Preparedness Assessment

If you are going to get serious about being prepared, one of the first things you need to know is "What do I need to be prepared for?"  Everyone is different, their situation is different.  So you will come up with unique answers to that question.  For instance, say someone in your family is on insulin or hear medication or dialysis.  These each have their own specific needs that you would need to be prepared for.

We have created a Preparedness Assessment that you can use to answer this and other questions.  Once you have a better idea, you can focus on parts of your life and your local situation that will bring the most benefit first.

We think the 80/20 rule here is a good thing to consider:
"What one thing can I do
to gain the greatest preparedness for me and my family?"

 Again, everyone is different, but let's say you decide you are least prepared in backup water. Hopefully solving this should take 20% of your total preparedness budget or less but gain 80% benefit by getting a backup water plan.

We have created a Preparedness Assessment document for ourselves. We did this quickly in Excel to make it easily readable.  It comes in two parts:

#1 Risk Assessment:

We have filled out this grid based on our location and the probability of any of these events happening.  Our situation is unique to us.  One example from this chart is, I don't know of the exact location, but there is a chemical plant upwind from our area. If they had a chemical leak it would put toxic particles in the air and the blessed Idaho wind would blow in right over our area.

Again, Your mileage will vary. So do base your preparedness on our situation.  Instead, we recommend that you do the same for your own family and situation. You may have to do a little research, but come up with items/events that are specific to you.

Once you have identified the potential and probable risks that you may face, we move on to Part 2, Individual needs/wants:

In this chart, you want to identify specific items that you can/should prepare. The left side is to hopefully get you to admit that most of our lifestyle today is actually wants, and not needs.  For instance, most teenagers think they will actually shrivel up and die if you take their cell phone/smart phone away.  Truth in the worlds history, cell phones have only existed since the middle 1990's.  

"What did people do before cell phones and texting, Daddy?"
"Well, Sissy, we sat around on the grass and talked to each other. And before email, we just wrote things on a rock and threw them at each other. (Sigh, those were good times"

We want to discuss several things from the chart, but "there is no time, let me sum up."

Actually this post is getting pretty long, so here are links to more detailed discussions.
72 hour kit, Why 72  and not 80 or 67 hours?
Sanity in times of Duress content
An odd childhood (what do we REALLY need?)
What happens if the lights never come back on?
Must have balance, Daniel-San

Conclusion:

You can't prepare for something you don't know could happen.  We think doing something like the charts shown here are an important early step in realistic preparedness.

We believe that you will actually gain a measure of peace by getting a solid look at what you may be up against and start a solid plan to prepare.

Please share anything that might be specific to your area.