Your Bulletproof Family Emergency Plan for Every Disaster

Prepping is sometimes portrayed as an endeavor that you undertake by yourself, for yourself, to ensure you will survive the collapse of society or the outright end of the world.

Survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle and the continuity of the competent, all that jazz. However, prepping is so much of the time actually about keeping yourself and the people you love or are responsible for alive, and through whatever might come.

Where well-intentioned preppers go wrong is assuming that they alone will be able to prepare hard enough for everyone in their family.

This is a classic fallacy, as preparing a family to deal with everyday emergencies, major disasters, and societal crisis is a team affair. You cannot approach preparing for any of these events as a family the same way you would prepare as a lone survivor.

More people to take care of means greater material requirements, greater complexity, and even greater stakes. But it also provides opportunity in the form of more hands to help, more minds to bring together and a constant reminder of what you are working so hard to achieve.

The task before you is great but we are here to help with a comprehensive guide that will allow you to forge a bulletproof family response plan for any conceivable situation. Grab your notepad, and let’s get started!

Have a Plan or You Plan to Fail

Getting your family prepared to deal with major trouble is significantly more complicated than slamming everybody into the minivan, and heading for the hills. That is indeed a plan, I suppose, but it’s not a very good one, especially when you have time to get ready right now.

Like the old saying goes, if you fail to plan you plan to fail, and the price for failure when your family’s safety is on the line is too terrible to contemplate.

Unfortunately, more people means greater complexity, more moving parts and more to account for in the realm of personal readiness.

If you consider the average family of four, the amount of supplies you will need in any given scenario is now multiplied, and you’ll also be tasked with keeping them focused and calm, or at least as calm as they can be under the circumstances.

What’s more, each and every person in your family must be accounted for before a plan can proceed, and when all of the players on this team are separated from each other at the onset of trouble the single, greatest challenge you might face is just rounding them up, or getting everyone together so you can take shelter or evacuate as the situation dictates.

It sounds like an awful lot to do, and it is, but hoping for the best is not a strategy and playing it by ear is not a plan.

Prepare a Family Emergency Plan | Disasters

Don’t worry, this guide will present to you a logical list of considerations and procedures that you can implement in order to put together your own family response plan, and it will do so in an easy-to-use format.

We cannot account for every, single variable that you might have to deal with in your specific situation, but we can cover most of them.

The first thing we will do is qualify our level of response by learning the difference between an emergency and a proper disaster.

Disasters vs. Emergencies

One common failure in a prepper’s personal plan is the assumption that a full scale, total response will always be necessary. When the starting gun goes off, or the balloon goes up, they will execute their plan to the letter, whatever else is happening- or more importantly, not happening!

As it turns out, not all crises are created equal. You won’t respond to events the same way every time and much of the time, thankfully, your full scale response will be overkill.

To overreact is to waste time, energy and resources, and this will do nothing but establish you as a histrionic in the minds of your family. Generally, what we as preppers are concerned with and what you should be concerned with for your family’s sake are disasters and emergencies. What’s the difference?

A disaster is a natural or man-made event that occurs on a large scale or over a wide area. These invariably will affect more people than just yourselves, and will often affect entire towns or cities, even regions.

As a rule, all you can hope to do to counter a disaster is either avoided it if there is time or shelter in place if there isn’t, and then deal with the after effects.

An emergency is far more personal, and usually takes the form of an injury, accidental or otherwise, or a health crisis.

Countering an emergency is usually a matter of taking the correct action in intervention, whatever it is called for. Living right and remaining alert will allow you to avoid the vast majority of personal emergencies.

Need some more examples? Check out the following list along with our cliffs notes for each.

