How to Make a Family Emergency Plan (With a Filled-In Example)
A family emergency plan is a short, written agreement about what your household will do when something goes wrong: where you will meet, who you will call, what you will grab and when you will leave. Here are five plain steps, a filled-in example family plan, and a free one-page card to print.
Short on time? Download the free Family Emergency Plan at a Glance card and fill it in tonight.
What Is a Family Emergency Plan?
It goes by several names. Canadian and British sites often say home emergency plan or household emergency plan, and US agencies usually say family emergency plan. They all mean the same thing: decisions made on a calm day, written down, so nobody has to invent them during a fire alarm, a flood warning or a long power outage.
A plan is about people. Supplies matter too, but a go-bag only helps if everyone knows when to grab it and where to go. Ready.gov's Make a Plan page and the American Red Cross Make a Plan page both start with the same questions: how will we get alerts, where will we shelter, how will we evacuate, and how will we reach each other?
Good home emergency preparation does not need special gear. It needs about an hour at the kitchen table, a pencil and everyone who lives in the house.
What a Family Emergency Plan Should Include
Use this as a checklist. If you can tick every line, you have a working plan.
- The two or three emergencies most likely where you live
- How each adult gets official alerts
- A meeting place near home, one outside the neighborhood, and an out-of-town option
- One out-of-area contact everyone can text
- Every household phone number, written on paper
- Where the go-bags, stay-at-home kit and first aid kit are kept
- Who picks up the kids, and who checks on an older relative or neighbor
- A plan for pets
- Key numbers: doctor, poison control, utilities, insurance
- The date you last practiced
Step 1: Know Your Local Risks
Write down the two or three emergencies most likely where you live: winter storms and outages, flooding, wildfire smoke, hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes. Your city or county emergency management office lists local hazards, and in Canada each province has its own preparedness pages, such as PreparedBC.
Then decide how you will hear about them. Keep Wireless Emergency Alerts turned on in each phone (Canada's version is Alert Ready), and add one local source you will actually read, such as your county's alert text service.
Step 2: Pick Meeting Places and an Out-of-Area Contact
Choose three places, from closest to farthest:
- Near home: somewhere you can walk to in a minute, like the end of the driveway or a neighbor's mailbox. This is for a house fire.
- Outside the neighborhood: a library, a place of worship or a relative's home, in case your street is closed.
- Out of town: a friend or relative you could stay with if the whole area is told to leave.
Next, pick one out-of-area contact, a person far enough away that the same storm will not hit them. During a local emergency, a long-distance call or a text often gets through when local lines are busy. Ready.gov's planning guidance recommends texting, because texts need less network capacity than calls. Everyone checks in with that one person, who passes messages along.
Write every number on paper. Most of us no longer know our family's numbers by heart, and a dead phone takes them all away. This is the part many people call a family communication plan.
Step 3: Pack a Go-Bag for Each Person
If you have to leave quickly, a packed bag means you leave with water, medicines, documents and a phone charger instead of whatever you can find. Our 72-hour go-bag checklist lists what goes in, in the order that matters, and it is a free one-page printable. Put the bag's location on your plan so a babysitter or grandparent can find it.
Step 4: Keep a Stay-at-Home Kit
Many emergencies mean staying put, not leaving: a winter storm, a boil-water notice, or an outage that lasts days. A stay-at-home kit holds more water, food that needs no cooking, light, heat and a way to charge phones. Our winter power outage checklist covers the home kit in detail, and our emergency medical information sheet guide covers medicines and medical devices.
Note on your plan where each kit lives: hall closet, basement shelf, car trunk.
Step 5: Practice and Update Twice a Year
A plan nobody has tried is a guess. Twice a year, when the clocks change, walk to your near-home meeting place, have everyone text the out-of-area contact, and check that the go-bag water and medicines have not expired. Kids remember what they have done far better than what they have been told.
Update the plan right away after a move, a new school or job, a new baby or pet, or a changed phone number. Write the date on it each time.
A Filled-In Example: The Rivera Family Plan
Most templates online are blank forms. Here is what a finished plan looks like for an example family: two parents, a 9-year-old, a 5-year-old, a grandmother who lives nearby, and a dog. Their names and details are made up.
- Main risks
- Winter storms and power outages; spring flooding on the creek road
- Alerts
- Phone emergency alerts on for both adults; county alert texts to Ana's phone
- Meet near home
- The big maple at the end of our driveway
- Meet outside the neighborhood
- Lakeview Public Library parking lot, front entrance
- Out of town
- Aunt Rosa's house, 2 hours north (she has a spare key for us)
- Out-of-area contact
- Uncle Luis in Phoenix. Everyone texts him "OK + where you are."
- School pickup
- Ana first; if she can't, Daniel; if neither can, neighbor Jen (on the school's pickup list)
- Grandma Elena
- Daniel calls her first and drives over; her medicine list is on her fridge
- Kits
- Go-bags in the hall closet; stay-at-home kit on the basement shelf; car kit in the trunk
- Pet
- Biscuit (dog): leash and 3 days of food in the hall closet; vet and microchip number on the card
- Practice
- March and November, when the clocks change. Last practiced: November 2
Notice how short it is. Every line answers one question someone would otherwise ask in a panic. The free At a Glance card has a blank space for each of these lines, and the Family Guard binder has full fill-in pages for each one, from evacuation routes to pet sitters.
Sample Pages From the Family Guard Binder
If you would rather fill in a ready-made plan than build one from scratch, the 38-page Family Guard binder has a page for each step above. Here are two partial previews.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Should a Family Emergency Plan Include?
Your local risks, two meeting places (one near home, one outside the neighborhood) and an out-of-town option, an out-of-area contact everyone can text, phone numbers on paper, where the go-bags and stay-at-home kit are, plans for kids, older relatives and pets, and the date you last practiced.
How Often Should We Update Our Family Emergency Plan?
Review it twice a year, for example when the clocks change, and right away after a move, a new job or school, a new baby or pet, or a changed phone number.
Does Every Family Member Need a Copy?
Yes. Each adult and older child should carry the key contacts and meeting places on paper, in a wallet or backpack. Keep one full copy at home and one in each go-bag.
What Is the Difference Between a Family Communication Plan and an Emergency Plan?
A family communication plan is the contact part: who calls or texts whom, the out-of-area contact, and how you reach each other if phones are down. A family emergency plan includes that, plus meeting places, evacuation, supplies and practice.
Keeping papers together? Our family emergency binder guide shows how to organize the plan, documents and medical sheets in one place.
Official Guidance and Sources Used on This Page
- Make a Plan, Ready.gov (United States Federal Emergency Management Agency)
- Make a Plan, American Red Cross
- Get Prepared, Government of Canada
- PreparedBC, Province of British Columbia
- Poison Control (US: 1-800-222-1222)
This page is general household guidance. Follow instructions from local emergency officials first.
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