All Preparing with Dan articles, sorted by latest update. Browse by topic via the main menu, or scroll for the freshest posts.
The American Red Cross publishes exactly what a family-of-four first aid kit should contain: about sixty items. A 516-piece kit is not eight times better, it is four hundred adhesive bandages. Six kits compared against the official list, and the four items most of them lack.
A step-by-step method for sealing dry food in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, the sizes that match real portions, and the two rules that matter more than the brand of bag: keep the food under 10 % moisture, and open only as many absorbers as you can seal in a few minutes.
Not a doorway. An earthquake plan for a family: what to bolt down, why sturdy shoes tied to the bed prevent the most common injury, the drill to practise before October 15, and who to text.
Twenty-five figures on how prepared American households really are, from FEMA’s National Household Survey, the 2024 National Preparedness Report, NWS hazard statistics, NOAA’s billion-dollar disaster dataset, the CDC, the EIA and the US Fire Administration. Each with its source, and free to cite.
The family kit plus one rule most parents get wrong: ready-to-feed formula, not powder, because mixing needs clean water you may not have. Diaper math, medicines, the comfort object.
A wildfire evacuation is decided before the smoke: half a tank of gas, a go-bag by the door, two routes out and a place that takes your dog. The checklist, in the order things happen.
We priced the eight core items of a FEMA-recommended 72-hour kit for a family of four in July 2026. The total: $200 – and one budget food option that quietly underfeeds you.
Use flashlights, not candles, says the Red Cross. Five LED lanterns compared on the number that matters in a multi-day outage: hours of light per set of batteries, not lumens.
A Faraday bag either blocks your phone or it does not, and the test is free. Six pouches compared on fit, closure and the catch; plus what an EMP is, per CISA, and why no bag on this page carries a shielding figure.
A foil pouch and an oxygen absorber turn a 20-pound bag of rice into a 25-to-30-year reserve, per Utah State University Extension. The same trick on the wrong food creates the conditions for botulism. What to seal, what never to, and five packs compared.