- Bottled water
- Packaged, non-perishable food (granola bars, jerky, etc).
- Cash (bills and coins)
- Something to warm up in (jacket, blanket, emergency blanket, etc)
- A whistle
- A knife
- Flashlight and extra batteries
- Comfortable shoes you can walk (far) in
- A portable radio
- Matches or a lighter
Bonus item: three chargers for your cell phone, one at home, one for your car, and one for your office.
Those ten items will, surprisingly, take care of most of the problems you will face after a disaster.
Finally, as the Anderson Cooper show was wrapping up, he asked some ladies not related to the preparedness segment what they thought of the preppers and one responded "can you image how weird they would be to hang out with?" which shows she actually knows very little about preppers. For many preppers, doing preparedness things isn't what they do 24/7. In fact, many preppers do serious preparedness things only on occasion since once you are prepared, there is very little to do on a daily basis. Of course their hobbies--shooting, hunting, growing a garden--are much more productive, useful, and entertaining than what many people do these days for entertainment, namely shopping or sitting on their couch watching TV.