Disasters

• Flood. Anywhere that it can rain or any place that can hold standing water it can flood. Floods make rescue and evacuation exceedingly difficult and large quantities of standing or moving water are extremely dangerous. Cleanup in the aftermath of a flood is extremely involved and laborious. Avoiding a flood is a matter of getting out of the affected area before it gets too bad, while surviving a flood is usually only a matter of reaching secure high ground, and holding out. Expect to lose power, access to services and contamination of water supplies in the affected areas.
• Tornado. Tornadoes are among the most powerful storms on earth, and are wind events capable of obliterating entire towns. Expect debris up to the size of train cars and even buildings to be hurled through the air. Getting caught outside is death, so surviving a tornado is a matter of taking shelter the moment a tornado is suspected or confirmed. A survival kit will help you sustain in the aftermath until help arrives. Local loss of utilities and services should be expected.
• Hurricane. Hurricanes are the largest and most destructive storm systems that occur on Earth. Producing torrential rainfall, destructive storm surge, widespread flooding and packing nearly as much destructive wind potential as a tornado (along with spawning them) hurricanes are a thoroughly “complete” disaster scenario. Luckily, you’ll know they are coming for days or even more than a week ahead of time, and you should evacuate if at all possible. Surviving a hurricane is mostly a matter of being in a sturdy structure on high ground that is well equipped with provisions. No matter what happens, you’ll be dealing with the widespread loss of commerce and utilities in the aftermath.
• Wildfire. Wildfires are increasingly common and growing more destructive as misguided “green” initiatives prevent proper care of forests that are long overdue for it. Wildfires can burn so hot and travel so quickly they can scorch the very soil and are capable of consuming entire neighborhoods, even entire towns when conditions are right. Your prospects of surviving a wildfire if overtaken are grim at best, and evacuation is always your safest bet. However, with enough time and elbow grease proper preparations may save you and your home. Wildfires generally only cause loss of services and utilities in the immediately affected areas, but depending on what is touched by the wildfire regional effects may be felt.
• Earthquake. The subterranean movement of tectonic plates deep underground results in a rattling, heaving and shaking of the surface above. Powerful earthquakes are catastrophic, changing landscapes and leveling cities though lesser ones are still more than capable of collapsing buildings and causing widespread carnage. Surviving an earthquake is one part hanging on for dear life in the most protected position possible wherever you happen to be and one part having all your survival necessities in the aftermath thanks to a well-equipped kit. Depending upon the power of the earthquake a near total shutdown of society should be expected on the local or regional level.
• Blizzard. Blizzards are prolonged winter storms that dump unbelievable amounts of snow on an area, while subjecting it to bombardment from sustained high winds and freezing, often sub-zero, temperatures. Blizzards usually make travel impossible, and all you can hope to do, assuming you cannot evacuate ahead of time, is outlast them. Your bug-in plan had better good if you want to stand a chance. Loss of power is highly likely, and the difficulty associated with traveling safely in blizzards means that other services will be degraded or absent.

