Metro editor Brian Kelley had a great reminder in our first Breaking News to the Maximus: Mobile Gladiator Workshop:

Don’t forget to keep a phone charger in your car. Some apps can drain your battery in no time.

So that got me thinking … what else should you keep in your car for possible spot-news situations?

I asked the entire Roanoke Times newsroom to send their ideas, and I wasn’t disappointed …. turned out to be a very engaging (and entertaining) way to tap into the wealth of knowledge among my peers.

Be sure to scroll to the bottom to find out which journalist among us drives a car nicknamed “battle wagon” (pictured above) … it’s kind of insane.

—- Pencils … pens don’t work well in rain or bitter cold (and you never know when the ink might run out). (Suggested by Duncan Adams, Matt Chittum, Kathy Lu)

—- Extra notebooks (Miranda Beck, Jeff Sturgeon, Courtney Cutright)

—- Extra pens  (Miranda Beck, Jeff Sturgeon) 

—- Emergency shoes / boots / clothes (Kathy Lu: “I used to always carry emergency clothes in the trunk (shoes that can get muddy; shirts I didn’t care about) in case I had to get messy. Of course, the problem is that these clothes eventually looked really outdated b/c they’d been there so long.) Miranda Beck carries pants, socks and hiking shoes.

—- Safety vest (From Cathy Benson: My kids gave me a yellow vest for Christmas that I wore for the first time at the school bus accident. They even wrote “Press” on it.)

—- Flashlight (Ellen Moseley)

—- Virginia map (Ellen Moseley: “GPS isn’t always going to work … we have roads up in Alleghany Co. that say, ‘not found,’).

—- Printout of the newsroom phone list (in case you don’t have it accessible on your phone .. ahem, gladiators! … or your cellphone dies). (Kathy Lu)

—- The LAW.  A copy of the Virginia law that exempts news personnel from the physical restrictions of police lines and barricades. http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+coh+15.2-1714+700656 and this, too: http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers (Jeff Sturgeon)

—- Sunscreen ( Jeff Sturgeon)

—- Deodorant (“I’ve learned that lesson more than a few times, especially when it’s summertime and I have to get in and out of the car a bunch of times. People who don’t like reporters really don’t like smelly reporters,” writes Miranda Beck).

—- Binoculars (Jeff Sturgeon)

—- “A snack. Always a snack.” (Evelyn Rupert)

—- Bottles of water  (Miranda Beck)

—- Toilet paper (for allergies, too) (Miranda Beck)

—- Voice recorder (Mike Shaw)

—- Point-and-shoot camera (Mike Shaw)

—- SD card  (Miranda Beck)

But who is the most prepared?

Our very first Mobile Gladiator Award must go to New River Valley photo intern Daniel Lin, who drives a Chevy Malibu equipped for just about anything.

Daniel writes:

 At the Collegiate Times, my car became known as the “battle-wagon” due to its perhaps over-the-top preparedness for breaking news.

 A mental inventory of the basics is as follows:

 •             2 police scanners, one left in the car as a base scanner, connected to an external antenna, the other is my portable.

•             Car GPS, for obvious reasons.

•             Handheld GPS, for when I leave the car in a totally unfamiliar area or a tromp in the woods becomes necessary.

•             Rain jacket (hard to hold an umbrella when you’re taking photos and jotting notes)

•             Rain pants (because in heavy rain, the water coming off the jacket has to go somewhere, and there’s this pesky thing called gravity)

•             Rite-in-the-rain notebook and Fisher space pen (I keep my mileage on it, and also is idiot-proofing if I forget my primary notebook)

•             My old voice recorder, w/extra batteries (more idiot-proofing)

•             Trauma kit permanently attached to my backpack (added after December 8th at Tech when I realized that had things gone differently, I could have easily been in the line of fire)

•             Basic first aid kit, for more normal cuts and scratches.

•             3 MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat). Working with the Tech Army ROTC has taught me how to tolerate shelf-stable rations. Indispensable when in the field longer than expected.

•             Some granola bars and other “car snacks” for when an Army ration is overkill.

•             Case of bottled water.

•             Two highway vests with “PRESS” on them. I originally had one, but when I realized reporters sometimes hop in my car, it’s handy to have two.

•             Hard hat (although I’m not sure why, just seems like a popular news vehicle item and I had one laying around)

•             Power inverter for my cigarette outlets (and I have a car cord for my computer anyway)

•             A basic change of clothes, a jacket, and two extra pairs of socks. I’ll often leave my boots in the trunk as well in case trekking through the woods becomes required.

•             A phone charger (usually for other people’s phones, my dumbphone has a 4-day functional battery life)

•             Extra flashlight w/ extra batteries (500 lumens, can throw a beam about 125m)

•             Bank of AA and AAA batteries.

•             I keep my camera beltpack in my trunk, just in case I feel it’s necessary to move my stuff into in from my day-to-day bag.

•             In the winter, a winter weather kit with blankets, more food, etc. Because I might get sent out to cover bad weather, I could very easily become stuck in it too. Also not a bad thing to have in general

•             Basic car kit with jumper cables, tow ropes, some extra oil, rags, etc.

•             $100 cash in $5 bills stashed away. You never know when you might need it.

 I think that should just about cover most everything. I do what I can to pack my car for two, because inevitably for breaking news I’m going to end up hauling a reporter around as well.

Tom Carter, a longtime copy editor, was reminded of Richard Harding Davis’ “A War Correspondent’s Kit,” which you can find here:

http://www.cdbooks-r-us.com/freebies/notesofwar.pdf