Emergency preparedness has a reputation for bunkers and freeze-dried food by the pallet. For a household it is far simpler: know what could happen where you live, agree on a plan, and keep a few days of supplies where you can reach them. Here are six steps, in the order that makes them easiest.
1. Know what could happen where you live
A prep kit for hurricane country is not the one you need for winter storms or earthquakes. Start by listing the two or three emergencies that are most likely where you live: floods, wildfires, storms, earthquakes, heat waves, long power cuts. Your city or county emergency management office publishes them, and it is also where to sign up for local alerts. On a phone, keep emergency alerts switched on in the settings.
2. Make a family emergency plan
Supplies help only if everyone knows what to do with them. Sit down together for twenty minutes and agree on:
- How you will hear about an emergency: which alerts, which radio station.
- Two meeting places: one just outside your home, one outside your neighborhood.
- One contact who lives out of the area, whom everyone calls or texts to check in. Long-distance lines often work when local ones are jammed.
- Who picks up the children from school, and who looks after older relatives and pets.
- Your evacuation routes, by car and on foot.
Write it down, put a copy in every bag, and walk through it once a year.
3. Pack a go bag for each person
Start with what matters most and fill in the rest over the next few weeks: water, food that needs no cooking, medicine, copies of your IDs, a flashlight, a power bank and some cash. The go bag checklist has everything else, sorted into nine categories, and the kinds of emergency kit explains when a car or office bag is worth adding.
4. Stock the home for two weeks
Most emergencies keep you at home rather than send you away. The American Red Cross recommends a two-week supply of water and food for home: one gallon of water per person per day, and non-perishable food you already eat. Buy a few extra items on every shopping trip and it adds up within a month. The emergency water and food guide works out the amounts for your household.
5. Protect your documents
Copy your IDs, insurance policies, medical information and property papers. Put paper copies in a waterproof pouch in your go bag, and keep encrypted digital copies you can open offline. The emergency documents guide lists what to copy.
6. Keep it ready
Put two dates a year in your calendar to check everything: expiry dates, batteries, the power bank, clothes for the season. Ready.gov's advice is to replace expired items and rethink your kit every year as your family changes. The kit maintenance guide has the routine.
Building it on a budget
- Start with what you own. An old backpack, a spare phone charger, a flashlight from a drawer: half a go bag is already in your home.
- Add a little each week. One or two items per shopping trip spreads the cost over a month or two.
- Store what you eat. Canned food and water you use anyway can be rotated into the kitchen before it expires, so nothing is wasted.
- Check ready-made kits. A pre-packed kit is a fair start, but it will not have your medicine, your documents or your children's things.
Your first weekend
If you do nothing else this week, do this:
- Pick a backpack for each person
- Pack 2–3 liters of water and three days of snacks in each
- Add each person's medicine, a flashlight and a charged power bank
- Put copies of your IDs in a zip bag
- Write your emergency numbers on paper
- Choose a meeting place and tell everyone
GoBag+ sets this up in minutes: a go bag in nine categories, quantities sized to your household, your SOS contacts one tap away even offline, and copies of your documents in a vault that opens only with Face ID.