Power outage
Prioritize essential loads, lighting, communication, food safety, and safe backup power.
Open the power outage guidePreparedness, one household decision at a time
What are you preparing for?
Choose the problem in front of you. Each situation starts with one useful guide and adds a planning tool only where a calculation helps.
Prepare by disruption
Choose the situation first.
Winter storm
Prepare heat, water, food, travel decisions, and outage fallbacks before conditions worsen.
Open the winter storm guideWildfire
Reduce home exposure, keep official alerts available, and make early evacuation decisions.
Open the wildfire guideHurricane
Work through alerts, home protection, water, outage planning, and evacuation timing.
Open the hurricane guideExtreme heat
Choose cooling, check-in, medication, pet, power, and relocation actions before indoor conditions become unsafe.
Open the extreme heat guideEvacuation
Prepare documents, routes, contacts, medication, pets, and a carryable household kit.
Open the evacuation guideEmergency kit
Build a household-fit kit, place it where it can be reached, and keep its contents usable and carryable.
Open the emergency kit guideShelter in place
Plan water, food, sanitation, communication, indoor safety, and a longer service disruption.
Open the shelter in place guideStart by household topic
Or explore a household topic
Essential guides
A useful starting guide from each household preparedness area.
Build a realistic home resilience plan for people, water, food, communication, backup power, shelter, sanitation, maintenance, and the decision to leave.
Build an emergency water plan around safe storage, local advisories, source-specific treatment, certified filters, and testing instead of unsupported product rankings.
Build an emergency food supply from three days to two weeks with a household menu, safe storage, water planning, no-cook meals, and a simple rotation system.
Compare battery stations, portable generators, solar-plus-storage, and standby systems by critical loads, outage duration, safe connection, and maintenance.
Build a practical household communication plan for outages, evacuations, and network congestion with phone, radio, alert, power, and paper fallbacks.
Build a practical home security plan with sound entry hardware, daily habits, lighting, cameras, alarms, account security, and outage fallbacks.
Apartment & city readiness
Build a household plan, choose a realistic timeline, and prepare for evacuation or sheltering.
- Disability-Inclusive Emergency Plan: Access, Support, and Evacuation
- Emergency Medication Record and Storage Plan
- Earthquake Household Plan: During Shaking and the First Safety Check
- Flood Alerts and Evacuation: A Household Decision Plan
Water & sanitation
Set a storage minimum, choose safe containers, and understand treatment limitations.
- Private Well After a Flood: Inspect, Disinfect, and Test Safely
- PFAS Home Water Filter Guide: Verify the Claim Before You Buy
- How Much Emergency Water for a Family of 4? 12–56 Gallons
- Emergency Water Treatment Methods: Boiling, Disinfection, and Filtration
Food & cooking
Plan food your household will eat, including no-cook options and rotation.
- 2-Week Emergency Menu Plan: Shelf-Stable Meals People Will Eat
- 5 Emergency Food Storage Mistakes and How to Fix Them
- Long-Term Food Storage Methods: Dry Staples, Barriers, and Rotation
- Water Storage Safety: Sanitize, Label, Rotate, and Use
Backup power
Start with essential loads, then compare battery, solar, and generator constraints.
- Powered Medical Device Outage Plan: Care Continuity Before Runtime
- Battery Runtime Planning: Watts, Watt-Hours, and a Safer Test
- LiFePO4 Battery Backup Maintenance: A Manual-First Checklist
- Sizing Solar for an Off-Grid Cabin: Loads, Seasons, and Autonomy
Communications
Keep alerts, contacts, lighting, and essential controls useful when internet or power fails.
- No-Internet Emergency Communication Stack
- Remote Work Emergency Plan for Power and Internet Outages
- Backup Power for Phones, Internet, and Work Electronics
Home security
Layer locks, lighting, local alerts, and outage behavior without relying on one device.
- Fire Extinguishers at Home: Selection, Checks, and Safe-Use Limits
- Make a Home Fire Escape Plan That Everyone Can Use
- Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms: A Household Planning Guide
- Power Outage Home Security Plan: Offline Fallbacks That Work