Resource library

Matching resources

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Ready.gov (opens in a new tab)

  FEMA

  The federal baseline for household preparedness, in more than ten languages. Start here before you buy anything. The checklists are conservative and free, which is the right combination for a first plan.

• Government or standards bodyDownloadFree

  Make a family emergency plan (opens in a new tab)

  FEMA

  A fill-in plan covering meeting points, out-of-area contacts and who collects the kids. The out-of-area contact is the single most useful line on it, because long distance often works when local calling does not.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Build a kit (opens in a new tab)

  FEMA

  The federal kit list. Treat it as a floor rather than a target: it is deliberately generic, so it under-specifies for cold climates and says little about medication.

• Government or standards bodyTrainingFree

  Community Emergency Response Team (opens in a new tab)

  FEMA

  Free local training in light search and rescue, fire suppression and triage, running in all 50 states plus tribal nations and territories. The best value in preparedness training, and it puts you in a room with your neighbours.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  National Preparedness (opens in a new tab)

  FEMA

  The planning frameworks emergency managers actually use. Heavier reading than Ready.gov, and worth it if you want to understand how the official response is supposed to work before you rely on it.

• Government or standards bodyDataFree

  FEMA Flood Map Service Center (opens in a new tab)

  FEMA

  Look up whether your address sits in a mapped flood zone. Worth ten minutes even if you are certain you are not, because flood insurance and mortgage requirements both key off this map.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  DisasterAssistance.gov (opens in a new tab)

  US Federal Government

  Where federal aid applications actually happen after a declared disaster. Bookmark it now, because the moment you need it you will be searching on a phone with two bars.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Prepare Your Health (opens in a new tab)

  CDC

  The health side of preparedness: medication supply, personal health records, and planning for chronic conditions. The medication continuity guidance is the part most kit lists skip entirely.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Making water safe in an emergency (opens in a new tab)

  CDC

  Boiling times, bleach ratios and what disinfection does not fix. The chemical ratios here are the ones to trust, because most of the numbers circulating online are copied from older guidance.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Ground water and drinking water (opens in a new tab)

  EPA

  Standards, contaminant limits and how to read a water quality report. Useful when you want to know what a filter claim means rather than what the box says.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  National Weather Service (opens in a new tab)

  NOAA

  Forecasts and warnings from the source, without an app layer adding its own interpretation. The local office pages carry the detail that national apps flatten out.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  National Hurricane Center (opens in a new tab)

  NOAA

  Advisories, cones and storm surge maps during hurricane season. The surge map matters more than the wind category for most coastal households, and it is the one people look at last.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Storm Prediction Center (opens in a new tab)

  NOAA

  Severe thunderstorm and tornado outlooks, issued days ahead. The convective outlook is how you know to charge everything and move the car the night before.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  USGS Earthquake Hazards (opens in a new tab)

  USGS

  Real-time earthquake feeds plus long-run hazard maps. The hazard map is the useful half: it tells you whether your bookshelf strapping is theatre or necessary.

• Government or standards bodyToolFree

  ShakeAlert (opens in a new tab)

  USGS

  Earthquake early warning for the West Coast. It buys seconds, not minutes, which is enough to get under a table and nowhere near enough to leave a building.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  National Interagency Fire Center (opens in a new tab)

  NIFC

  National wildfire situation reports and preparedness levels. Reading the daily situation report through a bad August tells you more than any news coverage will.

• Government or standards bodyDataFree

  InciWeb incident information (opens in a new tab)

  NWCG

  Per-incident wildfire updates, perimeter maps and evacuation notices, straight from the incident management teams. Slower than social media and far more accurate.

• Government or standards bodyDataFree

  AirNow (opens in a new tab)

  EPA

  Official air quality index with wildfire smoke overlays. Pair it with a plan for indoor air, because during a smoke event the indoor number is the one you can actually change.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Carbon Monoxide Information Center (opens in a new tab)

  CPSC

  Generator and heater placement rules, and the reason those rules exist. Carbon monoxide kills more people after storms than the storms do, and the fix is free: distance and a working alarm.

