Emergency Preparedness

In considering how to prepare for emergencies, our team took an analytical and pragmatic approach. We started with WHAT are the emergencies in which we want to solve for; knowing many factors could lead to any one of them and possibly two or more emergency scenarios could occur at once or be triggered by another.

Pick your SOLUTION

Key
Categories

We then identified the twelve key categories which an emergency could impact. We realized missing any one of them could create a cascade of additional issues, jeopardizing your safety and ultimately even survival.

Predicting
Impact

Our next step was to determine WHEN each segment would be impacted by each scenario. We identified the impact could be Immediate, Secondary and/or Enduring; with many scenarios having more than one timeframe to be solved for to prevent life threatening problems.

For example, in any scenario where there is an extended loss of power, the public water sources (water to your home) will be impacted. Most water towers have ~ 1 day of water stored in them for the communities they serve. So, after one day, the water which is cleaned at the water treatment plant and then pumped up into the water tower will only last as long as the backup generators have fuel. In most cases, this is 3 days. So, water will be available for ~ 3 days, then the secondary problem of no water to your home’s tap and toilets will occur. This will cause a multitude of cascading life-threatening problems, e.g. – safe drinking water, how to clean dishes, flush toilets, etc. These problems lead to dehydration, a lack of sanitary conditions and infection.

Resources Impacted

By combining WHAT are the threats, the KEY CATEGORIES for health/wellness/survival and understanding the WHEN of the challenges would occur, we could then begin to methodically solve for them. We also realized the severity of the threat which occurred would also impact what a solution would be. So, we broke out our solutions to address 1 week, 1 month, 1 year and greater than a year timeframes

For example, continuing with the water scenario of the preceding section, after 3 days, you would need to use stored water, having a minimum of a week and best to have a month. During that timeframe, unless water was going to be restored, you would need to begin to collect water (rain, stream, lake) and purify it.

Impact
Duration

Our Solutions

What can you do to protect and provide for your family?
How do you prepare for the unexpected?
Where do you begin?

Applying the approach described above, we bought, tried and tested products to solve for the problems our families would face in emergencies.

When then shared our list of all solutions with family and friends. After seeing our list, most said I am overwhelmed, I don’t know where to start and or if I only have $x to spend, what should I get?”