of emergency supplies.
You've probably seen the list:
- Food
- Water
- First aid
- Flashlights
And right there on the same list — sanitation supplies.
Almost nobody has them.
When I walk into a home after a disaster, I can usually tell within a minute how well a family prepared. And the picture is almost always the same:
- Two weeks of food.
- A case of water.
- A flashlight with dead batteries.
- And nothing for sanitation.
Not because these families didn't try…
Because it's the one line on the list that never feels like an emergency item — it feels like something you'll figure out when the time comes.
You won't. The time comes about 4 hours in.
The Standby Supply kit is the simplest way I've found to close that gap.
- A black waste liner
- Absorbent material that contains liquid and reduces mess
- An outer disposal bag, toilet paper, and a personal wipe
Everything for one complete use, sealed and ready. No plumbing. No water. No setup required.
Sanitation is on the list because every major disaster proves why it belongs there. Don't skip that line.
Your Toilet Doesn't Run On Water. It Runs On Infrastructure — And Infrastructure Fails.
This is the thing I explain at every community preparedness briefing, and it surprises people every single time.
When the grid goes down, that entire chain stops.
In Hurricane Irma, one Florida county had around 200 sewer pumps lose power at once.
In 2024, St. Petersburg, Florida issued notices to thousands of households with one instruction: DO NOT FLUSH.
Not because the water was gone, but because flushing would push sewage back up through the pipes and into their homes.
And if you think you'll flush manually with your stored water, the math doesn't work.
A standard toilet uses roughly a gallon and a half per flush. A family of four, flushing normally, can exhaust a full day's stored drinking water before lunch.
Do the math: about 1.5 gallons per flush × 4 people × 5 trips a day = roughly 30 gallons a day poured down the toilet — about what a family of four is told to store for a whole week of drinking (1 gallon per person per day).
The Standby Supply kit requires no water, no pressure, and nothing going down the drain.
This is exactly why it belongs in every emergency supply setup — not as a backup to the backup, but as a planned, ready solution.
The Bucket-And-Trash-Bag Plan Fails. I've Seen It Fail In The Field.
I don't say this to embarrass anyone. The bucket plan is what most people land on because it's the first answer that comes to mind.
But I've seen it play out in real emergencies, and it fails almost immediately.
A standard trash bag isn't designed for waste containment.
- It shifts.
- It doesn't handle liquid.
- It tears when someone tries to lift it.
After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a sewage-borne cholera outbreak killed nearly 10,000 people. Not the earthquake. The sanitation failure that followed.
That's an extreme example. But the principle holds at every scale.
The problem isn't solid waste. It's liquid.
And that's what a trash bag cannot control.
The Standby Supply liner includes absorbent material specifically engineered to contain liquid waste.
It turns a free-liquid mess into something solid, sealed, and manageable.
The difference between a trash bag and the right liner is the difference between a situation that's managed and one that isn't.
One Kit. Five Components. Works For Every Member Of Your Household.
In disaster relief, we plan for the most vulnerable person in the household — not the most capable one.
A solution that works for a healthy adult but not for an elderly parent isn't a solution.
A plan that requires someone to crouch outside in the dark doesn't work for a child, for someone with mobility limitations, or for anyone who needs privacy and dignity in an already difficult situation.
The Standby Supply kit works for everyone.
- Open the liner
- Place it in your setup
- Use it
- Seal it in the outer disposal bag
That's the entire process.
A person who spent 60 seconds learning it once will still know exactly what to do on night three of an outage, exhausted, with children asking questions.
Every kit contains exactly what's needed:
- Black waste liner
- Absorbent material
- Outer disposal bag
- Toilet paper
- Personal cleaning wipe
No batteries. No assembly. Nothing that expires sitting in a storage bin for years.
The Complete System tier adds a folding portable toilet — a real seat, a purpose-built setup, dignity for every member of the household.
Fast Shipping & A Guarantee That Removes Every Reason To Wait
In disaster relief, we talk about the window.
The window is the time between right now and the moment the emergency starts.
It's the only time you can actually solve this problem. Once the outage begins, stores are empty, delivery isn't running, and the option is gone.
That window is open right now.
Standby Supply ships fast across the US — orders processed within 1–3 business days, tracking sent to your email the moment your order ships.
Every order comes backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied for any reason, return it for a full refund.
And every order includes three free guides that I'd recommend to any household:
- Emergency Bathroom Plan — what to do when toilets stop working ($29 value)
- 72-Hour Family Sanitation Checklist — exactly what your household needs on hand ($19 value)
- Emergency Hygiene & Disposal Guide — simple cleanup and disposal guidance ($19 value)
You either get the solution your plan was missing, or you get your money back. There's no reason to wait.
Store It Everywhere — Because The Kit At Home Doesn't Help During An Evacuation
Evacuation orders don't come with bathroom breaks. Traffic during a major storm evacuation can stretch a 45-minute drive into four or five hours.
Here's something most families don't think about until they're sitting in evacuation traffic with children in the back seat.
- Rest stops close.
- Gas stations run out of supplies.
