Emergency Preparedness Advice

Emergency preparedness is hard. Only 5% of U.S. households have a fully complete emergency kit, and one in five households has zero emergency supplies. [SafeHome.org survey, 2025]

Furthermore, only 30% of households in the U.S. have an emergency plan, and only one in ten have talked to their neighbors about it. [WellsFargo survey, 2021]

There is a lot of preparedness information available, but information is not the problem. It's motivation. And money: nearly half of households say the cost of supplies is a key reason they are not fully prepared for emergencies. [SafeHome.org]

The purpose of the Preparedness Support Group (PSG) is to overcome the barrier of motivation, at least. We are attempting to discern a path through the dense forest of possibilities to a clear solution that works for us.

But we must start with information. Here is a list of reputable online sources about how to prepare your household for natural disasters and other disruptions.

If you know of other worthwhile sources, please mention them in the comments, or email me.

Governments

United States (U.S.)

• Ready.gov: (FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Administration) - As with everything in the U.S., FEMA is crippled and falling apart. The agency cannot be relied on to actually respond to emergencies, especially in "blue states." Still, this is good, basic information.
• State of Washington: Notably, it's the "Military Department" that is responsible for emergency preparedness. In the City of Seattle, it's the police who are responsible rather than the fire department, which is less than ideal because they are more concerned with control than with rescue.
• The American Red Cross: Not actually the government, but an official auxiliary responder. The organization has suffered some scandal in recent years and cannot be fully relied upon, but again the basic information is good.

United Kingdom (U.K.)

• What is the "United Kingdom," as opposed to, say, "Great Britain?"
• Prepare: U.K. government site.
• Ready Scotland
• nidirect (Northern Ireland)

Canada

• Public Safety Canada

The Nordics

• Finland: Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer-long border with Russia, has bunker spaces for four million of its 5.5 million people, and keeps food stockpiled to supply the country for months in a crisis. ['Who do I want to be if something happens?', 2025, in German.]
• Norway
• Sweden: Notoriously, Sweden issued a brochure entitled 'In Case of Crisis or War', which understandably riled people up a bit.

Japan

• 'Disaster Preparedness Tokyo: Let's Get Prepared' (PDF) from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is the apex of practical emergency preparedness advice. It's focused on earthquakes, but the preparation measures (chapter 2, PDF page 74) and especially the survival tips (chapter 4, PDF page 137 ) are universal. There's also a catalog of potential disasters which could happen anywhere (chapter 3, PDF page 105). This 200-page booklet pulls no punches about the rigors of surviving a disaster, and for good reason: There's a 70 percent chance of an earthquake directly hitting Tokyo in the next 30 years. They expect 11,000 dead and 210,000 injured.

Social Media

Reddit

• r/preppers: Includes a helpful New Preppers Resource Guide, and a Wiki (with this article about the various kinds of bags: BOB (Bug-Out bag), GHB (Get-Home bag), IFAK (Individual First-Aid Kit), and the INCH ("I'm Never Coming Home") bag).
• r/TwoXPreppers: By and for women, in particular.
• And we must mention in this context:
  • r/collapse: Bad news and catastrophes.
  • r/CollapseSupport: Sadness and attempts to be cheerful.

Inidividuals and Groups

• 'A Collective Guide to Surviving Climate Collapse', by Margi Prideaux. In 2020, Margi was burned out of her house and farm during a two-week-long firestorm on Kangaroo Island, Australia. She has become a fierce advocate for community preparedness and mutual aid on her Substack Radically Local. I had a conversation with Margi on the Collapse Club YouTube channel in 2022.
• Sharon Astyk: Sharon offers folksy and practical advice about living off-grid and preparing for emergencies. I can't evaluate the value of her advice, but you can read her Why Should You Listen to Me, Anyway? and judge for yourself. She sells booklets and hosts seminars.
• 'Resilience' (Google Doc) from Deep Adaptation - Hungary: This is a complete program to increase household resilience, including a 100-question survey to evaluate your current level of preparedness. If you view the original site, you will need to translate from the Hungarian. (I use Chrome.) The Google Doc is in English. The Hungarian branch of the Deep Adaptation Forum is the largest, busiest, and most successful DA group in the world!