Wildfire and smoke readiness
If wildfire or smoke affects your area, review evacuation routes, alerts, and indoor-air plans.
Review wildfire planningPractical household preparedness
A calmer home starts with a useful plan.
Know what to protect when the power goes out. Make a plan for your household’s water, food, and essential systems, one decision at a time.
No account. No shopping list required. Your plan stays in this browser.
Choose by planning question
Start with the decision in front of you.
These are planning estimates, not exact equipment sizing or emergency instructions. Use them as a starting point, then check the assumptions, safety limits, and local guidance.
Not sure where to begin?
What should my household do first during an outage?
A private, fixed-choice plan for the household systems an outage can disrupt.
Know the question?
01 / Water storage
How much water should I store?
A drinking and cooking baseline, confirmed extra water, container capacity, and filled weight.
Use this tool 02 / Outage food safetyIs my fridge or freezer food still usable?
A refrigerator/freezer timeline that hands off from elapsed time to temperature evidence.
Use this tool 03 / Battery runtimeHow long will my battery last?
Usable energy and runtime based on capacity, loads, reserve, and conversion loss.
Use this toolContinue on this device without creating an account.
One place to return to
Small steps become your household plan.
Save a calculator result, check off an action, then print a copy. Your plan is kept on this device, ready for the next decision.
Plan by household system
Explore the systems your home relies on.
Water
Minimums, storage, and treatment limits
Plan waterFood
Familiar meals, cooking, and rotation
Plan foodPower
Essential loads, runtime, and safe backup
Plan powerCommunications
Alerts, contacts, and offline fallback
Plan communicationsEmergency kit
Household needs, weight, and practice
Plan emergency kitHome safety
Alarms, lighting, access, and shutoffs
Plan home safetyPlan for conditions where you live
Seasonal readiness reminders
These are planning prompts, not local alerts. Follow your local emergency-management and weather services for current instructions.
Hurricane readiness
If tropical weather affects your area, review official alerts, evacuation guidance, and outage supplies.
Review hurricane planningContinue learning
Recently published and updated
Choose and prepare one room that can reduce wildfire-smoke particles while remaining cool, usable, and ready for the household to leave if conditions change.
Weigh an emergency go-bag by category, set a household-specific carrying target, protect essential and accessibility items, distribute supplies, and practice the route.
Create a realistic 14-day emergency menu with no-cook backups, low-fuel meals, a consolidated shopping list, water checks, and household adjustments.
Three useful actions
Start small. Your selections stay in this browser.
How we research
See how sources, assumptions, estimates, corrections, and review dates are handled.
Read the methodology