Emergencies

• Auto Crash. Automobile crashes are one of the most common and most dangerous emergencies that anybody can face. Especially in car-centric cultures (like that found in the U.S.), chances are you’ll be involved in an auto crash at some point in your life. Injuries can be severe, but you can avoid a bad outcome by learning defensive and performance driving skills, teaching your family good on-road behavior and learning to deal with the aftermath by brushing up on medical skills.
• Fall. It sounds too comedic to be true, but more people are severely injured by falls in and around their home than any other common accident. The laughs may be there for onlookers, but it’s no laughing matter for the victim, who can suffer significant fractures, concussions and internal injuries. Having the medical skills to treat likely fractures, head-injuries, and spinal injuries can make all the difference for a fall victim.
• House Fire. House fires rack up thousands of deaths and billions of dollars worth of damage every year, and are among the most common events that can befall you. A small but out of control fire in your home can quickly turn into a total conflagration resulting in the complete loss of your home and possessions. Most people that die in house fires actually succumb to smoke inhalation, not the flames themselves. Countering a house fire relies on having functional fire extinguishers close at hand, and if that fails, a well-rehearsed evacuation plan.
• Home Invasion. When multiple bad guys bust into your home with the intent of subduing the people in it and then ransacking the home for valuables, you’re dealing with a home invasion. A brutal and particularly terrifying form of robbery, dealing with a home invasion is a matter of making your home less appealing to the bad guys, more difficult to force entry into and then being prepared to repel the invaders with lethal force if required.
• Health Emergency. Health emergencies come in many forms, but some of the most common are heart attack, stroke, choking and syncope (fainting). Getting first-responders to the victim’s location is of utmost importance, but you can drastically improve their chances of survival by understanding their health risks, determining what has happened and applying the correct medical care if you are trained.
• Mishap or Misadventure. Injury is out there waiting for you and in no short supply, oftentimes much closer than we would prefer. Working on a project in your home workshop can result in dreadful injuries from power tools. A day of training on the range could see you accidentally shoot yourself or someone else, or catch a ricochet. You could get lost hiking and be at risk of exposure. You might even suffer a terrible burn just trying to whip up Grandma’s famous pot pie recipe. You have to be prepared for anything, and though events like these are not as exciting or as alluring as major disasters, they are far more common and just as deadly.

There are many more disasters and emergencies besides the ones we have listed here. But as it turns out, aside from some specific, situational responses, you can rely on the same core preparations to get you through most events in either category.

Assessing Your Personal Risk Factors

Not every family’s risk profile is the same. In fact, most of them actually vary quite a bit! One essential part of prepping is analyzing what disasters and other emergencies are most likely to befall you and your family members.

Some of these events are universal, while others are more situational, and your lifestyle, living conditions, local climate and a variety of other factors will influence what you are more likely to face.

For instance, folks living along the northern border of the US and in most parts of Canada will be far more likely to deal with the hazards posed by winter weather and blizzards than people living along the Gulf Coast in the southern United States.

House fires will affect people more or less universally across all domains, but if you cook frequently, operate a fireplace or have a vintage house with old wiring, your risk goes up significantly, and it also goes up if you are a smoker.

Anybody can be the victim of a home invasion if you are unlucky, but your chances go up in areas where bad actors are most likely to be located.

Automobile accidents don’t just happen to those who own and drive their own vehicles, but could it befall anyone who is on the road in any capacity, including biking alongside it or riding public transportation.

Assess your family in context, taking into account your local climate and typical weather conditions along with your family’s itinerary, routines and activities.

Family Member Considerations for Prepping

So now that we know generally what we are preparing for in terms of threats, we now need to figure out how the people we are preparing for are going to affect our plans. You might think that it will be best to get your plan down on paper first, but this is a mistake.

The considerations and variables introduced by the people in your family that you are responsible for are foundational to what actions you will take, and indeed what actions are even possible under the circumstances.

Your family members might not fall precisely into any of these categories, and that’s okay, because at the end of the day family is always elective.

Children

The primary consideration for any family that has them is, naturally, children. With few exceptions, children are treated as something like VIPs or precious commodities when it comes to disaster planning, as they are generally incapable of meaningfully contributing to their own protection, or the protection of the family.

They are the ones that mandate protection the most, and also consume considerable resources in long-term survival situations.

Generally speaking, the older a child is, the more capable they are, capable of learning and sticking to more complex responses and also contributing more meaningfully to the family’s survival.

The youngest children, generally aged 8 years old and below, are capable of following only simple instructions. Smaller children do have the advantage of being carried when the chips are down, though.

It is also worth noting that infants and toddlers in particular are especially vulnerable, and also requires specialized items and food for care and well-being. These items must be accounted for in your material preparations at all costs.

Some of the things you should be teaching your child as part of your family survival plan include:

• how to operate communication devices to contact you
• how to quickly and safely get to designated rally points
• how to react to emergencies such as a house fire or an earthquakes
• how to quickly get to their bug out bag
• how to quickly get to their safe room
• how to do age-appropriate long-term survival tasks, such as cleaning camp, doing dishes, scouting, and more

Elderly Family Members

Elderly family members are also precious like children, and less capable of taking care of themselves in addition to being more vulnerable overall, again like children.

