Emergency Preparedness Guides

Specialized guides for wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, and general disaster planning, drawn from CDC and Red Cross recommendations.

Other preparedness guides

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Why disaster-specific planning matters

One kit, many scenarios

Most emergency-kit recommendations focus on a generic 72-hour go-bag. That baseline is a great starting point, but the disasters most likely to affect you depend heavily on where you live. A household in California prepares for wildfires and earthquakes; a household in Florida prepares for hurricanes and prolonged power outages; a household in Tornado Alley prepares for sudden severe weather and shelter-in-place scenarios.

How these guides are organised

Each guide on this page covers four phases: before (planning, drills, and home hardening), during (immediate-safety actions in the first minutes), after (the first 72 hours), and recovery (the days and weeks that follow). The recommendations are drawn from CDC, Red Cross, FEMA, and equivalent agencies in Germany and Sweden, and they are kept consistent with the item-level checklist on the homepage so your kit stays aligned with your plan.

Pick a scenario

Start with the disaster type most likely to affect your region, then read the general preparedness guide once you have a baseline kit assembled. Cross-reference the CDC and Red Cross guides for organisation-specific recommendations such as medical supplies, sheltering rules, and family-communication plans.

About the EmergencyKit.app checklist

How we built it

EmergencyKit.app combines the official emergency-kit recommendations published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Red Cross, USA.gov's Ready.gov campaign, and the German Federal Office of Civil Protection (BBK) and Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). Each item on the checklist is tagged with the organisations that recommend it so you can see at a glance how well-supported it is.

The 20% body-weight rule

A go-bag should weigh no more than roughly 20% of the carrier's body weight. Above that threshold, evacuating on foot becomes painful, slow, and risky for older or smaller adults and for children. The weight checker on the homepage estimates your kit's total weight from the items you select and warns you when you cross the limit, so you can swap heavier items for lighter alternatives before you actually need to leave.

Three days, then more

The baseline kit covers a 72-hour window because that is how long it typically takes public services to restore basic supplies after a major disaster. Households in high-risk regions for hurricanes, wildfires, or earthquakes should plan for at least two weeks of food, water, and prescription medication on top of the baseline kit.