The BRO Survival & Preparedness Guide

Survival instructors teach a rough rule for putting first things first. It is a priority list, not a stopwatch: people vary, and the weather decides a lot. But it stops you doing the fun thing (building a fire) before the urgent one (stopping the bleeding, getting out of the wind).

The calm-first order

1. 1.Stop. Breathe. Panic is the thing that actually gets people hurt.
2. 2.Safety right now: fire, traffic, water, falling trees, a gas smell. Move away from the danger.
3. 3.First aid: bleeding and breathing, then everything else.
4. 4.Call or signal for help, and tell someone where you are.
5. 5.Shelter, then water, then food, then comfort.

Ready.gov asks every household to be able to look after itself for at least 72 hours, because help can take that long to reach everybody. Two kits cover it: a home kit in a bin by the door for sheltering in place, and a go-bag you can grab in two minutes if you are told to leave.

Tell it who lives with you, your climate and whether you have a car. The list changes to fit, it remembers your ticks on this device, and it prints on its own.

How much

Ready.gov’s figure: 1 gallon per person per day, for at least 3 days, for drinking and a little hygiene. If you can, keep a 14-day supply at home. Nursing mothers, children, sick people and anyone in hot weather need more; very hot weather can double it. Pets need their own. The calculator in the next section does the math.

How to store it

• Unopened store-bought water is the easiest: keep it in its sealed bottles and note the date on the case.
• Filling your own? Use food-grade containers made for water. Never old milk jugs (they break down) or anything that held chemicals.
• Cool, dark place, off concrete, away from gasoline, paint and pesticides.
• Replace home-filled water about every six months. Write the date on every container.
• Water already in the house: the water heater tank and ice cubes count. Learn how to drain your water heater before you need to.

Making water safe: boil it

The CDC’s method, and the most reliable: bring clear water to a rolling boil for 1 minute (3 minutes above 6,500 feet). Let it cool, and store it in clean, covered containers. If it is cloudy, let it settle or filter it through a clean cloth or coffee filter first.

Making water safe: household bleach

When you cannot boil, the EPA’s emergency method uses plain, unscented liquid household bleach. Not scented, not color-safe, not with added cleaners. Check the label for the percentage of sodium hypochlorite, and if the label gives directions for disinfecting water, follow those.

1. 1.Cloudy water: filter it through a clean cloth, paper towel or coffee filter, or let it settle and pour off the clear water, first.
2. 2.Add the bleach with a clean dropper, using the table above.
3. 3.Stir and let it stand 30 minutes. It should smell faintly of chlorine.
4. 4.No smell? Repeat the dose and wait another 15 minutes. Still no smell: find another water source.

Filters and tablets

A portable filter is excellent for trail water. Most portable filters remove bacteria and parasites but not viruses, so where water might be contaminated by sewage, follow the filter with boiling, bleach or purification tablets. Read the filter’s instructions for what it removes and when to replace it.

Put in your household and how many days you want to cover. Start with three. Build to two weeks. Then read the calories off the labels on your shelf and see how close you are.

Every fire needs three things: heat, fuel and air. Most failed fires fail on fuel: not enough tiny dry stuff before the bigger stuff. Gather three piles first, each twice as big as you think you need: tinder (dry grass, birch bark, cotton balls with petroleum jelly), kindling (twigs from pencil-lead to pencil thick) and fuel (wrist-thick and up). Dead branches still on the tree are drier than those on the ground.

• Your clothes are your first shelter. Layers you can add and take off, wool or synthetic next to the skin (cotton stays wet), a windproof shell and a hat.
• Stay dry. Wet clothing pulls heat out of you fast. Vent before you sweat, and change into dry socks at night.
• Insulate from the ground. The cold earth steals more heat than the air. A pad, a thick bed of dry leaves or pine boughs, even your pack.
• Small is warm. A shelter only just bigger than you holds your body heat. A tarp lean-to with its back to the wind is the classic.
• Use what is there. A car, a rock overhang or a thick stand of trees beats building from scratch. Avoid dry creek beds (flash floods), dead trees overhead and hilltops in lightning.
• Carry one. An emergency bivy or two space blankets and a small tarp weigh almost nothing.

Map and compass basics

1. 1.Carry a paper map of where you are going and a baseplate compass. Phones die, get cold and lose signal.
2. 2.Orient the map: lay the compass on it, turn the map until its north lines up with the needle (allowing for your area’s declination, printed on most topo maps).
3. 3.Find where you are from things you can see: a lake, a ridge, a trail junction.
4. 4.To follow a direction: point the compass’s travel arrow at the place on the map, turn the dial so its north matches map north, then turn your body until the needle sits in the outline. Walk where the arrow points.
5. 5.Pick a tree or rock on that line, walk to it, and pick the next one. Straight lines beat staring at the compass.

The sun and the stars

• The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, roughly. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is due south around midday.
• The shadow-stick: push a stick upright, mark the tip of its shadow, wait 15 minutes and mark it again. The first mark is west, the second east.
• At night, find the Big Dipper. The two stars at the end of its bowl point to the North Star, which sits almost exactly over north.
• Handrails: a river, a road or a power line runs somewhere. Follow the big features, not a guess.

Learn each one with your eyes closed. The day you need it, it may be dark, cold or wet.

Reading is not training. A weekend class teaches the hands-on part that no page can, and it is the best preparedness investment your family will make. The American Red Cross teaches first aid, CPR and AED use; Stop the Bleed teaches bleeding control, often free, in about an hour. What follows is what those classes teach, as a reminder, not a replacement.