However, the elderly are often excellent storehouses of knowledge, and lore so long as their mental faculties are holding up, and older folks in good shape can still perform useful tasks and help others in survival situations.

Particular challenges associated with the elderly are their low reserves of stamina and their susceptibility to falling prey to various illnesses and ailments.

Loss of mobility, a requirement for ongoing, specialized medical care and dependency upon various medications can make prepping around the elderly tough.

Elderly family members who are infirm can make on-foot movement impossible, and even sustained movement by vehicles difficult.

That being said, even older folks who are more or less chair bound can still perform some tasks, and having an extra set of eyes and ears is often useful, and at the very least they can keep an eye on children, while more capable adults tend to more focused tasks.

Pets

Pets are considered to be just as much members of the family as any human member by many folks, and if you have a dog, cat, bird, ferret, fish or some other animal companion that you are not willing to abandon to their fate you will have to plan accordingly for their care and transportation if required.

Depending upon the species and the situation this could be a trivial concern or hair-raisingly challenging.

Most dogs can at least follow along and stick with their human family easily enough if they are kept on a leash via a harness. Cats, well, cats will probably need to be consigned to a carrier or specialized backpack for safe and efficient transport.

At the very least you should prep a separate BOB for your dog or cat. In fact, there are pouches your puppy can carry if he is old enough, so you don’t have to worry about carrying more gear on your back.

Larger animals like horses or livestock will need to be transported in specialized, towed trailers or even ridden out of danger. Moving them any other way is likely to be impossible without specialized skills and a whole lot of luck.

As with infants, make sure you include specialized food, supplements, medicine and any other material needs for your animals with your other supplies when stocking up.

Special Considerations

Everyone’s situation in life is different, and special needs and requirements must be accounted for when prepping.

If you have a family member who is dependent upon insulin or must take other medication on the regular, your entire plan may well revolve around maintaining and sustaining their access to that medication. Certain plans or responses may be out of the question entirely if it jeopardizes in any way that access.

Also, physical limitations such as being bound to a wheelchair or even a temporary but incapacitating injury like a significant fracture resulting in immobilization can render some options unthinkable or practically impossible.

Getting someone in a wheelchair out of a danger area by vehicle is one thing, but what will you do if you are forced to evacuate on foot? Most wheelchairs do not do well in a cross-country setting, especially over genuinely rough terrain.

Family members who have been committed to care settings for any reason or are forced to undergo true “life-support” procedures like dialysis regularly will either have to be accounted for or left to their fate, and discussion of such must be undertaken as a family well prior to the onset of the need to make a decision on the matter.

Prepping around real life families is often not as easy as experts and articles would make it seem! Whatever you are facing, do not begrudge it. You can only do what you can do.

Multi-Family Unit

Certain families grow so close that they essentially operate as one large, singular unit, even though it might be composed of multiple, separate hierarchies whatever the interconnecting relations are.

For instance, two brothers who marry two sisters in the same town are likely to remain so close concerning their interactions that they face life and its challenges together, more or less. Other families may simply be such fast friends that they cannot imagine leaving one another to take their chances when the chips are down, choosing instead to go through it together.

Whatever your situation, if you are accounting for an extended family that is a family unto itself certain discussions should be had prior to embarking on any major planning.

Specifically, it is imperative that everyone be on the same sheet of music regarding priorities for the multi-family unit as survivors.

It would not do for one member of one family to emphatically demand that their family go its own way after group plans and agreements have been made to the contrary.

This is a matter of setting and managing expectations, and these are expectations that must be made accountable since the stakes will be so high. This is an especially big deal when planning for long or indefinite term survival scenarios.

