What does security in an emergency situation look like?
To adequately cover this topic means considering your personal safety, your family’s safety, the safety of your property, your food and water assets, and finally, your financial assets.
What are some things to think about? A checklist of ideas will trigger your thinking. Do you know the answer to the following for your home?
Planning In General
- Do I know how many people I feel confident I can take care of?
- Have I thought through events that would have consequences for 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months or beyond?
- What event would trigger me to leave my home?
- What conditions would make me stay, or shelter, in place?
- If a disaster struck during an ordinary day, without warning, where would all my family be? How would I round them up?
- Do I have at least three pre-planned meeting spots?
Personal & Home Security
- Does my whole household know how to locate water main, electric, and gas switches to shut on and off?
- Do I take the right seasonal precautions for my water pipes and property in general?
- Have I built up adequate food and water reserves?
- Have I created back-up options to heat and cook?
- Does my family employ basic safety with lighting the property and locking doors and windows?
- Does my family know how to respond to strangers entering the property?
- Does my family know how to contact off-property help, whether friends or municipal, especially if phones are down?
- Does my family know physical maneuvers to slow down an assailant or get them off their person?
- What do I believe about the use of force or weapons?
- Have I answered the basic three: What will I live for? die for? injure for?
- Do I have sufficient training in any of the weapons I might choose to employ, from tasers to firearms?
- Have I built friendships or a neighborhood network of trustworthy people?
Financial Security & Protecting Assets
- Do I have sufficient cash on hand to navigate an emergency if power failures affect banking and cash machines?
- Do I suspect system-wide financial failure?
- If I suspect unusual financial failure, do I know how to best shelter my assets now?
- Do I understand what carries value and can work in barter economies?