Serious bleeding

1. 1.Make sure the scene is safe for you. Call for help, or get someone else to, and put the phone on speaker.
2. 2.Find where the blood is coming from and press hard, directly on it, with both hands and a cloth or gauze. Keep pressing.
3. 3.For a deep wound in an arm or leg that will not stop: pack it tightly with gauze or clean cloth and keep pressing.
4. 4.A tourniquet, for life-threatening bleeding from an arm or leg: 2 to 3 inches above the wound, not on a joint, tightened until the bleeding stops. Note the time. It will hurt; that is expected.
5. 5.Buy tourniquets from a reputable medical supplier: counterfeit ones exist and fail. And take the class before you rely on one.

The rest of the basics a class covers

• CPR and using an AED. AEDs talk you through it; anybody can use one.
• Choking in adults, children and infants: the methods are different for each.
• Recognizing a stroke (face drooping, arm weakness, speech trouble: time to get help) and a heart attack.
• Burns (cool running water, no ice, no butter), sprains, and when a cut needs stitches.
• Allergic reactions and how to use an epinephrine auto-injector if someone carries one.

The power-outage plan

Heating safely (read this one twice)

• Battery or battery-backup carbon-monoxide alarms on every level and outside every sleeping area. Test them monthly.
• Space heaters: at least 3 feet from anything that can burn, plugged straight into the wall (no extension cords), and off when you leave the room or go to sleep.
• Fireplaces and wood stoves: have the chimney inspected yearly, and keep a screen in front.
• Close off rooms you are not using and gather in one room. Hang blankets over windows and doors. Wear layers and hats indoors.
• Let taps drip in a hard freeze so pipes are less likely to burst, and know where the water main is.

Sanitation when the water or sewer is out

• A bucket toilet: a sturdy bucket lined with two heavy garbage bags, with a seat or lid. Add a scoop of kitty litter or sawdust after each use.
• Tie off full bags, and keep them in a covered bin outside away from people until trash service returns.
• Hand washing matters more than ever: soap and water, or sanitizer when water is short.
• Do not flush toilets if you are told the sewer is damaged.

Utilities: know the shut-offs

• Water main: find it and make sure it turns. Label it.
• Electrical panel: know the main breaker. Never touch it standing in water.
• Gas: only shut it off if you smell gas or hear a leak, then leave the house and call the gas company from outside. Once it is off, only the utility should turn it back on.

Securing the home

• Solid exterior doors with deadbolts, and longer screws in the strike plates.
• Outdoor lights on a sensor or timer, and trimmed bushes by the doors and windows.
• House number big and lit, so an ambulance can find you at night.
• Smoke alarms on every level, a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, and a practiced fire escape plan with two ways out of every bedroom.
• Know your neighbors. A street where people look out for each other is the best security there is.

• Jumper cables or a jump pack, a tire inflator and a working spare.
• Reflective triangles, a flashlight, a basic first aid kit and a phone charger.
• Water and snacks, a blanket per seat, and a warm hat and gloves in winter.
• Ice scraper, small shovel and a bag of sand or kitty litter for traction.
• A paper map. Keep the tank at least half full in winter and before any storm.

Stuck in the snow

1. 1.Stay with the car. It is shelter, and it is easier to find than a person walking.
2. 2.Call for help and tell them where you are. Tie something bright to the antenna or door.
3. 3.Clear snow away from the exhaust pipe before running the engine, and keep checking it.
4. 4.Run the engine and heater about 10 minutes each hour, with a window cracked slightly, to save fuel and keep fresh air.
5. 5.Keep moving: clap, move your arms and legs. Share body heat, blankets and layers.
6. 6.At night, turn on the dome light while the engine runs so rescuers can see you.

If you have to spend the night

• Shelter before dark: out of the wind, off the ground, in the open enough to be seen.
• Signal: whistle three blasts at intervals, something bright laid out, a fire if it is safe.
• Drink the water you have. Do not eat any wild plant or mushroom you cannot identify with complete certainty; many that look safe are poisonous.
• Stay put. Searchers look along your planned route first, which is why you left one at home.

The plan is what gets a family back together when phones are down and everybody is somewhere different. Fill it in at the kitchen table with everyone, print copies, and walk the meeting places once so the kids know them.

Kids handle emergencies better when they have a job and a plan. Keep it practical and matter-of-fact, like teaching them to cross the road. Practice turns fear into confidence.

• Let them help build the kit: picking the snacks is how they learn what is in it.
• Turn practice into a game: a lights-out night with flashlights and board games is a drill they will ask to repeat.
• After news of a disaster, ask what they heard, answer simply and honestly, and show them the family is ready.

• Swap numbers with the neighbors on either side and across the street. Know who lives alone, who is older, who has a baby or a medical device.
• Make a simple skills list for your street: who has first aid training, a generator, a chainsaw, a truck.
• Check on people after a storm, in person. A knock on the door saves lives in heat waves and cold snaps.
• Join a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) class, volunteer with the Red Cross, or give blood before disaster season.
• Help your parents and grandparents build their kit and plan. Older adults are hit hardest by outages.

Preparedness gets easier once you stop picturing one giant catastrophe and sort trouble by size. Each level builds on the one below it, so the work you do for level 1 is never wasted. Most families should aim to be solid at level 2, comfortable at level 3, and have a head start on level 4.