Family Emergency Evacuation & Escape Plan

Core Concepts of Family Prepping

We know what we are facing, and we know who family members are in context of our preparations, so what steps do we need to take to start bulletproofing our family against disaster? Read on and you’ll find out!

Note that the following steps are more or less universal to any family facing any disaster or emergency. This is the groundwork or foundational elements that will start hardening your family against a bad outcome.

Establish and Rehearse a Family Comms Plan

One of the scariest parts of having a family in times of trouble is the fact that trouble will likely strike when you aren’t all together. Kids have school, mom and dad have jobs, and grandma and grandpa live elsewhere.

These conflicting schedules and locations mean there are wide “gaps” for trouble to slip in without anyone else who cares knowing. Especially in major disasters, this separation is a massive source of anxiety.

The solution? Establish a family comms plan. At its most basic, this is a time that is an expected check-in on a daily or weekly basis, depending. If you don’t hear from someone in your family that you are responsible for within a set period of time, it is time to begin investigating.

In actual emergencies, be they small scale or legitimate disasters, families should have a plan on how they will check in with each other and via what means (cell phones, walkie talkies, HAM radio, signaling mirrors etc.).

Modern forms of communication may be unreliable depending on what has happened, so multiple, overlapping methods of communication should be established and committed to memory.

Keep in mind, communications might take the form of something as basic as a written note left behind for someone to find.

Factors you should account for in your family comms plan include:

• Preferred Phone #’s, Text Services, Email addresses.
• Alternate or Emergency Phone #’s/Email (Work, etc.)
• Backup Contacts in Case Family Members Cannot Be Reached

Respond, Shelter in Place, or Evacuate?

Basic plans and priorities should be reviewed with every family member individually and as a group depending on the specific threat.

Put another way, what is expected of them during a given event, and what is the family’s overall plan during a given event? This will help reduce uncertainty, improve decision making and streamline the actions taken towards achieving a good outcome.

For instance, in certain disasters or situations all family members should be expected to head for home if able. If unable, where should they go next or attempt to seek shelter, i.e. where could family members who are then looking for them expect to find them?

For emergencies, this could also be something as simple as the indicated signal for trouble such as during choking.

It is especially instructive for children to tell them what actions they should take if mom or dad are injured or in trouble in various circumstances, such as found unconscious or otherwise unresponsive.

As terrible as it is to consider, certain circumstances might arise that mean family members have to attempt to rendezvous elsewhere when and if they are able. Every member of the family should know where this is and how best to get there

Practice Individual Responses to Emergencies and Disasters

Now it is time to get to the nitty gritty of preparation. Based on the determinations you made above of which threats are most likely to before your family it is time to practice the correct responses.

Practice makes permanent, and ingraining a hardwired, correct response to trouble will only improve your family’s chances of getting out of a bad situation intact.

This could take the form of increasingly intricate and challenging evacuation drills for house fires, seeking cover or appropriate hiding places for home invasion drills or even rendering CPR or applying a tourniquet as a form of first-aid practice.

The sky is the limit when it comes to meaningful, engaging practice, and training with your family.

Happily, we have substantial archives covering every conceivable emergency situation and disaster here on this very website and you are sure to find plenty of information and printed guides on drills that will help you prepare your family for whatever threats may come.

Keep Printed Guides and Emergency Contact Info Handy

The trick with being in a life-threatening or scary situation is it has a deleterious effect on memory and clear thinking.

Said another way, it is easy to forget things you thought you knew by heart during times of immense stress. Things like complicated sequences of numbers, addresses and other esoteric information can quickly get lost in the gray haze of “brain-melt” during high-tension scenarios.

Prevent this from becoming a problem by equipping each family member with a list of the most important emergency contacts and information, including contact numbers and emails, addresses, contact info for emergency organizations and any other facts or data that might help them when the chips are down.

