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Before it happens: a household emergency plan and supply list
A storm, a fire, a flood or a long power cut can come on a day when the people you live with are in different places. This page is for a calm day before that. It asks the questions Ready.gov, the U.S. government’s emergency preparedness website, says to talk through at home: how you will get alerts, where you will shelter, which way you will leave, how you will reach each other and where you will meet. It keeps the phone numbers you would not remember, turns Ready.gov’s supply list into a checklist, and puts it all on one sheet for the fridge door. There is no account and no price.
Good to know
Where the questions and the lists come from
We added no advice of our own about what to plan for or what to store. The four questions in step 1, the ten things to consider in step 3 and both supply lists in step 4 are Ready.gov’s words, from two of its pages: Make a Plan (marked last updated 09/01/2026) and Build a Kit (marked last updated 07/01/2026). We read both on October 9, 2026. The meeting place and the “where the kit is kept” boxes come from sentences on those same pages. We shortened one item on the list: Ready.gov’s line about prescription medications goes on to explain why they matter. The short examples under each box are ours. Ready.gov says a basic kit “could include” these items; it is a list to work from, and the page treats it that way.
Keeping the kit ready
Ready.gov says that after an emergency you may need to survive on your own for several days, and that being prepared means having your own food, water and other supplies to last for several days. Its Build a Kit page adds:
- Store the items in airtight plastic bags, and put the whole kit in one or two easy-to-carry containers such as plastic bins or a duffel bag.
- Keep canned food in a cool, dry place, and store boxed food in tightly closed plastic or metal containers.
- Replace expired items as needed.
- Re-think your needs every year and update your kit as your family’s needs change.
- Since you do not know where you will be when an emergency occurs, prepare supplies for home, work and cars.
Its Make a Plan page ends with one more step: practice your plan with your household.
How it works
- Our plan has six boxes. Leaving a box after you change it keeps it; the Keep button does the same thing.
- People and numbers holds up to 12 lines: who, a phone number, a note.
- What our household needs is Ready.gov’s ten things to consider, with a box for what they mean in your home.
- Our supplies is the checklist. Put in how many people live with you and the page multiplies the water: one gallon per person per day.
- Our sheet prints the plan, the numbers, what you have and what is still to get, with a box to tick beside each thing to get.
What this page can’t do
- It does not know where you live or which disasters could affect your area. Ready.gov says it is important to know that; your city, county or state emergency management office is the place to ask.
- It sends no alerts and cannot warn you of anything.
- It does not say how many days of water or food to keep. Ready.gov’s list says “several days”; the page gives the water for one day and leaves the number of days to you.
- It cannot remind you to check the kit or to practice the plan.
- It is not an official form, not a Ready.gov or FEMA page, and nobody from an emergency agency has looked at it. Ready.gov has its own fillable family emergency plan on its Make a Plan page.
- The plan does not move to another phone or computer by itself. Print it, download it, or use My data on this device to carry a backup across.
Tools that go with this
- My emergency card: a wallet card for each person, with who to call, allergies and medicines.
- Where things are: where the papers and the keys are, for the person who would need to find them.
- My medicines: the list a pharmacy or a shelter nurse would ask for.
- First aid: what do you see? and When there’s a fire at home, with Our way out, a fire escape plan with a drill timer.
- Them too: an emergency plan and kit for your pets.
- My plan, my needs: an emergency plan for people with disabilities.
- Ready for less: Ready.gov’s low- and no-cost preparedness steps as a checklist.
- Lights out: a plan for when the power goes out, from Ready.gov’s page on power outages.
- When it’s dangerously hot and When it’s dangerously cold.
- After a disaster: where to sleep tonight, FEMA, replacing papers and the scams that follow.
- All the free tools, and how to save them on your phone so they open with no signal.
The tool and the wording around it were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy); the questions and the supply lists are Ready.gov’s, and the plan itself is written by the people who live in the home. It was not reviewed by an emergency manager, and it has been checked by programs, not yet used by people. Also in Spanish: Plan de emergencia del hogar; both pages keep the same plan on this device, and each shows Ready.gov’s lists as its own language’s page words them. The page holds one plan and keeps it until you erase it. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].