Essentials for Survival: Prepare Your Family Before Earthquake, Fire, Tornado, Flooding or Financial Disaster Strikes

Be prepared! You've heard it said and you know it's important, but have you been putting it off? The purpose of this page is to help you learn what emergency relief supplies your family needs and to help get you prepared for possible evacuation or for living without utilities and even a working financial system for a period of time in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

We don't like to think about having to evacuate our families, but no one is absolutely safe no matter where you live. From hurricanes along the eastern or Gulf coast to destruction by tornado in the mid-portion of the country (although tornadoes can strike anywhere) to fires or mudslides in California, and even in case of terror attack or long-term power grid failure anywhere in the country, responsible families, individuals, and businesses make plans and stock supplies in advance - just in case.

This page provides information on the minimum of what you need to consider when preparing for a possible emergency, but it should be more than enough to get you thinking and spur you on to action. That is our goal.

Photo via a creative commons license and uscgpress