This should be stored in all phones and smart devices as a matter of course, but paper copies can be kept in purses or wallets and stashed in the glove boxes of family vehicles.

Disaster Responses for Family Prepping

Preparing for emergencies is one thing but preparing for the huge, scary “big ticket” disasters that sometimes occur is another.

When it comes to prepping, you generally have two options for responding to disasters of any sort: you can bug out, or evacuate to someplace safer and wait it out or you can bug in, where you preferably batten down the hatches and take your chances at your home or other local shelter where you have pre-stocked supplies and equipment to help you go the distance.

Both are more or less valid, once again depending on your specific situation, your family and other variables. Ultimately, you should plan for and prepare for implementation of both so even if you have to make a snap decision in a time as life scenario you’ll have options.

We will go over some family specific information for both responses below.

Bugging Out

Bugging out is exactly what it sounds like: You grab your gear, grab your family, and head for the hills, or at least the figurative hills; you might head for a relatives or a patch of land you own a few counties over!

Bugging out is typically done when your home is rendered uninhabitable or a situation is expected to be so dangerous or so untenable that the notion of staying put for it is unthinkable.

You might choose to bug out with your family immediately, or you might be forced to do so if an ongoing situation deteriorates on the home front.

Consider the following to ensure you can implement a successful bug out plan when the time comes.

Bug Out Bags for Each Family Member

You never want to bug out without a BOB, or bug-out bag, which is one piece of luggage that all preppers love.

The bug-out bag is nothing more than a large backpack or rucksack that will carry all of the supplies and other items you need to sustain yourself and accomplish your survival objectives while making way to your bug-out location, or BOL.

Bug-out bags contain clothing, shelter items, food, water and tools to help you take care of business, or specific pet supplies should you decide to have such a bag for your pet.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you will have a single, massive bug-out bag for your family to survive off of and that you’ll be strong enough to carry it all on your own.

The provisional needs of multiple family members will ensure that your pack will soon grow enormous, unwieldy and completely impractical. What is needed, instead, is for each family member to carry their own bug-out bag, if able, or at the very least have a smaller bag just for them.

Only by compartmenting needed gear intelligently can you insure that you’ll be able to carry it if needed and have enough for everyone. And when I say carry it, I mean carry it.

When the time comes to bug out, you must always plan for the eventuality that you’ll be forced to make movement on foot, for whatever reason. That means you’ll be carrying your survival supplies on your back and you must be up to the task!

Even if children and elderly can do nothing more than carry their own food that will be a huge benefit, so don’t be afraid to make any family member responsible for carrying something, so long as they can reliably do so and follow instructions.

Transportation Concerns

If you are afforded the opportunity to bug out using a vehicle, you should generally take it. Vehicles offer speed, shelter and a degree of protection compared to hoofing it. Traveling by vehicle is also far less laborious than traveling on foot.

However, you must account for not only having seating for every member of the family or your group, but also room for the cargo needed to take care of them, wherever you are heading. Failing to do this is only going to give shortage and lack a head start over you and yours.

Some families will choose to accommodate a large passenger compliment with a correspondingly larger vehicle, perhaps a van or a jumbo SUV.

For other families, a multi-vehicle convoy will make the most sense. Both are valid options, and both come with their own advantages, shortcomings and challenges.

Choosing BOLs and Routes

One thing you must plan for concerning bug outs is providing for multiple bug-out locations, and at least two routes to reach each. This way, if one of your bug-out locations is compromised or if heading towards it will mean heading closer to or into danger, you will have an alternative.

Likewise, having alternate routes to reach each of these locations will provide a hedge against stoppage, blockage or other hazards.

Bug-out locations may be structures or they might be bare land depending on your requirements and what you are prepared to do to survive.

An ideal bug-out location is a close friend’s or family member’s place who lives a good distance from your home so you can put plenty of room between you and danger as well as between you and other fleeing survivors.