- And the gridlock that turns a short drive into a four-hour ordeal doesn't care how well-stocked your house is.
The kit that helps you is the one you actually have with you.
The Standby Supply kit is compact and sealed — built to store anywhere without taking up meaningful space.
Keep a supply in your household emergency bin. Keep a few in the trunk. Keep some in your go-bag.
Most families that order the 36-kit pack split them across their home, both vehicles, and their go-bags — and still have coverage left for an extended situation.
The kit in the garage doesn't help in the car. Stock both.
This Is The Prep That Completes Every Other Prep You've Already Done
I've been doing this work for 24 years. And the thing I want every family to understand is this:
The sanitation problem doesn't announce itself as the sanitation problem.
It announces itself as a family falling apart on day two.
- A teenager sent outside in the dark.
- A parent who won't eat or drink because they're afraid of what comes next.
- A household that had everything right — and still broke, because nobody planned for the bathroom.
"I had food, water, flashlights and batteries ready, but I never really thought about what we'd do if the toilets stopped working. This was the missing piece in my emergency setup. Compact, easy to store, and something I hope I never need — but I'm glad I have it."
You've already done the hard work. The food is stored. The water is sorted. The flashlights have fresh batteries.
This is the last piece. And it costs less than almost anything else in your emergency kit.
Don't put it off. Get the Standby Supply Emergency Sanitation Kit today — and finish what you already started.
My Honest Assessment
Daniel Briggs here.
24 years with the Red Cross. Disaster relief coordination across 14 states. Hundreds of emergency deployments.
I've walked through a lot of homes in the days after a disaster. I've talked to a lot of families who did everything right, and still found themselves completely unprepared for the one problem nobody put on their list.
The toilet situation is always the same. Families who stored food and water and bought generators — sitting in homes where the bathroom stopped working on day one, and nobody had a real answer.
It's not ignorance. It's a blind spot. The toilet has worked every day of their lives. It never crossed their mind that it wouldn't.
Here's what I tell every family at every preparedness briefing I give:
The Red Cross doesn't put sanitation on their recommended supply list as a footnote. They put it there because every major disaster proves why it belongs. And the families that have a real answer for it — a compact, sealed, purpose-built kit that works without water or plumbing — are the families that hold together when things get hard.
The Standby Supply kit is the simplest, most practical solution I've found. Compact. Sealed. Ready the moment you need it. Backed by a 30-day guarantee.
Full refund if it's not what you needed. Three free guides with every order. Fast shipping across the US.
Close the gap. Your family has already counted on everything else you prepared. Give them this piece too.
Here's What Thousands Of Families Are Saying
It's easy to see why preparedness professionals keep recommending this as the most overlooked item in emergency supplies.
"I thought we were completely prepared until I actually thought through what happens when the water goes out. Ordered the 36-pack. Split them between the house and both cars. Feels like the plan is finally finished."
"Bought these after a 4-day outage last winter where we were improvising the whole time. Never again. Compact, simple, and everything you need is right there in the kit."
"Live in an apartment on the 11th floor. There is no 'just go outside' option for us. These are the only real answer I've found. Got the 36-pack and feel a lot better about our setup."
"Ordered for the house and threw a few in the car. Took up almost no space. The free guides were actually worth reading too. Simple, practical, no fluff."
My Final Word — After 24 Years Of Walking Into Homes After Disasters
Most families picture an emergency as the event itself. The storm. The outage. The evacuation order.
What they don't picture is hour four of day two — when the toilet situation has become the only thing anyone in the house can talk about…
When the stored water is half-gone because someone kept trying to flush…
When the trash bag split and nobody wants to deal with what comes next.
I've seen it happen to families who did everything else right.
The Standby Supply kit was built for exactly that gap. Compact. Sealed. Purpose-built.
Four steps to use it. Nothing to install, assemble, or figure out under pressure.
The 36-kit pack covers a family of four for over a week. The Complete System adds a folding portable toilet. Every order ships fast. Every order is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
The window to solve this is open right now. It closes the moment the emergency starts.
Don't wait until you're the family wishing you'd thought of this on day one.
Because without a sanitation plan, it isn't really a question of whether your emergency prep is complete.
It isn't.
Where Can You Get It?
The Standby Supply Emergency Sanitation Kit is sold exclusively at thestandbysupply.com.
It isn't on Amazon. It isn't on the shelf at your hardware store. And once an outage starts, there's no way to get it at all.
Right now, they're running limited pricing on multi-pack bundles — the 36-kit Family Supply and the Complete System with the folding toilet included.
Here's the part I want you to take seriously: demand for emergency supplies spikes the moment a storm shows up in the forecast.
Every hurricane season and every winter storm, I watch the same thing happen — families who meant to get around to it are suddenly trying to order at the same time as everyone else, and the shipping window they needed is already gone.
Orders process in 1–3 business days. That's time you have today.
It's time you won't have when the warning comes.
Stock on the 36-kit pack is currently limited. Standby Supply has sold out of bundle tiers before. If you're planning to stock your home, vehicle, and go-bag, order before this shipment runs out.