Most families have multiple activities that separate them during the day. Spouses are at work, shopping, or on the road; children are at schools, friends’ homes, sports activities. My family is like yours – going three different directions every day – so the concern of trying to reconnect us all in the event of a disaster became our first priority.

Cell phones can be an important component in staying connected with family and these days, teens typically have cell phones. However, there is the distinct possibility that during a disaster the cell phone towers will not be functioning or the service providers will be so overwhelmed that calls can’t get through so it is important for families to develop their survival plan with that contingency in mind.

Every family has their own situation and their own needs, so the reconnection plan for your family has to be individualized to your needs and developed by you, but I want to share with you where my family’s plan started.

My husband and I discussed what we considered to be essential in an emergency and determined that, based on our lifestyle and regular activities, the likelihood was that a disaster would occur when we were 1) all home together or just one person missing, i.e. grocery shopping, not yet home from work, a child at a friend’s home; or 2) all three children at school and both my husband and I would be much more remote.

Based on those two possibilities, we then held a family meeting and the plan was developed. Under scenario #1 whichever family member was away from the home, if that person was an adult, would have be responsible for getting themselves back to the house.

If it was a child away from the home, in most cases they would be within a block or two of the house so a parent would go to retrieve them and escort them safely home.

Scenario #2 is more dicey, and relies heavily on an older child understanding and following the plan and remaining calm. Our 14-year-old has a cell phone and would attempt to contact his parents to report in. He is then to walk from his school to the elementary school to gather his siblings and the three of them would then walk home.

We have made certain that the school has on record our permission for the young children to leave the school grounds with their older brother. Once home, the children are to enter the house through the coded garage door. In the event the electricity is out so the garage door will not open, there will be a hidden key (which all three children will know about) to allow them to enter through the front door.

Clearly this places a lot of responsibility on a 14-year-old child, but it is a plan that allows for the three children to be united and to wait together in the security of their home. The most likely natural disaster we face is extreme weather; we have no risk of flood in our location, earthquakes are unlikely but there is a small chance of fire.

In the event of a fire in our neighborhood, our teen’s fallback plan is to remain with the younger children at the elementary school. The job of the parents under scenario #2 is to manage to return home as quickly as possible.

The most desirable plan is for the family to employ a home-based survival plan. There is shelter, perhaps warmth, water and cooking ability, even if it is only a bbq (do NOT use inside!), and it is a lot easier to eat out of the cupboard and the survival food storage than carry enough with you for more than just a few days if you have to bug out.

The storage of food and water is where basic planning begins. If you’ve been overwhelmed by the cost of freeze dried foods and then questioned whether your family would even eat it, think about this, you already know the foods they like so doesn’t it make sense to stock up on those?

Each week when I do my grocery shopping, I add a few extra items to the shopping cart and usually an extra case of bottled water. I’ve found that this is a great way to use coupons too! Often coupons require purchasing more than one item – buy this, get $ off that, or buy two and get one free. That plays right into my plan to increase the food storage at a reduced cost for a home-based survival plan.

So here is the fastest, simplest, easiest way to begin your basic food and water accumulation:

• Take an inventory of what you currently have in your cupboards and, while you are at it, use a permanent Sharpie pen to note the expiration date or, if there is no expiration date then enter the month and year.
• Identify the items you want to stock up on because they are family favorites, they are nutritious, easy to prepare and are appropriate for long-term storage.
• Plan to purchase extras of these items every time you shop for groceries to increase your food supplies.
• Add canned meats to your shopping list as they can be added to a variety of dishes to increase protein content.
• Purchase an extra case of water at each shopping trip.
• Lay in a supply of power bars, nuts, and dried fruits.

These few, simple steps will greatly improve your food and water storage quickly and without a significant blow to your wallet with the added bonus that you will feel more prepared and secure about your family’s readiness.

Supplementing these family favorites with staples such as rice, dried beans, flour and sugar will greatly extend your food supplies. In addition, storing water in large containers in addition to the cases of water you will be buying adds to the survival lifeline you are creating for your family.

You know better than anyone else how much food your family consumes. Your immediate objective is to purchase enough of the foods they enjoy to easily feed the family for a minimum of three days. Once that is accomplished, you can begin preparing for a full week’s food storage.

When all around you is chaotic, it is easy to forget a critical element of your family’s survival plan so I strongly recommend that one of the things you need to have with your survival storage and your 72-hour “bug-out bag” is a printed copy of your plan. It is much easier to refer to a document than to stress over your inability to recall all the important details.

But there are other essential documents you need to gather and have in your survival supplies. These documents should be placed in a zipped plastic bag to keep them waterproof and then secured in your “bug-out-bag.” So this is where it is up to you and your personal situation and decision for what to do next. Do you make multiple copies of each of these documents to have several sets?

Here are the most critical:

• Personal IDs for all family members
• Passports for all family members
• Birth certificates for all family members
• Photos of each family member in the event you are separated
• Credit card information
• Banking information
• Mortgage information
• Insurance policies – life, auto, home, medical
• Medical ID cards for each family member
• Vaccination records for each family member
• Pet immunization records
• Phone numbers you might need
• A detailed map of your immediate area

Understanding that having multiple sets increases the risk of identity theft, you must determine what works for you. In my family’s case, we realized that we are most often separated during the day and, at best, are an hour away from home. Because of this, we made multiple document sets and placed a set in each of our cars, each of our bug-out-bags and sent a set to my parents out of state.

For the sets in our cars, we hid the bags securely under the carpet where it is unlikely they would be found, even if a car was stolen and vandalized. We each have a bug-out-bag ready to grab and go and now they both have copies of these important documents. And finally, just in case there was a major event and we couldn’t reach our documents, we could contact my parents to give us the information we need.

If this seems like overkill to you, just imagine how lost you would be without access to these vital records. Think it through and determine what will be the best solution for your family.