What to do at each level, in order

1. 1.Level 1 first: three to six months of expenses saved if you can (start with one), the right insurance, a first aid class, and your documents in one place. This is the most likely emergency you will ever have.
2. 2.Level 2 next: the 72-hour kit and go-bags in part one, the family plan filled in, and the car kept above half a tank.
3. 3.Level 3 after that: build water and food to two weeks, then 30 days. Add a safe power source, a sanitation plan, radios, cash, and a list of your neighbors’ skills.
4. 4.Level 4 is mostly skills and people: a 90-day pantry, a garden, the ability to fix and make things, a trusted group, and a written plan for where you would go if you had to leave for good.

In most emergencies, staying home is the right call. Your home has your water, food, beds, tools and medicine, and the road is where people get stuck, stranded and hurt. You leave when home becomes more dangerous than the road, or when officials tell you to. Walk through these questions in order. The first “yes” decides it.

Triggers that mean it is time to go

Decide these as a family now, write them on the plan, and when one happens, go without a debate:

• An official evacuation order, or a “be ready to leave” warning for your area plus a forecast that is getting worse.
• Smoke you can see or smell from a nearby fire, or embers falling. Wildfire outruns cars on bad roads.
• Water rising toward the house, or roads out of your neighborhood about to flood.
• No heat in freezing weather (or no cooling in a dangerous heat wave) and no safe way to fix it within a day.
• Running out of water or medicine with no resupply in sight.
• Violence or unrest reaching your street, or the neighborhood emptying out around you.
• Your gut says go and the roads are still open. Nobody regrets leaving a day early. Plenty regret leaving a day late.

Hour by hour, when you are staying

Water: the number that matters most

Ready.gov’s figure again: 1 gallon per person per day, and in hot weather it can double. That is for drinking and a little hygiene. It does not cover flushing, washing dishes or cooking rice and beans, which is why a longer emergency needs a second, non-drinking supply as well.

• Store it in layers. Cases of sealed bottled water for the first few days, food-grade 5 to 7 gallon jugs you can lift for the next week, and one or two 55-gallon drums (with a pump and a bung wrench) if you have a garage and want a month.
• The water already in your house: a water heater holds 30 to 80 gallons. Learn how to turn off its power or gas, close the inlet valve and drain it from the bottom before you need to. Pipes hold a few more gallons: open the highest tap, then drain from the lowest.
• The bathtub trick: when a storm is coming, fill the tub (a tub liner bag keeps it clean) for flushing and washing. Treat it before drinking.
• The pool or hot tub: for flushing and washing only. Pool chemicals make it unsafe to drink even when filtered.

Rain catchment

A roof is a big funnel. One inch of rain on 1,000 square feet of roof is about 623 gallons. Even one downspout into a covered rain barrel fills it in a single storm.

• Use a food-grade barrel with a screen on top (mosquitoes), a spigot at the bottom and an overflow pointed away from the foundation.
• Let the first few minutes of each rain wash the roof off before you collect: a simple first-flush diverter does it automatically.
• Treat all rainwater before drinking: filter it, then boil it or use bleach as in part one. Roofs carry bird droppings and dust.
• A few states limit how much rain you can collect. Check your state’s rules before you buy a second barrel.

Food: the 30-day and 90-day pantry

Part one gets you to two weeks of the food you already eat. Past that, the cheapest, most compact calories are the old staples: rice, beans, oats, pasta, peanut butter and oil. Here is a working 30-day list for one adult, about 64,850 calories, a little over 2,100 a day. Multiply by the people in your house; triple it for 90 days.

• Shelf life, from the USDA: high-acid canned food (tomatoes, fruit) keeps best 12 to 18 months; low-acid canned food (meat, vegetables, soup) 2 to 5 years. White rice, dry beans and oats in airtight containers last years; brown rice, whole wheat flour and nuts go rancid in months.
• Store it right: airtight food-grade buckets with gasket lids, off the floor, somewhere cool, dark and dry. Heat is the enemy of everything in a pantry.
• Cooking needs water and fuel. A pound of rice or beans takes roughly half a gallon to a gallon of water to soak, cook and clean up. Count it, and count stove fuel.
• Rotate: first in, first out, as in part one. A 90-day pantry you eat from every week is always fresh and never wasted.
• Morale matters: spices, hot sauce, coffee, cocoa and a few treats make a month of rice and beans bearable, and that is not a small thing with kids.

Sanitation, when it is more than a day or two

• The two-bucket toilet: one bucket for urine, one for solids, both lined with heavy bags. Keeping them separate cuts the smell dramatically. A scoop of sawdust, peat, kitty litter or dry leaves after each use.
• Disinfecting: Ready.gov’s mix is 1 part household bleach to 9 parts water, for surfaces and the bucket seat. Never mix bleach with ammonia or other cleaners.
• Waste: double-bag, tie off, and store in a lidded bin away from the house until trash service returns. Follow local instructions; some towns set up collection points after a disaster.
• Hands: a jug with a spigot, a bar of soap and a bucket underneath makes a hand-wash station. Diarrhea spreads fast in a house without running water, and it is dangerous for children and older people.

