Emergency Planning – Rogue’s 31 Days To Readiness [Day 1]

When I first started prepping, I didn’t realize the importance of planning. Until we had our first blackout. While I had all the gear, I had no idea what to actually *do*.

You may be thinking, “whatever, it’s just a blackout”. Is it? I had no idea what it was. I had no plan for gaining intel, no plan for what to do while bugging in, no plan for what to do if the blackout lasted than a few hours.

I had no plans!

We were in the dark. Literally and figuratively.

Then I began to realize that I had no plans for anything else. No bug out plans, no plans for any types of emergencies; nothing!

This was unsettling. As someone who thrives on plans, I couldn’t believe I had never thought about the importance of planning for an emergency or disaster.

We have to understand, that even if we plan everything down to the T…there will still be a wrench thrown in somewhere.

But that’s ok! Planning doesn’t always mean getting every single detail down perfect. In fact, a general plan is probably better, at least for emergency purposes, because unexpected things happen and we do want to be flexible.

Planning helps sort our brain out, essentially. If something happens, we have a framework to work with instead of going in blindly.

Flexability is key when it comes to planning for emergencies.

You cannot predict what is going to happen during an emergency or disaster. You can certainly make plans based on past events, but we also need to understand that every emergency or disaster will act differently. While there might be certain familiar characteristics, there are no two emergencies exactly alike.

When laying out your plans, you’ll want to figure certain things out like:

• The type of likely disasters in your area
• The type of less likely disasters or emergencies, but things you still want to be prepared for
• Threat assessment of your area
• Various ways you’ll communicate with your family
• Several alternative routes to work, home, family, friends, bug out locations, etc.
• “What to do if…” Loosely outlined scenarios with the understanding that adjustments will be made as you’re handling the emergency or disaster
• What you’ll do with your pets in an emergency
• Checklist of things you need to do in case of “such and such” emergency
• Who will pick up children in case of “such and such”
• How children will get home if no one is able to pick them up
• Safe locations to go to in case someone in the family can’t reach home

Ideally, the whole household would be involved in this process so input can come from everyone.

Today I want you to either create an emergency disaster plan or I want you to seriously go through your existing one to make sure it’s updated and ready to deploy.

When we moved from our home into an RV to travel full time, our plans changed immensely. Emergency plans in a home in a suburban area is quite different than plans in an RV traveling from one place to another.

Even if your situation hasn’t changed much, I strongly encourage you to look through the plan every once and a while to at least jog the memory and if something sounds off, change it. Plans are meant to be changed. Be flexible.

See in you day 2 of Rogue’s 31 Days To Readiness!