Emergency Preparedness Plan: What It Covers and How to Write Yours

What Goes Into a Household Emergency Plan

Ready.gov's plan questions include how you will receive emergency alerts and warnings, your shelter plan, your evacuation route and your family or household communication plan.

So the core of the plan, as Ready.gov names it, is:

• How you will receive emergency alerts and warnings.
• Your shelter plan.
• Your evacuation route.
• Your family or household communication plan.

That list is not everything a plan can include, and Ready.gov's own planning pages are the place to check for the current version.

Turning those parts into a plan means settling a set of questions with your household and writing the answers down. Here is a checklist of what to decide:

• Who is in the plan: everyone who lives in your home, plus anyone who depends on you.
• How each person hears an alert: a phone, a radio, a neighbor, someone at work.
• Which hazards your local officials plan for where you live.
• Where in your home you would shelter if told to stay put.
• When you would leave - on your local officials' instructions - and which way out you would take.
• What you take with you, and who grabs each thing.
• Who you call, and where you meet if you get separated.

This page is a starting point, not the rule. For hazard-specific actions and official checklists, check the current Ready.gov and American Red Cross planning pages and your local officials.

People and Pets Who Need Extra Help

Write down every person and pet in your home whose needs change your answers, such as someone who needs help to move, relies on powered equipment or depends on daily care.

Then go back through each part of the plan with those needs in mind. Ask:

• Who needs help moving, and who will help them?
• Who relies on powered equipment, and what happens to it if the power goes out?
• Who depends on daily care or daily items, and how do those go with you?
• Does a pet or a service animal need its own supplies, carrier or plan to leave?

The reason to check every part is simple: a plan that works for most of the household can still fail the person who needs the most help. Ready.gov and the American Red Cross keep current guidance on planning for people and pets with extra needs, so check there for the latest detail.

Staying Put or Leaving Home

Prepare a shelter-at-home answer and an evacuation answer, and use whichever your local officials call for when an emergency comes.

There is no single rule for whether to stay or go. That depends on what is happening, and your local officials are the ones who say which applies. Your job is to have both answers ready. Ready.gov's plan questions include a shelter plan and an evacuation route, so a complete plan covers both.

For staying put, settle where in your home you would shelter and what you need with you there. For leaving, settle:

• The way out of your home, and an alternate if that one is blocked.
• Where you would stay.
• How you would get there.
• Who needs help leaving, and who will help them.

For a deeper look at the choice itself, read our guide to bug in vs bug out.

Which Hazards Affect Your Area

Find out which hazards your local officials plan for, because those hazards shape both your shelter answer and your evacuation answer.

Once you know them, check each one against your shelter and evacuation answers: would you stay or go, and is your answer for that hazard written down?

For medical, safety, legal or emergency questions, Survival Report points readers to official sources such as Ready.gov, the American Red Cross and local emergency services.

Those sources, and your local government's own site, are where to find out which hazards apply to you. This guide does not list hazards for any area or say what to do in any particular one.

What to Take and When to Grab It

Your plan decides when you grab your emergency kit and where you take it, so write down what goes with you and who carries each item.

When your local officials tell you to leave, that is the moment to grab it. Decide now what goes with you if you must leave - your emergency kit, copies of your key papers, and the daily-care items for anyone in the plan with extra needs, pets included - and write down who grabs each thing. That way nobody stands in the hallway wondering whether someone else has the bag. For current supply detail, check Ready.gov and the American Red Cross.

How Your Household Finds Each Other

The American Red Cross suggests choosing places to meet right outside your home and outside your neighborhood, plus an out-of-area emergency contact person.

That is two meeting places and one contact person who lives somewhere else.

Ready.gov advises knowing how your family will contact one another and reconnect if separated, and establishing a family meeting place that is familiar and easy to find.

Both keep current planning pages, so check them for the latest detail. Then settle the parts that matter when calls and texts do not go through, and put them on paper:

• Who your out-of-area contact is, and whether everyone has that number written down, not just saved in a phone.
• Which meeting place you use, and when.
• Who collects the kids from school or care.
• How long you wait at a meeting place before moving on, and where you go next.

Papers to Gather and Copy

List the documents your household would need to prove who you are and what you own after a disaster, and keep copies where you can reach them away from home.

Make the list by checking three groups:

• Identity: do you have the papers that prove who each person in your household is, such as photo IDs and birth certificates?
• Ownership: do you have the papers that prove what you own or rent, such as a deed, a lease or vehicle titles?
• Coverage: do you have your insurance policies and the contact details for each insurer?

Then decide where the copies live and who can reach them away from home. A copy locked in a drawer in a house you cannot get back into does not help much. This guide does not give legal advice about which documents you need.

How to Put Your Plan in Writing

Sit down with everyone in your household, answer the questions in the sections above together, and write the answers on a page everyone can find.

Before you start, a quick self-check. You may already have more of a plan than you think:

• Does everyone know where to meet?
• Does everyone know who to call?
• Do you know how alerts reach each person?
• Do you know where the important papers are?

Every yes is an answer your household already has, ready to write down today. Then work through these steps:

1. Check what everyone already knows. It shows you where the gaps are, so you spend your time on those.
2. Talk through each part together. A plan made by one person only lives in that person's head; talking it through means everyone knows it and agrees with it.
3. Write the answers on a page everyone can find. Under stress, people forget, and a page does not.
4. Share copies with everyone in the plan. A copy at work, in a bag or with a relative means the plan is still there if you are not at home.

Practice Runs and Regular Reviews

Ready.gov's fourth planning step is to practice your plan with your household.

The American Red Cross advises creating and practicing an emergency plan, practicing as many elements as possible, and practicing evacuating your home twice a year.

Check both Ready.gov and the American Red Cross for their current guidance on practicing.

A plan also goes stale as life changes, so treat it as a living document. Review it whenever something changes, such as:

• You move.
• Someone new joins the household.
• Phone numbers change.
• Someone starts a new school or a new job.

After each change, pull out the written plan and check it against the new situation.

Next Reads for Your Household

Your next read is the family emergency plan article, then survival contingency planning for the times your main plan falls through.

• For backup options when the first plan does not work, read about survival contingency planning.
• To browse everything else, head back to the survival report home page.