Keeping kids calm through a long one

• Keep the routine: meals, schoolwork, chores and bedtime at the usual times. Routine tells a child the grown-ups have this.
• Give every child a job they can own: the lantern keeper, the water log, checking the thermometer, feeding the dog.
• Limit the news in front of them. Answer their questions simply and honestly, and tell them what the family is doing to stay safe.
• Plan play: board games, cards, books read aloud, a flashlight scavenger hunt. Boredom turns into fear faster than you think.
• Watch for changes: trouble sleeping, clinginess, stomach aches or acting out are normal reactions. Patience and reassurance help; if they last, talk to a pediatrician.

Generators, the right way

• Never plug a generator into a wall outlet (“backfeeding”). It can electrocute a lineworker down the street and burn your house. Use heavy outdoor-rated cords to the appliances, or have a licensed electrician install a transfer switch or interlock.
• Size it to what matters: fridge, freezer, a few lights, phone charging, a furnace blower, a well pump or a medical device. Add up the running watts from each nameplate and allow for the extra kick when a motor starts.
• Fuel: gasoline goes stale in a few months; a fuel stabilizer stretches that toward a year. Store it only in approved cans, away from the house, in the amounts your local fire code allows. A typical portable generator burns somewhere around half a gallon to a gallon an hour, so a week of outage takes a lot of fuel. Propane stores for years, and dual-fuel generators can run on it.
• Let it cool before refueling. Run it a few hours at a time (fridge and freezer cold, phones charged), then shut it down: you save fuel, noise and attention.

Solar and battery banks: quiet, safe indoors, no fuel

A portable battery “power station” charged by folding solar panels runs lights, phones, a radio, a CPAP, a laptop or a small fridge with no fumes and no noise, and it is safe indoors. Capacity is in watt-hours (Wh). A working estimate:

• Solar panels make their rated watts only in full sun; plan on about half of that on an average day, and far less in winter or under clouds.
• Buy a station with the outlets you need (AC, USB-C, 12-volt), and keep it charged and topped up every few months.
• A car is a generator too: an inverter on the battery charges phones and laptops. Run the engine only outside, never in a garage.

Heat without power

• Pick one small room on the sunny side, close it off, hang blankets over the windows at night, and put everyone in it. Body heat adds up.
• Sleep warm: sleeping bags on pads, stocking hats, wool socks, and a hot water bottle (a sealed metal bottle of hot water wrapped in a sock) at the feet.
• Only use heaters rated for indoor use, exactly as the manual says, with a CO alarm running and the ventilation it asks for. Never a camp stove, grill, charcoal or outdoor propane heater indoors.
• A wood stove or fireplace with a clean, inspected chimney is the gold standard. Keep a season of dry, split wood under cover.

Cooling without power

The National Weather Service counts heat as the leading weather-related killer in the United States, and many of those deaths happen in homes without air conditioning. The CDC notes that once the air is in the high 90s, fans alone no longer prevent heat illness.

• Close blinds and curtains on sunny windows by day; open windows at night to pull cool air through.
• Live on the lowest floor, or in the basement. Heat rises.
• Cool the body directly: wet cloths on the neck, wrists and feet, cool showers or a tub soak, damp sheets at night.
• Drink before you are thirsty, and check on older neighbors twice a day. Go to a public cooling center if your home gets dangerous.

Light

• A headlamp for every person, LED lanterns for rooms, and one battery size across everything if you can (AA is easiest), with spares sealed.
• Rechargeable batteries plus a solar or USB charger outlast any stockpile.
• Solar garden lights: charge them outside by day and bring them in as night lights. Cheap, safe, and kids love them.
• No candles if you can avoid them: they cause thousands of home fires a year, and a dark, distracted house makes that worse.

Security professionals think in layers. Each one makes your house a worse target than the next one, and buys you time to call for help. None of this needs special gear, and it all works in normal times too.

Hardening doors and windows this weekend

1. 1.Exterior doors should be solid-core wood or steel. Hollow-core doors belong inside the house.
2. 2.Replace the short screws in the deadbolt strike plate and the hinges with 3-inch screws that bite into the wall framing. It is the single cheapest upgrade in home security.
3. 3.Add a door reinforcement kit or a longer steel strike plate on the doors you use most.
4. 4.Put a dowel or security bar in the track of sliding doors and windows, and pin sliding doors so they cannot be lifted out.
5. 5.Security film on ground-floor glass makes it much slower to break through.
6. 6.Keep the garage door closed, and stop its emergency release being fished open from outside (a thin zip tie on the release lever, which you can still snap by hand from inside, is a common fix).

A safe room

Pick an interior room (often the main bedroom) with a solid door and a good lock. Keep a charged phone or a cheap backup phone, a flashlight, water, a first aid kit and a list of numbers in it. The plan for a break-in is simple: everyone gets to the safe room, lock the door, call the police, stay on the line, and stay put until police arrive.

During a long emergency

• Keep lights, generator noise and cooking smells modest if your street is dark. Blackout curtains keep you from being the only lit house.
• Do not advertise supplies: no piles of empty water cases on the curb, no posts about your pantry.
• Organize a neighborhood watch rotation, and use radios to check in (see comms below).
• Plan who answers the door and how. Talk through a window or a closed door first.

For self-defense itself, see lawful defense below and the Survival & Self-Defense section, which carries its own safety rules.

The go-bag in part one is the grab-and-go minimum. A bug-out bag is the serious version: everything one person needs for three days away from home, even if the car is left behind. Here is a complete adult list at about 26.9 lb. That is a real load, which is the point: try it on, walk a few miles, and cut what you do not need.

