The Household Emergency Checklist

The one section that can’t wait. You can skip a meal; you can’t skip water.

• Drinking water, stored 6 gallonsOne gallon per person per day for three days, for drinking and a little cooking. Store-bought jugs are the easy start — keep them somewhere cool and out of sunlight, and write the month and year on the cap. Our water storage container comparison prices the ways to hold it, and the water storage calculator turns the gallons into containers and weights for your house.
• A way to make tap or rain water safeA countertop gravity filter or a simple squeeze filter turns a refill problem into a non-event once the stored jugs run dry.
• Bottles you can grab and carry 4 filled bottlesA filled reusable bottle per person, plus a flat of plain bottled water if you have the shelf. Small bottles get used; a five-gallon jug in the garage mostly gets looked at.
• Something to haul water inOne sturdy bucket or a collapsible carrier. If the outage comes with a boil notice or a distribution point down the road, you’ll be glad you own a handle.

Assume the stove and microwave are furniture for three days. Everything here opens and eats as-is.

• Ready-to-eat meals and cans 18 mealsThree meals a day for three days: chili, soup, canned chicken or tuna, ravioli — food your household already eats, so rotating it costs nothing. For stretches past three days, the food storage calculator does the calorie math.
• Peanut butter and crackersCalorie-dense, shelf-stable for months, no can opener needed, and most kids will eat it without a negotiation.
• Breakfast covered: bars, oats cups, shelf-stable milkMorning is when a power outage stops feeling like an adventure. Granola bars and single-serve milk boxes end the first argument of the day.
• A manual can opener — the good oneThe electric one is a paperweight right now. A sturdy hand opener lives in the drawer with the food, not in the camping bin.
• Paper plates, cups, and a roll of trash bagsWashing up burns through your stored water fast. Paper for three days, and dishes stay a problem for future-you with running water.

Dark houses get dangerous and miserable in that order. One light per person beats one big light per house.

• A flashlight or headlamp for every person 2 lightsHeadlamps win — hands free for cooking, carrying, and finding the breaker panel. Keep them in the same drawer so “where’s the light” has one answer.
• A lantern for the room you’re living inOne soft, steady light for the kitchen table does more for morale than any gadget on this page. Look for a long runtime on the low setting — that’s the number that matters at hour thirty.
• Spare batteries, one full set for everything 1 set per deviceStandardize on AA and AAA where you can, store them in a labeled zip bag with the date you bought them, and replace the lot every couple of years.
• A power bank for phones 10,000 mAh or moreA charged 10,000 mAh bank is roughly two full phone charges — enough for news, family check-ins, and the utility’s outage map. Top it off every few months.
• Charging cables that stay homeOne cable per phone type, coiled with the power bank. The good cable always migrates to the car at the worst moment; this one doesn’t.
• A plan for the big stuff: fridge, medical devices, heatA battery station sized to your fridge and any medical gear turns three days into an inconvenience. Start with our solar generator comparison, then check the size with the home power sizer.

Most outages are weather with the power stripped off. Dress the house for the season it’s in.

• A warm blanket or sleeping bag for every bed 2 extra blanketsOne extra layer per person, kept in the house — not the attic, not the storage unit across town.
• Layers and warm socks in a reachable drawerIn a cold house you wear the house: base layer, fleece, hat. Having them in one drawer means nobody’s digging through summer clothes by flashlight.
• A safe way to warm one roomAn indoor-rated propane heater with a full spare canister, used exactly as its manual says — or a firm plan to close off and live in the smallest room with the blankets above. Never a grill, never a generator inside.
• For hot-weather outages: battery fan and a spray bottleA USB or battery fan plus damp skin moves a miserable night into a sleepable one. Freeze a few water bottles in summer — they cool the cooler, then they’re drinking water.

When the internet’s down, information is the thing that runs out second. Rumors fill the gap if facts don’t.

