Most emergencies are only temporary, and they don’t usually end civilization as we know it! On the other side of things most people are affected at least once in their life by a major disaster or crisis. And because of that, you need to be prepared just in case.

When you’re planning for an emergency situation there are a number of questions you should ask yourself (check out our quiz for a detailed list of questions) and some key things you should consider.

Planning an evacuation route and location to travel to.

Since there’s always the possibility that you may need to evacuate it’s important to plan how you will evacuate if you need to.

  1. Plan for multiple vaccination roots in case one of your roots becomes blocked or otherwise inaccessible and can’t use it. (This could be due to the weather, a bridge being knocked out, traffic, riots or fighting, etc.)
  2. It’s a good idea to start your evacuation plan at your home and move out from there. So for example, have multiple at evacuation routes to get out of your home in the event of a fire or other emergency. Multiple routes to get out of your yard neighborhood, multiple routes out of your city and state if needed.
  3. For the same reason that you should plan multiple evacuation routes, its best plan multiple safe destinations to go to. A safe place outside of your home but within your neighborhood, outside of your neighborhood but within your city, outside of your city, outside of your state, etc. (if you’re planning to stay with friends or family makes sure that you ask them before an emergency happens)
  4. Make sure that you map out both your evacuation routes, and your safe places and take the time to travel them to get familiar and comfortable with them. Also make sure that everyone in your family or group is familiar and comfortable with evacuation routes and your safe places to travel to.

Planning how to contact friends and family if communications go down.

The reality is that crisis will often hit when you least expect it, that means that there’s a good chance and not everyone will be home during an emergency, that’s why it’s important to make plan about what you do and how to get in touch with each other.

You should ask yourself what you will do if communications are down and your family isn’t together, you should plan multiple places to meet up for the same reason that you should plan multiple safe places. In fact, your meet at places might be your safe Places.

Make sure that everyone in your group knows and is comfortable with what to do if they’re separated from the rest of the group and where to try and meet up first and where to meet up if that place isn’t available. As before, you should choose a place close to home, one in your neighborhood, one outside your neighborhood, outside your city, outside your state, etc. depending on the severity of the situation.

Planning to protect important personal and family items.

It’s also important to safeguard and back up important items in documents that you will need during or after an emergency situation. These are things like your ID cards, your credit and bank cards, insurance policies, tax information, your bank/credit card/utility statements, family pictures, journals, electronic logins and passwords, etc.

You should have physical photocopies or the originals stored in a safe waterproof fireproof location (for example sealed in plastic in a fire safe, or stored in your “bug-out bag”).

It’s also a good idea to use a reputable online electronic backup service to back up any of your important files or digital pictures so that they are not lost if something happens to your computer. There several services on the web that provide this service in a very reasonable cost.

Simple things to improve your preparedness right away

Take our quiz for some ideas to improve your preparedness right away