• Weight: a common backpacking rule is to keep a loaded pack under about 20 percent of your body weight. The bag is useless if you cannot walk with it.
• Water is the heaviest thing and the thing you cannot skip. You cannot carry a gallon a day (a gallon weighs over 8 lb), so carry 3 liters and the filter, tablets and pot to make more.
• Fit: a 40 to 50 liter pack with a padded hip belt carries the weight on your hips, not your shoulders. Buy it in a store where they fit it.
• Plain, not tactical: a hiking pack in gray, green or blue draws less attention than anything with patches and straps.

Kids’ bags

The American Academy of Pediatrics says a child’s pack should weigh no more than 10 to 20 percent of their body weight. For a school-age child that means a small pack of about 6.2 lb: their water, snacks, warmth and comfort. The adults carry the rest of their food, water and bedding. Toddlers and babies ride; the adults carry diapers, wipes, formula and water for mixing it, and a carrier that keeps your hands free.

Pets

Pets go with you: if it is not safe for you to stay, it is not safe for them. Most public shelters take service animals and many now take pets, but check ahead. A fit adult dog can carry part of its own food and water in a dog pack; ask your vet what weight is right for yours, and get the dog used to it before the day comes.

Most emergencies do not wait for the family to be home together. The get-home bag lives in your car or under your desk, and its only job is to get you home on foot if the roads jam, the trains stop or the car dies. This list comes to about 10.3 lb.

Plan the walk before you ever need it

• Measure the distance from work to home. A healthy adult walks about 3 miles an hour on flat ground, more like 2 with a pack, kids or hills. Twenty miles is a full day.
• Mark two walking routes on a paper map: one along main roads, one that avoids bridges, tunnels, rail lines and big interchanges.
• Pick a halfway point: a friend’s house, a coworker’s, or a public building like a library or community center where you could rest or spend the night.
• Agree at home what happens if you are not back: who picks up the kids, when to expect you, and when to worry.
• Walk part of the route once on a nice weekend, in the shoes in your bag.

The car as a bug-out vehicle

The car you already drive is your bug-out vehicle. What matters is that it is maintained, fueled and packed: tires with tread, a healthy battery, fluids topped up, and a spare that actually holds air.

Fuel planning

• Never below half a tank during storm, fire or winter season. When a warning comes, gas stations run dry, and pumps need power.
• Know your real range: tank size times miles per gallon, then take off a quarter for a loaded car, traffic, idling in jams and running the heat or air conditioning.
• Carry extra only safely: approved fuel cans, stabilized, strapped down, outside the passenger cabin (a hitch rack or truck bed), and rotated into the car every few months.
• Mark fuel stops along each route on the paper map, and assume some will be closed.

Three routes, on paper

• Drive the primary and secondary routes once a year so they are familiar in the dark and rain.
• Mark on the paper atlas: fuel, hospitals, water crossings, places to sleep, and where the local emergency radio stations change.
• Download offline maps on every phone, and keep the paper atlas in the car anyway.
• Leave early. The best evacuation is the one you make the night before everyone else.

Where to go

Moving on foot

• Travel in daylight on roads and trails you know. Move as a group: a strong walker in front, another at the back, and a headcount at every stop.
• Walk 50 minutes, rest 10. Set the pace by the slowest person, usually the youngest.
• Feet first: stop at the first hot spot, tape it before it blisters, and change into dry socks at lunch and at night.
• Drink on a schedule in heat. The CDC’s advice for hard work in heat is about a cup every 15 to 20 minutes.
• Stay together, stay visible to each other, and stay calm with strangers: polite, brief and moving on.

In a real evacuation, people waste precious minutes deciding what to take. Decide now, and tape this list inside a closet door. The “P’s” are a good memory aid: people, pets, papers, prescriptions, phones, pictures and plastic (cards and cash).

The family plan in part one is the detailed version for the fridge. This is the part every person carries. Choose four rally points, walk to each once with the kids, and write them on a card for every wallet, school bag and car.

• Agree how long to wait at each point (an hour is common) and what to do next if nobody comes.
• Pick a message spot at each point, such as a note taped inside the mailbox, for “we were here, went to point 3”.
• Know each school’s reunification plan: where they move children and who is allowed to pick them up. Put a trusted neighbor on the list.
• Kids 13 and up with a phone: text the out-of-area contact first, then head to the point, then text again.

The family comms plan

1. 1.Text, don’t call. Texts get through a jammed network when calls cannot, and they use less battery. Ready.gov recommends it.
2. 2.An out-of-area contact. After a disaster it is often easier to reach someone in another state than across town. Everyone checks in with that one person, who relays.
3. 3.A paper contact list in every bag, wallet and car. Most people could not dial their spouse’s number from memory. Each child learns two numbers by heart.
4. 4.Check-in times if phones are down: for example, radios on for ten minutes at 7 a.m., noon and 7 p.m. Batteries last far longer than leaving them on all day.
5. 5.Alerts on: make sure Wireless Emergency Alerts are switched on in every phone’s settings, and sign up for your county’s alert system.

Two-way radios: what the licenses actually say

• FRS and GMRS share the same 22 channels, so a family can mix radios. Pick a primary and a backup channel now and write them on the plan card.
• The “privacy codes” on FRS radios do not make a channel private. They only filter out other users; anyone on that channel can hear you. Say nothing on the air you would not say in public.
• For a ham license, the ARRL lists classes and volunteer exam sessions. Local clubs are welcoming, and many run emergency nets (ARES and SKYWARN) you can join.
• GMRS licenses are issued online by the FCC.
• Practice: a monthly family radio check turns the radios from drawer clutter into something the kids actually know how to use.

