Think quickly - if you found yourself stranded far from home with no easy access to things like lights, running water and shelter, what things would you want to have at your side? If you suddenly found your modern home without the power to run such conveniences as electric lights, can openers and microwave oven, what should you have at hand to get you through the hours or days till those utilities returned?

The U.S. government recommends that every citizen should have - either in their home or in their car - 72 Hour Survival Kit, and if you've thought about the questions above, it should come as no surprise that two of the first items listed in that kit are a knife and a flashlight. No matter what your emergency may be, a source of light and a good cutting edge will always be important.

A Swiss army knife has been a mainstay of survival gear for decades. More than just a cutting tool, a well-chosen Swiss army knife is a survival kit in a compact, folding package. There's far more to them than the one or two cutting blades and the bottle opener that features in most of the cheaper knives. Features that are important in a Swiss army knife include:

- locking blade - compact size - lightweight - sharp, durable cutting blades - at least one sawing blade - a can/bottle opener - a flint

A Swiss army knife is not, strictly speaking, a survival knife, though. For that, most survival experts recommend a fixed blade knife that can be used for cutting, sawing, knife hunting, skinning, cleaning, notching and a multitude of other uses. There are dozens of available styles and types of survival knife, making it easy to choose the best one for your use. The most valuable of them combine a sturdy, sharp, fixed blade with a hollow handle that holds the most important items for you to have with you in an emergency. Those items may include matches, tinder, aspirin, disinfectant, a small flashlight or signaling device and a whistle. Before choosing a survival knife, you should check your state and city statutes to ensure that the knife you want to purchase doesn't violate any laws.

If the last time you bought a new flashlight was more than a few years ago, you may be surprised at what technology has wrought in just a few short years. LED technology has given us a new class of LED flashlights that won't die on you just when you need them most. LED - light emitting diodes - technology has been used for decades in such things as watch displays and digital alarm clocks, but they were always considered too expensive and too low powered to be used for workhorse lighting tasks like flashlights and emergency lights. As late as 2002, one of the leading researchers in the field of lighting estimated that LED lights would be in common use in the home within twenty years. A year later, he admitted that he had grossly miscalculated because, "...we erred in presuming only incremental advances and excluding... major technological breakthroughs.." Those breakthroughs made it far less expensive to manufacture LED lights, and brought them within the price range of the everyday consumer.

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