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 911, 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 call 911) 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.

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