• Government or standards bodyStandard or rulesFree

  Amateur Radio Service (opens in a new tab)

  FCC

  The rules themselves. Read the part on emergency communications before you decide what you are allowed to do with an unlicensed radio in a crisis, because the answer surprises people in both directions.

• Government or standards bodyStandard or rulesFree

  General Mobile Radio Service (opens in a new tab)

  FCC

  GMRS licence rules, including the part people miss: one licence covers your whole immediate family, there is no exam, and it lasts ten years.

• Government or standards bodyDataFree

  FCC licence search (opens in a new tab)

  FCC

  Look up any United States callsign or check that your own licence records are current. Also the fastest way to confirm someone is who they say they are on air.

• Government or standards bodyStandard or rulesFree

  National Center for Home Food Preservation (opens in a new tab)

  University of Georgia and USDA

  The tested-recipe authority for canning, drying and curing. If a preservation method is not here or in a current extension publication, do not improvise it: botulism is the failure mode.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  FoodSafety.gov (opens in a new tab)

  US Federal Government

  Storage times, safe temperatures and what to throw out after an outage. The four-hour refrigerator rule and the full-freezer rule are the two numbers to memorise.

• Government or standards bodyGovernment agencyFree

  Cooperative Extension System (opens in a new tab)

  USDA NIFA

  Find your state extension office. Extension publications are the most under-used preparedness resource in the country: tested, local, free, and written by people who answer the phone.

• Government or standards bodyToolFree

  PVWatts solar calculator (opens in a new tab)

  NREL

  Estimate what a panel array will actually produce at your address and tilt. Run it before you buy, because the number is usually lower than the marketing figure by a wide margin.

• Government or standards bodyDataFree

  USGS water data (opens in a new tab)

  USGS

  Live stream gauges and groundwater levels. Useful for flood watching and for understanding whether the creek you were counting on runs year round.

• Government or standards bodyDataFree

  US Drought Monitor (opens in a new tab)

  NDMC, USDA and NOAA

  Weekly drought classification by county. It drives water restrictions and fire restrictions in most of the West, so it tells you what rules are coming before they arrive.

• Established nonprofitNonprofitFree

  How to prepare for emergencies (opens in a new tab)

  American Red Cross

  Hazard-by-hazard guidance with a lighter touch than the federal pages. The shelter-finding tools during an active event are the part worth knowing about in advance.

• Established nonprofitNonprofitFree

  Amateur Radio Emergency Service (opens in a new tab)

  ARRL

  The organised volunteer side of emergency radio. Joining a local ARES group is how a licence turns into something you can actually use under pressure, because you practise on a schedule.

• Established nonprofitNonprofitFree

  Firewise USA (opens in a new tab)

  NFPA

  Defensible space standards and the zone system around a structure. Zone zero, the first five feet, does more than anything else on the list and costs nothing but a Saturday.

• Established nonprofitNonprofitFree

  Team Rubicon (opens in a new tab)

  Team Rubicon

  Disaster response volunteering with real training attached. If you want practice rather than theory, deploying with an organised team is how you get it.

• Established nonprofitNonprofitFree

  Provident Living food storage guidance (opens in a new tab)

  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

  Decades of practical long-term storage guidance, published openly and used well beyond the church. The three-month rotating supply model is the most workable starting point we have found.

• Established nonprofitToolFree

  Kiwix (opens in a new tab)

  Kiwix

  Reads offline copies of Wikipedia, Stack Exchange, medical references and more. The single highest-value piece of software in this whole library, and it runs on a phone.

• Established nonprofitDownloadFree

  Kiwix content library (opens in a new tab)

  Kiwix

  The actual downloads: full Wikipedia at around 100GB, a text-only version at a fraction of that, plus WikiMed, Wikivoyage and iFixit. Start with WikiMed if storage is tight.

• Established nonprofitDownloadFree

  Project Gutenberg (opens in a new tab)

  Project Gutenberg

  Seventy thousand public domain books, downloadable in bulk. Worth having for morale as much as for reference, because a week without power is very long.

