Fam­i­ly.  They say fam­i­ly is one of the most impor­tant things in life. If it is just you and the wife or you and the hus­band, they are fam­i­ly. If you have kids, and your kids have kids, now that’s a fam­i­ly, and no doubt they are very impor­tant to you. If you are read­ing the blog, you no doubt read oth­er blogs, and are con­cerned with pro­tect­ing both your­self and espe­cial­ly your fam­i­ly. Me, I’m a sin­gle guy, but if the SHTF, I’m mak­ing the trek (bug out) to a fall back loca­tion to pro­tect my fam­i­ly (my par­ents and sib­lings). They come first.

What I want to talk about today, how­ev­er, is cri­sis plan­ning in your home whether you have kids or not. First, we are all human. I don’t care how well trained you are, in an unex­pect­ed event peo­ple pan­ic, even if just for a moment. In that moment, you can for­get every­thing you have been trained or prac­ticed for months or years pri­or to the unex­pect­ed event. It’s noth­ing to be ashamed of, it hap­pens, and that is okay if you are pre­pared to use a back­up solu­tion as a com­pro­mise (to your ego) and to get you and your fam­i­ly to safe­ty quick­ly.

What am I talk­ing about. Well, aside from build­ing my own binder to slip in my bug out bag for ref­er­ence going for­ward if I have to hit the trail, it hit me one day that every home should have a “Home Cri­sis Hand­book.” Now, what is a home cri­sis hand book? Let me explain. It is a small book that you can build that will have tabs and/or pages ded­i­cat­ed to dif­fer­ent dis­as­ters suck as earth­quake, tor­na­do, hur­ri­cane, fire in the home, home inva­sion, etc… Each page should have a col­or cod­ed tab so it is easy to find the SHTF sit­u­a­tion, and each page should have explic­it instruc­tions on how to han­dle the SHTF sit­u­a­tion in a moment of pan­ic. This will give you a pre­pared­ness plan for each sit­u­a­tion you could pos­si­bly encounter, and it will give each indi­vid­ual, with­out fail, instruc­tions on what to do, where to go, and how to do or get out of a sit­u­a­tion that is poten­tial­ly dead­ly.

You can make copies, punch holes in them, and put them all in a three ring binder, or you can go to Sta­ples and have copies bound for your fam­i­ly if that makes sense for you. But make sure it is in an acces­si­ble place where peo­ple can reach for it eas­i­ly. That means putting a copy in the kitchen draw­er, one in the draw­er of the end table or cof­fee table, glove box, etc. There should be a copy every­where some­one might be in the home and they should know where each copy is, peri­od. Each mem­ber of the fam­i­ly should get a copy, and each mem­ber of the fam­i­ly should keep a copy in their night stand, desk, with their BOB, and/or a copy in the car for mobile events.

Here is a list of SHTF events (admit­ted­ly com­piled and ripped from sev­er­al lists of SHTF events online). You should choose the ones that are most like­ly to affect you and your fam­i­ly, and build the con­tent and instruc­tions for each one for each page of your Cri­sis Guidebook(s).

• ACTIVE SHOOTER
• ANIMALS & INSECTS
• AREA OF REFUGE
• ASSAULT
• ASSIGNED MEETING AREAS: ACADEMIC BLDGS.
• ASSIGNED MEETING AREAS: RESIDENTIAL BLDGS.
• BEHAVIORAL CONCERNS
• BOMB THREAT
• CHEMICAL SPILL INDOORS
• CHEMICAL SPILL OUTDOORS
• CRIME REPORTING
• EARTHQUAKE
• EMERGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION
• EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM
• EMERGENCY REFERENCE GUIDE
• EVACUATION
• EXPLOSION INDOORS
• EXPLOSION OUTDOORS
• FIRE
• FIRE / GAS LEAK
• FLOOD
• GENERAL EMERGENCY INFORMATION
• HAZARDOUS MATERIAL EXPOSURE AND/OR SPILL
• HAZMAT SPILL
• HOSTAGE SITUATION
• HOSTILE INTRUDER/ ACTIVE SHOOTER
• ICE STORM / WEATHER ALERT
• INTRUDER ON CAMPUS
• LOCKDOWN
• MAP
• MEDIA POLICY
• MEDICAL EMERGENCY
• MISSING PERSON
• NATURAL DISASTERS
• PHYSICAL ALTERCATION
• POWER FAILURE
• SAFE ZONES
• SEIZURE
• SEXUAL ASSAULT
• SHELTER-IN-PLACE
• STALKING/INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
• SUICIDE ATTEMPT
• SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE
• THEFT / ROBBERY
• TORNADO
• TRESPASSER / INTRUDER
• WATER MAIN BREAK
• WEAPON ON CAMPUS
• WEATHER EMERGENCY
• WORKPLACE VIOLENCE

Once your guide­book is com­plete, make sure you go over it with your fam­i­ly in detail and let them know in each room where there will be a copy.  Every­one should review it, and you should even think about run­ning drills for each sce­nario mul­ti­ple times until every­one under­stands the steps.

Again, admit­ted­ly, I may have missed many SHTF events, but this list is a begin­ning for you to start choos­ing from.   Even I am going to choose from this list, and build a book for my par­ents, who are not start­ing to age and have some med­ical issues.  For them, it could be a life sav­ing for them.