Emergency Preparedness Plan: A Multi-Stage Process

Create an emergency preparedness plan.

As my regular readers know, preparedness is kinda my thing. I’ve done articles before on disaster preparedness, but today, I’m going to do another one for the algorithm. This will be a multi stage process to help you prepare for the most likely disaster in your area, and then expand your preparedness based on individual needs and factors.

Stage One: The Disaster

The single most important part of this process is picking realistic emergencies to prepare for. Live in an area with tornados? Perhaps earthquakes are more prominent. Or maybe wildfires are the disaster Nature most prefers in your neighborhood! It is essential to pick these wisely, because while there is overlap in all preparedness, individual disasters have unique specificity in what is required to stay safe (a tornado shelter in a wildfire is just an oven, after all).

Stage Two: Planning Outward

When you begin to develop a plan, I always start with a circle. In this circle, I put all of the most simple things that you can do to prepare for a disaster. Things like fire extinguishers, medical supplies, clean water reserves, etc.

In this category, you would designate emergency exits for yourself and your children, safe rooms for emergencies, and other minor logistical planning.

After this, you add a new ring around the first one, and add the next layer of complexity. So adding things like external cameras, building out a tornado shelter, installing a built in fire suppression system, generators, etc.

Stage Three: Expand The Radius

Step three is very similar to step two, but now we go outside the home. Your home is your castle, and that’s why it is important to set it up first. But when you’re not at home, emergency preparedness doesn’t end, it expands. Caring for things like your vehicle, your travel routes, and your workspace are essential to quality preparedness.

Two prime examples of this are knowing your area, and preparing a get home kit. In an emergency, roadways can be chaotic. We’ve seen regular instances of traffic congestion get pretty extensive, and in a situation where people aren’t thinking clearly, such as an emergency, this can make it difficult to get home. A Quick Look at a map can help you determine a safe path home that evades the dense traffic of main highways and roadways,

Secondly, the get home bag. While in the extreme survivalist culture, there is an emphasis on packing up and getting out, most of us don’t have the skill set to survive the great outdoors. Our home is shelter and security to an extent, and a much easier environment to survive in. So in the even t you are away from home, I recommend keeping some spare supplies in a bag in your car. This “get home bag” should have food, water, some light medical supplies, and a few tools to help you on your way.

In the event that your car breaks down in an emergency, you can’t always rely on the availability of tow trucks and friendly neighbors to help you fix it, so when danger is close, grab your bag, anything important in the car, and get to stepping. Follow your pre planned route, and make sure to share it with the people involved in your emergency planning, so they have a route to look for you if needed. Only diverge from this path in the case of danger, and try to meet back up to it as soon as possible.

Stage Four: TEST the Plan

Now, it’s time for a dry run. Get your family together and test your plan for each emergency. Walk them through it, explain what you are doing and why you are doing it, and ensure that each person knows their role.

As you go through this process, you will find points of failure in your process. Fill in these gaps to ensure a quality plan that will work when you need it to.

Summary

This is a rough guide for the beginner. Ultimately, taking time to understand your circumstances, tools, medical supplies, and local resources will help you develop your plan better, but ultimately, this gets you started. It’s important to consider your physical abilities as part of any emergency plan to ensure it’s best success, as your physical health will determine certain factors in preparation.

Be safe, be prepared, and be GOOD.