NOAA Weather Radio

NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts National Weather Service warnings 24 hours a day on seven frequencies, with no internet or phone service needed. Buy one with SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding), program your county code, and it stays quiet until an alert for your area turns it on, even at 3 a.m. Battery backup and a hand crank or solar panel are worth it.

Cash, in small bills

When the power is out, card readers, ATMs and banking apps are too. Keep a few hundred dollars (more if you can) at home and a smaller amount in each bag, mostly in ones, fives, tens and twenties: stores with no power often cannot make change. Keep it somewhere discreet, and do not tell anyone outside the household.

The documents to copy

FEMA’s Emergency Financial First Aid Kit (EFFAK) is a free checklist and set of forms for exactly this. The short version:

Where to keep them

• Originals in a fire- and water-resistant safe at home or a bank safe-deposit box. A “fireproof” box can still flood: put papers in zip bags inside it.
• Copies in a clear waterproof pouch in your bug-out bag.
• Digital copies on an encrypted USB drive in the pouch and in a secure cloud account you can reach from any phone.
• Update once a year: new prescriptions, new policies, new photos of the kids.

In a regional disaster, ambulances can be hours away and hospitals full. That makes your skills and your kit the first line. Everything here goes beyond the part-one first aid basics, and all of it needs hands-on training: buying the gear is the easy half. Get trained.

The trauma kit

A small pouch for serious bleeding, in the house, each car and each bug-out bag:

• A commercial windlass tourniquet from a reputable medical supplier (counterfeits fail). Two is better: one in the house and one on you.
• A pressure bandage (an “emergency” or “Israeli” bandage).
• Compressed gauze for packing a wound, or hemostatic gauze, which helps blood clot.
• Two vented chest seals, for a penetrating wound to the chest: the class teaches when and how.
• Trauma shears, nitrile gloves, a permanent marker to write the tourniquet time, and an emergency blanket.

Stop the Bleed’s order stays the same: call for help, find the bleeding, apply firm pressure, pack deep wounds, and use a tourniquet on a limb for life-threatening bleeding. Part one has the steps; the class gives you the hands.

Stocking medicines, legally

• Ask your doctor for 90-day prescriptions and use mail order where your insurance allows, then refill as early as you are allowed so a buffer builds up.
• Ask your pharmacist now what your state allows in a declared emergency. Many states let pharmacists give an emergency supply, and many insurers lift “refill too soon” limits during a declared disaster.
• Never use animal or aquarium medicines, and never buy prescription drugs without a prescription. The FDA warns against both.
• Stock the over-the-counter basics: pain and fever relievers, antihistamine, anti-diarrhea medicine, oral rehydration salts, hydrocortisone and antibiotic ointments, a thermometer, and spare glasses or contacts.
• Store medicines cool, dry and dark, and rotate them by date.

Chronic conditions need their own plan

The training to get, in order

1. 1.Stop the Bleed: about an hour, often free.
2. 2.CPR, AED and first aid from the Red Cross or the American Heart Association: an afternoon.
3. 3.CERT, FEMA’s free Community Emergency Response Team course: disaster first aid, light search and rescue, fire safety and team organization.
4. 4.Wilderness First Aid: usually two days, for care when help is hours away. Wilderness First Responder is the next step up, about 70 to 80 hours.

Situational awareness

Awareness is not paranoia. It is simply paying attention, and it prevents far more trouble than any gear. A simple scale many instructors use:

• Sit where you can see the door. Note two exits wherever you go.
• Trust the feeling that something is wrong. Leaving costs nothing.
• In a crowd that is turning tense, move to the edges and out, early. Never toward trouble to watch or film it.

The gray man: blending in

• Dress like everyone else around you. Plain colors, no tactical clothing, no patches, nothing that says you have gear worth taking.
• Keep the bug-out bag plain: a normal hiking or school backpack.
• Stay quiet about your supplies, before and during an emergency. Share generously with neighbors you know; do not broadcast.
• Calm, polite and brief with strangers. Avoid arguments, lines that turn ugly and crowds.

Lawful defense: the rules that matter

The best defense is to avoid, escape and call for help. If you are thinking about any defensive tool, from a flashlight or pepper spray upward, know that the laws on carrying tools and on using force are different in every state, and they apply fully in a disaster.

• In general, the law allows only force that is reasonable and proportional to an immediate threat of serious harm, and only as long as that threat lasts. Protecting property alone rarely justifies serious force.
• Some states require you to retreat if you safely can; others do not. Learn your state’s rules from an attorney or a certified instructor, not from the internet.
• Train with a qualified instructor: a reputable self-defense or personal-safety class teaches awareness, de-escalation and escape, which solve far more problems than force does.
• Anything you own for defense must be stored so children cannot reach it. That is non-negotiable.

For more, see the Survival & Self-Defense section, which carries its own safety rules and training pointers.

Gear runs out and breaks. Skills do not. Part one covers fire, shelter, navigation without GPS and knots. These are the rest.

Finding water

• Water runs downhill and collects in low ground: valley bottoms, the outside bends of dry creek beds, the base of cliffs.
• Green, lush plants (willows, cottonwoods, cattails) usually mean water close to the surface.
• Collect rain on a tarp or poncho, and wipe morning dew off grass with a cloth and wring it out.
• Melt snow before drinking it: eating snow lowers your core temperature.
• Treat all of it, every time: filter, then boil or disinfect, as in part one.

