But a year and a half ago, finding myself unemployed and avoiding the more daunting task of looking for a job, I pulled out the old to-do list.

Mulling over my options, I decided that if an earthquake hit next week, I wouldn't care whether the curtains were hemmed or the photos organized into albums. So pack the emergency kit it was.

I dug out some old flyers, found more suggested supplies online and started a list. But I was confused by some of the recommendations. A shovel? Bleach? Trash compactor bags? I also wondered just how to store all this stuff.

So I called my neighbor Karen, former block captain and emergency guru for our neighborhood, who kindly invited me over for a tour of her supplies.

For her family of four, Karen had four large garbage cans, yes, four, filled to the brim with clothes, food, flashlights, ropes, tarps and more. Two cans stood behind the house and two near the driveway, padlocked into a small plastic shed. All the cans were on wheels, she said, in case the family had to evacuate on foot. She also had a 50-gallon plastic drum full of water.

Whoa.

Then I asked Karen what the shovel was for. That's to dig your own latrine, she said, cheerily. (You line it with the trash compactor bags.) Yikes.

As helpful as Karen was, the visit was daunting. I decided she had gone rather overboard and that I would definitely be scaling things down.

So I began gathering the goods: old clothes for my family of three, including warm coats and rain ponchos; toilet paper, soap, one toothbrush (we can share) and paste, every variety of over-the-counter painkiller I had, and tampons. (A disaster is bad enough. Don't forget the tampons. Likewise, remember diapers if you have young kids even if they wear them only at night.) Into the pile went our small tent, sleeping bags, pillows and a blanket, so we could camp in our yard rather than go to a shelter. And I went shopping for a radio, batteries, more flashlights, a first aid kit and food. Forget camp stoves and cooking out -- I decided we'd have to make do with PowerBars, crackers and juice.

A group of friends decided to join me, preparing their own kits, so we divvied up some of the shopping. One person donated playing cards, another gave out duct tape.

Well, the pile got pretty big. I calculated how many containers I needed and came up with about four large garbage cans. So much for scaling down.

Karen had used regular garbage cans. Cheapskate that I am, I was dismayed by the cost of large cans with wheels. I considered a deck box, but it was pricey, too.

Then I went to K-Mart and found long, low 49-gallon containers about the size of a garbage can for only $14.99 each. They're not as sturdy as a garbage can, but then, I figured, they wouldn't get banged around every week.

I liked the long shape better; it seemed easier to dig through than a deep garbage can, and, I reasoned, it might be less likely to tip over in wind or raccoon assault. The containers have snap-on lids and tiny wheels, making them just barely rollable.

The tent and bedding have gone into one container, each item in a plastic garbage bag to keep it dry. If nothing else, that container helped us find our camping gear easily last summer. And it has doubled as a deck box -- we keep it near the hammock and pull out the blanket and pillow for lounging.

Clear plastic bags proved essential, both for protection and for organizing. Since I would have to replace my daughter's clothes with larger ones every year, I put each person's clothes into a clear bag so I could find them later without pawing through everything.

Toiletries went in their own bag. So did the batteries for the radio (it's recommended you store the batteries separately) and the water-purification kit -- a bottle of bleach, an eyedropper, tablets from REI and instructions.

The family emergency phone number list went into a Ziploc bag. So did a list of the contents of each container, which was easy to print out because I made the packing list on the computer.

I just couldn't see buying a 50-gallon drum for water, so I bought 2-gallon containers and stored them in the fourth plastic bin.

A friend who had already packed a kit offered advice learned the hard way: don't store the ax near the plastic water jugs.

And now, where to put all these bins in our small East Bay yard? I didn't want to buy the locking shed in order to store them within view of the street.

Under the deck seemed out of the way, but then, I figured, the deck might be the first thing to collapse. The camping bin is in the back corner of the yard behind a clump of bamboo and two other bins are nearer the house, under a camellia bush.

Fast-forward 18 months. In early September, I saw neighbor Karen, and her husband, Hank, unloading their supplies, motivated by Hurricane Katrina.

After Loma Prieta, Karen said, "we heard that we better have five days' of supplies.

"And that's pretty much what happened in New Orleans," she said.

It turns out they hadn't updated their kit in about seven years -- the clothes they had packed for their then-10-year-old would not begin to cover his now 6-foot frame, and the heart-shaped candies that were supposed to keep the kids happy had turned to dust, and of course the food was all expired.

Karen said this time they simplified their stored food and got rid of the coloring books.

"And everybody's got big clothes," she said. "Even if I gain more weight I'm going to fit into what's there."

Motivated to check my own kit, I found my $14.99 bins held up well, keeping out a winter's worth of rain and the raccoons that love our garbage. I had to dust out only a few cobwebs and spiders from the inside. The lists of contents I had added to each bin were a big help as I reloaded.

I regretted closing some of the plastic bags with knots, rather than ties, as they were hard to pry open for inspection. One pillow was missing -- the hazard of pilfering supplies for hammock-use.

My daughter has outgrown some, but not all of her clothes. I plan to hit a used clothing store for more.

The food and medicine have all expired, of course. But I left the food there until I get around to replacing it. Better old granola bars than none.

E-mail Mary Flaherty at mflaherty@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page F - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle