On this site, “prepare” means something modest and specific: having the essentials to stay at home through a disruption, and knowing what to do when a system you rely on stops. Not a bunker. Not a warehouse. Extra of what you already use, kept where you can reach it, plus a plan you have talked through.
Every disruption, whatever causes it, reaches a household through the same few doors: the tap, the refrigerator, the wall outlet, the medicine cabinet, the phone, and the toilet. Those are the six essentials. Cover them and most emergencies become inconvenient rather than dangerous.
Short emergencies are mostly inventory problems. Long emergencies become systems and relationship problems. These six pages are about the inventory part.
What these pages do, and what they leave to the agencies
Each page explains what to have and why it matters, what changes when the essential stops, who nearby may need help, and the mistakes people make under stress. For how much to keep, how long it lasts, and how to treat, wire or dose anything, the pages send you to the agency whose job that is — Ready.gov, the American Red Cross, the EPA, USDA, the CDC, the Consumer Product Safety Commission — by name, in the sentence, with the link at the bottom. Ready.gov’s kit page is the shortest complete list of supplies, and the Red Cross keeps one of its own; both are cited below. This site does not restate their numbers in its own words, and it says so wherever the question comes up.
The six essentials
Water. The first thing to run short and the hardest to improvise. What to store, where clean water already sits in your home, how to recognize an advisory, and who says how much to keep and how to make more of it safe.
Food. A reserve you actually eat, chosen to keep without refrigeration and to be eaten without cooking, rotated through ordinary meals. What happens to the refrigerator when the power fails, and who says how long its contents stay safe.
Power. Light, phone charging, the refrigerator, and anyone whose medical equipment needs electricity. Why generators, grills and camp stoves are never used indoors or in a garage, and whose instructions govern where they go.
Medical. A written list of every prescription, a reserve where your prescriber and pharmacy allow it, a first aid kit you have opened, and the skills that matter before help arrives: first aid, CPR, and stopping serious bleeding.
Communications. How you will reach each other when calls will not connect, how official alerts reach you, a radio that works without the grid, and the numbers written on paper.
Sanitation. The one people skip. What happens to the toilet, the sink and the trash when water or sewer service stops, why hygiene is what keeps a household healthy through a long disruption, and what to have on hand.
The Ladder
You do not have to do all of this at once. The Ladder is five rungs — Tonight, 72 Hours, 2 Weeks, 30 Days, 3 Months+ — and every rung you reach is worth having. Tonight is filling a few containers and finding the flashlight. The 72-hour rung is the first real milestone, and the printable checklist for it is below; each of the six pages tells you what that rung looks like for its essential. Beyond 2 Weeks, supplies matter less than skills, routines and the people around you, which is where the Community pages take over.
After the six
Four more topics belong in this section and follow the same rule of what-and-why here, how-much-and-how-to from the agencies: Shelter & Temperature, Transportation, Documents & Money, and Pets & Animals. If you have not yet started anywhere, start with Start Here — ten steps in order, the first one tonight — and come back to these pages one at a time.