Foraging, safely

Fixing things

• A basic tool kit and the know-how to use it: hammer, screwdrivers, pliers, adjustable wrench, a saw, a cordless drill and spare batteries, duct tape, zip ties, wire, a tarp and a box of screws.
• Shut off and fix the basics: a running toilet, a leaking pipe (a pipe repair clamp and tape buy days), a tripped breaker.
• Tarp a damaged roof: run the tarp over the ridge, and screw it down through wood strips so wind cannot peel it.
• Change a tire, jump a car and check the oil. Every teenager in the house, too.
• Patch a bike tube: in a fuel shortage, a working bicycle is transport for the whole family.
• Sew on a button, patch a tear, sharpen a knife.

Cooking and preserving

• Cook a whole meal on a camp stove and over a fire. Rice, beans and bread from scratch are the skills that make a pantry useful.
• Learn home canning from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, which follows USDA-tested methods. Low-acid foods (meat, beans, most vegetables) must be pressure canned to be safe.
• Grow something: even a few tomato plants, herbs and a bed of greens teach the skills and feed the family.

A practice calendar

One skill a month, as a family, turns into twelve skills a year. Try: a lights-out night, a backyard camp-out, cooking a meal on the camp stove, a map-and-compass walk, a radio check with the neighbors, walking part of the get-home route, a first aid class, a bug-out bag hike, changing a tire, a day of eating only from the pantry, fixing something broken, and a full evacuation drill with a stopwatch.

After every big disaster, the first rescuers are neighbors. A street that has already met, swapped numbers and made a plan recovers faster and safer than any lone family with a full basement.

Start a neighborhood team in one evening

1. 1.Invite the 15 to 20 closest households to a porch or driveway meeting. Keep it friendly and practical: storms and outages, not gloom.
2. 2.Build a contact list, and a map of the street marking gas meters, water shut-offs and who lives where.
3. 3.Make a skills and equipment list: nurses, electricians, mechanics, radio operators, generators, chainsaws, trucks, ladders.
4. 4.Mark who will need help: older neighbors, people living alone, new babies, anyone on oxygen or dialysis.
5. 5.Agree on a meeting place and a radio channel, and an “OK / HELP” card for windows: green side out means fine, red means come check on us.
6. 6.Pick a team lead and a backup for each block, and meet once or twice a year.

Programs already exist to help: CERT trains residents in disaster response, and many states and counties run “Map Your Neighborhood” or similar programs with free materials.

What mutual aid looks like in practice

Community networks

Congregations, service clubs, volunteer fire departments, scout troops, sports leagues and ham radio clubs are already organized, already know each other and are often the first to open their doors after a disaster. Get involved before you need them: volunteer, give blood before disaster season, and find out who in your congregation or club keeps the list of members who may need help.

Short, specific playbooks for the disasters most likely to hit you. They follow Ready.gov, the National Weather Service and state fire agencies. Local officials always come first.

Hurricane

• Know your evacuation zone now (search your county’s name and “evacuation zone”). The National Hurricane Center’s rule: run from water, hide from wind. Water (storm surge and flooding rain), not wind, causes most hurricane deaths.
• At the 5-day forecast: fill prescriptions, get cash, fill the car and fuel cans, check the bags, and freeze jugs of water to keep the fridge cold.
• At the watch: shutters or plywood up, patio furniture and anything that can fly brought inside, the car loaded, pets ready.
• Ordered out? Leave. Staying in a surge zone risks your life and the lives of rescuers.
• Staying (outside the surge zone, in a sturdy house): an interior room away from windows during the storm. Turn around, don’t drown: the National Weather Service says 6 inches of moving water can knock you down, 12 inches can carry away most cars and 2 feet most SUVs and trucks.
• After: stay off the roads, away from downed lines and out of floodwater (sewage, chemicals, hidden holes). Generators outside only. Many hurricane deaths happen in the days after the storm: carbon monoxide, chainsaw injuries, heat and electrocution.

Wildfire

• Defensible space around the house (NFPA and CAL FIRE zones): the first 5 feet free of anything that burns, including mulch and firewood; lean, clean and green out to 30 feet; thinned trees and cleared brush out to 100 feet.
• Ready, Set, Go: Ready means the house and bags are prepared before fire season. Set means a fire is in the area: bags in the car, the car facing out, pets together, the news on. Go means leave early, as soon as you feel unsafe, without waiting for an order.
• If you have time before leaving: shut all windows and doors but leave them unlocked, move furniture to the middle of rooms, shut off the gas at the meter, connect garden hoses, and leave the lights on so firefighters can see the house through smoke.
• Smoke: stay indoors with windows shut, run a HEPA air purifier, and wear an N95 mask outside. Cloth and surgical masks offer little protection from smoke.
• Trapped in a car: park away from trees and brush, close windows and vents, call for help, lie on the floor and cover up with a wool blanket or jacket. Trapped at home: stay inside, away from outside walls; the house is far safer than running through fire.

Winter storm and ice storm

• Before: fuel for the generator and the car, a week of food and water, medicines, and the heat plan from power, heat and light above.
• Ice brings down trees and power lines for days. Stay away from anything that has fallen; assume every line is live.
• Stay off the roads. If you must drive, go with the car kit and a full tank, and tell someone your route.
• Frostbite first shows as numb, white or grayish-yellow skin. Warm it gently (not with a heater and not by rubbing) and get medical care. Hypothermia signs are in part one.
• Let taps drip, open cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls, and know how to shut off the water main if a pipe bursts.