• Established nonprofitDownloadFree

  Internet Archive (opens in a new tab)

  Internet Archive

  Manuals, out-of-print technical books and government publications that have quietly vanished from their original sites. Search here first when a citation link dies.

• Established nonprofitDataFree

  OpenStreetMap (opens in a new tab)

  OpenStreetMap Foundation

  The map data behind most offline mapping apps. Free to download by region, and in rural areas it often has trails and tracks that commercial maps leave out.

• Practitioner or communityToolFree

  Organic Maps (opens in a new tab)

  Organic Maps

  Offline maps and turn-by-turn routing with no account and no tracking. Download your state before you need it, which is the whole point and the step everyone forgets.

• Practitioner or communityToolFree

  Meshtastic (opens in a new tab)

  Meshtastic

  Open source LoRa mesh messaging on cheap hardware, no licence needed. Range claims vary wildly with terrain, so test yours before you plan around it.

• Practitioner or communityDataFree

  RepeaterBook (opens in a new tab)

  RepeaterBook

  Directory of amateur and GMRS repeaters by location, with tones and offsets. Print the page for your county and put it in the radio bag, because you will not have internet when you need it.

• Practitioner or communityTrainingFree

  HamStudy.org (opens in a new tab)

  HamStudy

  Free practice exams built on the real question pools, with a study tracker. Combined with a local exam session, most people get a Technician licence in two or three weeks of evenings.

• Practitioner or communityToolFree

  Winlink Global Radio Email (opens in a new tab)

  Winlink

  Email over radio when the internet is gone, used heavily in real disaster response. It requires a licence and some setup patience, and it is the closest thing to normal messaging without infrastructure.

• Practitioner or communityToolFree

  Battery University (opens in a new tab)

  Cadex Electronics

  Plain explanations of how lithium, lead acid and other chemistries age, charge and fail. Read the storage-state article before you put a battery bank away for a year.

• Practitioner or communityCommunityFree

  r/preppers (opens in a new tab)

  Reddit

  The largest general preparedness forum, and more practical than its reputation suggests. Sort by top of the month rather than reading the front page, which skews toward news reaction.

• Practitioner or communityCommunityFree

  r/amateurradio (opens in a new tab)

  Reddit

  Active and welcoming to beginners, provided you have read the rules first. Good place to sanity check a first radio purchase before you spend money on the wrong band.

• Practitioner or communityCommunityFree

  r/meshtastic (opens in a new tab)

  Reddit

  Where regional mesh networks get organised and where honest range reports show up. Search your metro area name before assuming there is no local mesh.

• Practitioner or communityCommunityFree

  r/gmrs (opens in a new tab)

  Reddit

  Licence questions, repeater etiquette and radio recommendations for family use. The most useful forum for people who want radio without an exam.

• Practitioner or communityCommunityFree

  QRZ forums (opens in a new tab)

  QRZ

  Long-running amateur radio discussion with deep archives. Search before posting: most antenna questions have been answered at length, more than once, by people who measured.

• Practitioner or communityCommunityFree

  r/Canning (opens in a new tab)

  Reddit

  Unusually well moderated on safety, and firm about tested recipes only. That strictness is the reason to use it rather than a general cooking forum for preservation questions.

• Practitioner or communityCommunityFree

  r/solar (opens in a new tab)

  Reddit

  Installers and owners arguing about quotes, panels and inverters. Useful for reality-checking a backup power quote, and for learning which questions to ask a salesperson.

• Practitioner or communityTrainingFreeOurs

  CallSignReady (opens in a new tab)

  CallSignReady

  A free study game for the United States amateur radio Technician exam, built on the current question pool. One of our own projects. HamStudy is the established alternative and it is also free.

• Practitioner or communityTrainingFreeOurs

  Ditdah (opens in a new tab)

  Ditdah

  Learn the Morse alphabet with sound and picture mnemonics, one letter at a time. One of our own projects, adapted from Ace Centre's open source Morse Learn.