Bugging In

Bugging in is the opposite of bugging out. Trouble strikes or disaster looms and you decide to go home, stay there and ride out the danger with a home field advantage and plenty of supplies.

If you are able, bugging in is almost always a better choice than bugging out, but don’t let yourself get suckered into sticking around during an unwinnable situation.

Bugging in correctly is mostly a matter of having the right supplies on hand to sustain life and deal with problems that will invariably crop up.

Creating a Survival Stockpile

The basis of successful bugging in, and preparedness in general, is accumulating a surplus of supplies along with some choice pieces of gear. This is a hedge against loss, shortage and the disruption of commerce that always attends major events.

To provide for your family, you should have at the bare minimum a 2-week supply of each of the following, and shoot for establishing a 3-month supply as a milestone:

• Food
• Water, bottled
• Medicine
• Toilet Paper
• Hygiene supplies
• Disposable plates, cutlery, etc.
• Trash bags
• Batteries
• Baby Food/Diapers/Infant Care (if applicable)
• Pet food and care items (if applicable)

Create Surplus of Most Vital Supplies / Meds

If you or any member of your family is dependent upon ongoing medical treatments, specific medications or any such supplemental care items you must have a way to obtain them ahead of time so that you can create a surplus capable of seeing you all through trouble.

This can be especially challenging if the item or drugs in question are not available on demand to the public, or if your access to them would be imperiled during any major event.

To further complicate matters, many medications have specialized storage requirements such as refrigeration or just short shelf lives.

Maintaining access to, and rotating your supply of these items is a challenge unto itself. Make sure to discuss your concerns with your care provider so that you may reach a solution, and do whatever is necessary to insulate yourself against being cut off from the supplies or treatment you need.

Providing for Backup / Off-grid Power Solutions

Since you are staying at home while bugging in, planning to provide backup power in the nearly certain eventuality that public power is lost or interrupted is a good idea.

This can be done in a variety of ways, with the most common and the most straightforward being the installation of a liquid-fueled generator.

Other options include solar arrays installed on the roof, or freestanding and whole house battery backup systems composed of multiple deep cycle batteries that can “bank” power to be used on demand.

Aside from allowing your life to go on more or less as it has inside your home, this could be a critical prep if you were depending on refrigeration for food storage or the preservation of medicine as discussed above.

Rural vs. Urban Prepping

One major consideration that every family prepper must take into account as whether or not you live in an urban or rural environment. The population density of the area where you live will dramatically alter all of your other preps and plans.

Rural prepping is often seen as ‘Easy Street’, or the ideal route to self-sufficiency; something to be strived and reached for.

The notion of small town or village living conjures up visions of neighbors helping neighbors and living in a place where everyone knows you and is at least nominally concerned about you.

This is sometimes true, if you can establish that ahead of time, but you shouldn’t think that you can roll into a rural area as part of a bug-out or similar plan and be greeted with open arms.

Such places are often insular, and by intention, their lack of people and infrastructure can create major challenges, especially when you need certain resources or services.

Conversely, urban prepping means you will be living in a literal sea of humanity. You will enjoy a tremendous concentration of resources and professional skill provided by various agencies and institutions, but that same sea of humanity might prove to be your biggest hazard. \

Desperate, scared people act irrationally, and not for nothing when the time comes to flee a city it will often prove the most harrowing and difficult part of your survival ordeal. Gridlock is a certainty and taking your chances on foot is certain to be perilous.

You don’t need to necessarily uproot and move your entire family to mitigate the hazards and challenges posed by one locale over another, but you do need to be aware of them so you can work to mitigate them.

Conclusion

Prepping is a lifestyle change, and making that change as part of a family, for your family, introduces even more complexity to what is already a challenging affair.

But the security and degree of certainty that this provides is priceless, and well worth the upfront and ongoing efforts.

Use the guide we have provided for you to direct your family prepping efforts and you can save yourself a ton of work and research on the matter.

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