• A battery or hand-crank weather radioNOAA weather radio is the one source that works in every outage, and the crank means it never needs the battery drawer. Tune it to your local station now, while you can check you got the right one.
• Your county and utility saved in your phone — and on paperOutage-reporting number, the non-emergency police line, your water utility. Phones die and coverage drops; the paper copy lives with the radio.
• A check-in plan with one out-of-town personLocal lines jam; a text to one relative two states away gets through and becomes the family’s message board. Everyone calls Aunt Carol, Aunt Carol tells everyone.
• A printed local mapDetours, a flooded underpass, a closed bridge — the map in the glove box doesn’t need signal. Mark the hospital, the nearest shelter location your county publishes, and a second way out of your neighborhood.

The pharmacy closes in the same storms everything else does. This section is small and entirely non-negotiable.

• Prescription medicine, a seven-day cushion 7 days, if you canAsk your pharmacist how to build a week’s buffer — many plans allow an early refill before forecast storms, and some states require insurers to. Keep the cushion in its labeled bottles and rotate it like food.
• A basic first aid kitBandages, gauze, antiseptic, tweezers, medical tape. Most home emergencies in an outage are small cuts from doing things by flashlight — treat them that way.
• The over-the-counter basicsPain reliever, antihistamine, anti-diarrhea medicine, and whatever your household reaches for monthly. A stomach bug during a boil-water notice is the emergency inside the emergency.
• Backup glasses or contacts and solutionA spare pair in the kit. Being unable to see is an emergency multiplier nobody plans for.
• Soap and hand sanitizerCuts infection risk when water’s being rationed. One bottle of sanitizer by the food, one by the bathroom bucket.

The section every kit list buries at the bottom and every household hits by hour twelve.

• A plan for when the toilet won’t flushIf you have water pressure but no power, the toilet likely still works — fill the tank from stored water. If the water’s off entirely: a five-gallon bucket, heavy-duty bags, and cat litter or sawdust keeps it sanitary and bearable.
• Toilet paper, set aside — not the roll in use 4 rolls asideTwo rolls per person in the closet, rotated. It takes up no space and its absence ruins morale out of all proportion.
• Wet wipes and paper towelsHand and body washing without running water. Unscented wipes, kept with the food so hands get cleaned before eating, not after someone remembers.
• Heavy trash bags and a way to seal themTrash service pauses too. Bag everything, tie it, get it outside; a tidy house under stress is a calmer house.
• Household bleach, unscented, in dateFor disinfecting surfaces and, per the directions on the bottle and FEMA’s guidance, treating water in a true pinch. Bleach loses strength with age — write the purchase date on it.

Cheap, flat, and forgotten until the exact hour they’re priceless.

• Cash in small bills $100–$200 in 1s, 5s, 10sCard readers die with the power and the open store can’t make change for a hundred. Small bills, in an envelope, in the house.
• Copies of the documents you’d need to prove you existIDs, insurance cards and policy numbers, prescription list, a recent utility bill. Paper copies in a zip bag with the kit; photos of the same on your phone.
• Spare house and car keys, in the kitLockouts and lost keys happen on ordinary days too. A labeled spare set where the checklist lives ends the problem in a minute.
• Your utility account numbers, written downCalling the power company from a neighbor’s phone goes much faster with the account number in hand instead of “um, it’s under my husband’s name, I think.”

Most emergencies are stay-put emergencies. This last section is for the other kind — a house fire, a gas leak, an evacuation order.

• A bag packed for each person 2 bags packedChange of clothes, socks, a warm layer, toiletries, a phone charger, and the small comfort item that matters to each kid. Grab and go means grab and go — no packing decisions at 2 a.m.
• The important-papers bag rides alongThe zip bag from the section above, stored where the bags are, so leaving takes one trip down the hall.
• Shoes by the bedDebris and broken glass are barefoot hazards in every night-time evacuation. Sturdy shoes where your feet land, for everyone old enough to walk out.
• A destination and a route, agreed out loud“We go to Dan’s, by the highway, not the river road.” Said once in calm weather, remembered in bad weather — by the whole household, including the teenagers.
• Plan for petsCarriers where you can reach them, a spare leash, three days of their food stored with yours. They’re part of the family, so they get a real plan, not an afterthought: a vet’s number and a pet-friendly place to land, written down before you need them.
• Gas: keep the car above half a tank in storm seasonStations can’t pump without power, and the lines form before the storm, not after. Half a tank is a habit, not a purchase.