Seven Steps to Prepare for a Crisis If You Aren't A Bunker-Owning Prepper and Are Doing This for the First Time
As we are in the midst of a Constitutional crisis in the United States and we don't know how this is going to play out, here is some advice from someone who has taught disaster prep to something like 800 children ages 8-18.
1. Make a Family Emergency Plan. Sit down with your household (children included) and talk through where you will meet in case of emergencies. Make plans for where to meet if you have to evacuate your house (this might be "mailbox" or "neighbor's house"), if you have to leave from work/school, or if you are out of town. Keep a copy in your go-bag (#4 below), in your vehicle, in your wallet/purse, and in you or your kids' backpacks. In a high stress situation, you might not remember a phone number or the name of a family's member's necessary medication; let the FEP remember that for you. This is the plan I use with my students: https://docs.google.com/.../1P.../edit...
2. Keep your important documents together so you can grab and go. Make a copy for your bug-out bag(s) but keep the originals together. I recommend putting them in a gallon ziplock bag to keep them dry. Passports, license, birth certificates, name change/adoption documents, marriage licenses, a sealed copy of current school transcripts (especially for high school students), degree certificates and other professional accreditation records, prescription info (#3 below). You don't know what records you will be able to easily access, so having physical copies will hopefully bridge any gap of access.
3. If you usually transfer your pills into pill cases or dispensers, keep your bottles/boxes from your most recent refill and chuck then in your go-bag OR take photographs of the labels and print them and add them to your folder of emergency documents.
4. Bug-out bags/go-bags are not just for preppers and conspiracy theorists. They're part of an effective family emergency plan. Having portable supplies for 3 days of evacuation emergency and stable supplies for two weeks of shelter-in-place emergency has long been recommended by agencies like FEMA. Keep a bag in your home and a smaller bag or bin in any family vehicle. Remember folks getting stuck on the Interstates for 12+ hours during Snowpocalypse in Atlanta? Yeah, car bag/bin. This is the packing list I use with my classes: https://docs.google.com/.../16GPCx9w0EQqLgEVMhQ7s.../edit...
5. Charge any power blocks/bricks in advance and check their charge regularly. They'll typically lose charge if they sit unused for long periods of time. I like the Anker brand, but YMMV. One charging brick per family member is a good idea. I prefer the flat style that are shaped like phones over the cylindrical kind because they fit more comfortably in a pocket. CHARGE YOUR DEVICES AND BRICKS NOW while you're thinking about it!
6. Consider hygiene. Consider how must worse things feel when you feel sweaty and yucky and gross. You're going to feel better and think clearer with dry socks, clean underwear, and the ability to dispose of body waste. You can never have too much water for drinking or hygiene, so if you have space, buy potable water and store it. You can fill empty jugs/bottles with tap water now keep them in each bathroom in case the water goes out and you have business you need to flush. I don't have dry shampoo on the bug-out bag list, but it might help you feel more human, so if you have the space, you might want to add a can.
7. Keep your communication secure. Don't talk about your Family Emergency Plan details on FB or over unsecured text. Signal has end to end encryption, doesn't willingly turn over data to law enforcement (Jon has confirmed how difficult it is), and is currently the app I'd recommend.
Listen, I'm a Gold Award-winning Girl Scout, apocalypse collector, and dystopian lit educator who also teaches disaster prep to children. That's the perspective I'm coming from. I'm not Bill from The Last of Us. I'm not advocating for extreme and expensive prepping and a wall of guns n' ammo and DIY batteries. We may weather this storm just fine, but even if we do, the next storm might come in the shape of a hurricane, flash floods, a power grid failure, a wildfire, a military conflict, another pandemic. Being prepared NOW will help you THEN as well.
