How to Create a Home Emergency Plan for Your Family

Here's how to create a comprehensive home emergency plan that will protect your loved ones when it matters most.

1. Identify the Risks in Your Area

Start by understanding what types of emergencies are most likely to affect your family. Minnesota residents often face specific hazards, including severe winter storms, tornadoes, and flooding. Any of these can cause power outages, leaving you without heat or lighting.

Take time to research your area's emergency history and learn what hazards are most common in your region. Understanding what could happen allows you to prepare for the most likely scenarios.

2. Sign Up for Emergency Alerts.

Your county or city likely offers emergency alert systems that send notifications about severe weather and other threats directly to your phone. Signing up for these alerts ensures you'll have fair warning when danger approaches, giving you more time to act. National weather apps often have local warnings as well.

3. Establish Meeting Places

If your family is separated during an emergency, you’ll want to know where to meet up again. The first spot should be right outside your home for sudden emergencies, such as a house fire. Pick a specific place that's visible and easy to reach, such as a large tree, mailbox, or neighbor's driveway.

You'll also need a second meeting location outside your neighborhood for situations where you can't return home. A school, community center, library, or relative's house works well for this purpose. The key is picking places that every family member can reach independently and remember easily, even under stress. Walk through both locations with your family so everyone knows exactly where they are and how to get there.

4. Make a Plan for Communication

In the chaos following a disaster, communication becomes both critical and difficult. Local phone lines often become overloaded with everyone trying to call at once, and cell towers can go down entirely. It may be easier to call long distance than to reach someone locally.

Designate an out-of-state friend or relative to serve as your family's emergency contact, and make this person the hub of your family's communication network. Each family member should know to call or text this contact to report their location and confirm they're safe.

Create wallet-sized emergency contact cards for everyone in your household that list this out-of-state contact along with other important numbers. Encourage children to keep them in their backpacks, pockets, or somewhere else secure.

5. Draw Escape Routes from Your Home

Map out how your family will evacuate your home quickly and safely. Walk through your house with everyone and identify at least two ways out of every room (typically a door and a window). Clear any blocked exits and ensure they can be opened quickly and easily in an emergency.

For two-story homes, consider purchasing escape ladders designed for upstairs windows and teach family members how to use them. Once you've identified all possible exits, draw a simple floor plan that clearly shows these escape routes. Post this map where everyone can see it regularly, like on the refrigerator.

Take extra time with young children to practice these routes and emphasize that they should never hide during a fire. They’ll need to get out and get to the meeting spot immediately.

6. Build an Emergency Supply Kit

Put together enough supplies to sustain your family for at least 72 hours. The kit should include:

• Water (one gallon per person per day)
• Non-perishable food
• Manual can opener
• Flashlights
• Extra batteries
• Battery-powered or hand-crank radio
• First aid kit
• Any medications your family needs
• Formula, bottles, and diapers for little ones
• Pet food and supplies for animals
  

Keep your kit in an accessible location and check it every six months to replace expired items and add new ones.

7. Plan for Special Needs

Not everyone in your household can respond to emergencies in the same way. Young children under six typically can't evacuate safely on their own, so you need to assign specific adults to help each child get out. Practice this arrangement until it becomes automatic.

Elderly family members or those with disabilities may also need assistance evacuating quickly. Build a support network now of family, friends, and neighbors who can help during an emergency. If someone in your home depends on medical equipment that requires electricity, develop a backup plan for how they'll receive care during power outages.

This planning might mean identifying facilities with generators or arranging for portable oxygen supplies. Keep extra supplies of everything your family needs to stay healthy: medications, batteries for hearing aids, contact lenses and solution, mobility aids, and any other essential items. Having these readily available can prevent a manageable situation from becoming a crisis.

8. Practice Your Plan Regularly

An emergency plan only works if everyone knows it and can execute it under pressure. Schedule family meetings at least twice a year to review your plan and ensure everyone still understands their role.

Then, move from discussions to actual drills. For fire drills, push the test button on your smoke alarm and time how long it takes everyone to reach your outside meeting place. You're aiming for under two minutes.

Try drills at different times of day, including at night when children are sleeping, to test how your family responds in various conditions. Some children sleep through alarms and need to be physically awakened and guided to safety. You’ll need to know this before a real emergency occurs.

After each drill, gather everyone to discuss what worked and what didn't. These conversations often reveal obstacles you hadn't considered or confusion about roles. Adjust your plan based on what you learn, and keep practicing as your family's circumstances change.

9. Prepare Important Documents

Gather copies of essential documents and store them in a waterproof, fireproof container or safe deposit box. Include:

• Birth certificates
• Social Security cards
• Passports
• Insurance policies
• Property deeds
• Medical records
• Bank account information
• Emergency contact lists

Update these documents whenever important information changes to ensure you're working with current records. Consider keeping digital copies on a secure cloud storage service or an encrypted flash drive that you can access from anywhere.

10. Know Your Evacuation Routes

When local authorities order an evacuation, every minute counts. Before an emergency strikes, sit down with a local map and identify at least two different routes out of your neighborhood. Roads can become blocked by flooding, downed trees, or accidents, so having alternate routes planned gives you options when you need them most. Keep these maps in your emergency kit and in each vehicle, with your chosen routes clearly marked.

11. Keep Gas in the Tank

Make a habit of keeping your vehicle's gas tank at least half full, since gas stations often lose power during emergencies or run out of fuel quickly when everyone tries to leave at once. If you don't own a vehicle, coordinate with family members, neighbors, or friends now about transportation arrangements, so you're not scrambling when an evacuation order comes.

12. Know Your Local Emergency Shelters

Familiarize yourself with the locations of emergency shelters in your community. During severe weather or other disasters, these facilities provide safe refuge when you can't stay home or reach your planned destination.

13. Update Your Plan As Needed

Your emergency plan needs to evolve along with your family. A plan that worked perfectly when your children were toddlers won't serve you as well when they are teenagers with different abilities and schedules. Plenty of other changes can come to, such as:

• Someone moving out
• A new baby is arriving
• A family member developing a medical condition or starting new medications
• A child switching schools
• Work locations changing
  

Each of these shifts can affect how your emergency plan works in practice. Any time your circumstances change, be ready to update your emergency plan.

Even without significant changes, set a reminder to review your entire plan at least once a year, checking that contact information is current, meeting places still make sense, and everyone remembers their roles. Replace expired food and medications in your emergency kit during these reviews, and verify that escape routes remain clear and windows still open easily.

Keeping your plan current ensures it will actually work when you need it.

Protecting the Ones You Love Most

Creating a home emergency plan takes time and effort, but it's one of the most important things you can do to protect your family. When everyone knows what to do, where to go, and how to communicate during a crisis, you can respond confidently instead of panicking.

At SiebenCarey, we've spent 70 years helping Minnesota families recover from accidents and injuries. While we hope you never need emergency services, we know that preparedness saves lives. Take the time today to create your family emergency plan. Your loved ones are worth it.