Earthquake

• Drop, Cover, and Hold On. Drop to your hands and knees, cover your head and neck under a sturdy table (or against an inside wall), and hold on until the shaking stops. Do not run outside and do not stand in a doorway.
• In bed: stay there, face down, with a pillow over your head. Driving: pull over away from bridges, overpasses and power lines, and stay in the car.
• Before: strap the water heater to the wall, anchor tall furniture and TVs, move heavy things to low shelves, and keep shoes and a flashlight by every bed (broken glass).
• After: expect aftershocks. Check for gas leaks (a smell or hissing: get out and call from outside), and stay out of damaged buildings.
• On the coast: strong shaking that lasts a long time, or the sea pulling back, is a natural tsunami warning. Go to high ground or inland immediately, on foot if you must. Do not wait for an official warning.

Pandemic

• Two weeks or more of food, water, medicines and household supplies so you can stay home when you need to.
• Masks, soap, sanitizer, a thermometer and fever reducers. Hand washing and staying home when sick still do the most good.
• Plan for the caregiver getting sick: who looks after the kids and the older relatives, and a room where a sick person can stay apart.
• Follow your local health department and the CDC for current guidance. Keep routines and outdoor time for the family’s mental health.

Long grid-down (including EMP or a major cyberattack)

Nobody can say exactly what a rare event like an electromagnetic pulse would or would not damage, so the sensible plan is the same as for any very long outage: assume weeks without power, phones, card payments or fuel deliveries.

• Water is the first crisis. Many city systems need electric pumps; if the taps fail, your stored water, the water heater and rain catchment are what you have.
• Sanitation is the second: the two-bucket toilet and a plan for waste.
• Heat or cooling third, then food: your 30 to 90-day pantry, eaten fridge first, freezer second.
• Paper everything: maps, contact lists, the family plan, manuals for your generator and stove, a printed copy of this guide.
• Some families keep a spare radio, a small power bank and a flashlight sealed in a closed metal container as cheap insurance. It is a hedge, not a guarantee.
• The neighborhood team matters most here: shared water, shared power, shared watch.

Civil unrest

• Stay home and away from the area. Most unrest is confined to a few blocks; distance is the best protection.
• Before it spreads: fuel, groceries, prescriptions and cash, while stores are open and calm.
• Plan routes that avoid downtown, government buildings and gathering spots. Follow curfews and official instructions.
• Driving and a crowd blocks the road: stay calm, keep doors locked and windows up, look for a way to turn around or a side street, and keep moving slowly away.
• At home: lights low in front rooms, family in the back of the house, doors locked, and your safe-room plan ready. Do not confront anyone over property.
• Never go to watch or film. Curiosity puts people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Economic crisis

• An emergency fund is the most useful prep there is: three to six months of expenses in a savings account, built a little at a time.
• Pay down high-interest debt, and know which bills to protect first: housing, utilities, food, insurance, transportation.
• The pantry is also a hedge against rising prices and a lost paycheck: you can live off it for a month and redirect the grocery money.
• Skills that earn or save money (repairs, cooking from scratch, growing food, a trade) are worth more in hard times, not less.
• Keep some cash at home, and do not make big money decisions in a panic. A licensed financial adviser can help with the rest.

Chemical release: shelter in place

If officials tell you to shelter in place because of a chemical spill or release, Ready.gov’s steps are:

1. 1.Get everyone and the pets inside. Close and lock all windows and doors.
2. 2.Turn off fans, heating and air conditioning, and close the fireplace damper.
3. 3.Go to an interior room with as few windows and doors as possible, above ground level (many chemicals are heavier than air and settle low).
4. 4.Seal gaps around the door and any vents with plastic sheeting and duct tape.
5. 5.Keep the radio on and stay until officials say it is safe. If you are outside and cannot get indoors, move away from the area, upwind if you can.

Nuclear or radiological emergency

• Get inside the nearest solid building, into a basement or the middle of the building, away from windows and outer walls.
• Stay inside for 24 hours unless officials give other instructions. Do not go out to collect family; they should shelter where they are.
• If you were outside: take off your outer layer of clothing before going further inside, and bag it. Ready.gov says that alone can remove up to 90 percent of radioactive material. Shower with soap and shampoo, and no conditioner (it binds contamination to hair).
• Potassium iodide protects only the thyroid, and only from radioactive iodine. Take it only when public health officials tell you to.
• Keep the radio on for official instructions.

Good preparedness gear is mostly boring and simple. Buy categories, not hype, and buy the version you would trust your family’s night with. We don’t test gear and won’t pretend to: this is what to look for, and the questions to ask. Check the current price where you buy.

Every figure on this page that keeps someone safe comes from the agency that publishes it. Guidance gets updated, so check the source before a big decision, and follow local emergency officials first in a real emergency.

• Ready.gov (FEMA): Kits, water per person, family plans, power outages
• U.S. EPA: Bleach dosing for emergency drinking water
• CDC: Boiling water, carbon monoxide, heat and cold illness
• American Red Cross: First aid, CPR and AED classes
• Stop the Bleed: Bleeding-control training near you
• FoodSafety.gov: Food safety when the power goes out
• NOAA Weather Radio: Weather alerts without the internet