The index is a number. This page is what the number asks of you: build the baseline at Level 5, top off at 4, activate at 3, hold at 2 and 1. Acting early and calmly is the entire point; nothing here should ever be done in a panic or in a crowd.
Build the baseline. Everything on this page that costs money is cheapest and easiest now.
Top off. Fill what is half-empty, extend cash and food toward a month, refill prescriptions early.
Activate the plan. Fill water, fuel, and cash within normal limits, stay close to home, check on neighbors.
Hold. Live off what you built. Expect cards, pumps, or cell service to be intermittent.
Follow official instructions. Shelter or move only on direction from local emergency management.
If the index drops two levels overnight, or a major event breaks before it can, these six things in the first 60 minutes matter more than anything you do in the following week.
Fill the bathtub bladder, every jug, and every pot. Municipal water pressure lasts only as long as the pumps have power. This is the single highest-value hour of the whole event.
Fill the vehicles and legal gas cans now, while gas stations still have power and card readers still work. Pay cash if lines at the reader are forming.
One normal ATM withdrawal, in small bills if the machine offers them. Do not try to drain an account; you will fail, and you will be in a line you do not want to be in.
Plug in every device and power bank. Download offline maps, screenshot the contact card, and save copies of key documents to the phone while data still works.
Pick up any prescription that can be picked up today. Top off first-aid supplies and any medical device batteries.
Reach every household member, confirm the rally point and the daily check-in time, and tell the out-of-area contact. Then put the phone down and go do the first five things properly.
Build the baseline. Everything on this page that costs money is cheapest and easiest now.
Keep a small reserve in small bills ($5s, $10s, $20s) in a fire-rated safe: enough for about three days of fuel, food, and pharmacy if cards stop working. Commonly quoted range is $300 to $500 per household. Do not hold more than you could stand to lose to fire or theft.
One gallon per person per day for 14 days, stored in food-grade containers out of sunlight, plus a gravity or squeeze filter (Sawyer, LifeStraw family, Berkey class) and a bottle of plain unscented bleach for treatment. Pets count as people here.
Two weeks of shelf-stable food your household already eats: rice, dry beans, pasta, canned meat and vegetables, peanut butter, oats, oil, salt. Rotate it through your normal cooking so nothing expires. A manual can opener and a way to boil water without grid power.
Vehicles never below half a tank. A 20,000 mAh power bank per person, headlamps, a hand-crank or battery NOAA weather radio. If you own a generator, know its fuel burn and run it monthly. A small solar panel and battery box covers phones and lights indefinitely.
A written family contact card in every wallet and backpack with an out-of-area contact everyone reports to. A pair of FRS or GMRS handhelds for around the neighborhood. Know your county's alert system and sign up for it.
30 days of prescription medication (ask your doctor for a vacation override or 90-day fill), a real first-aid kit, N95 masks. Copies of IDs, deeds, titles, insurance, and account lists: one paper set in the safe, one encrypted on a USB drive.
Buy seeds now, while nobody else is thinking about them. Choose open-pollinated (heirloom) varieties, not hybrids, so saved seed grows true next year. Store cool, dry, and dark in a sealed jar with a desiccant packet; most vegetable seed keeps three to five years that way. Then plant one bed this season: a garden is a skill, not a purchase.
Know where your water, gas, and electrical shutoffs are and keep the tools next to them. Talk through the plan with the household once a year. Meet your neighbors; they are your real first responders.
Top off. Fill what is half-empty, extend cash and food toward a month, refill prescriptions early.
Activate the plan. Fill water, fuel, and cash within normal limits, stay close to home, check on neighbors.
Hold. Live off what you built. Expect cards, pumps, or cell service to be intermittent.
Follow official instructions. Shelter or move only on direction from local emergency management.
Have a small reserve at every level, including Level 5: about three days of fuel, food, and pharmacy in small bills, commonly quoted as $300 to $500 per household. Extend toward two weeks of essential spending at Level 4 and about one month at Level 3, drawn over several normal withdrawals. At Level 2 and below, hold and spend from the reserve rather than standing in ATM lines.
Two weeks of water (one gallon per person per day) and two weeks of food are the Level 5 baseline that should already be in place. At Level 4, extend food toward 30 days and add a bathtub water bladder. At Level 3, fill every water container and extend food to 60 to 90 days if space allows, bought in normal quantities across several trips.
Buy open-pollinated (heirloom) varieties rather than hybrids so saved seed grows true, and store them cool, dry, and dark in a sealed jar with a desiccant. Favor calorie-dense staples suited to your climate: dry beans or southern peas, winter squash, corn, sweet potatoes (grown from slips), and potatoes (from seed potatoes), plus hardy greens such as collards, mustard, and turnips. Buy at Level 5 and plant a bed now; the skill matters more than the stockpile.
Fill water containers, fuel the vehicles while pumps and card readers still work, make one normal cash withdrawal, charge devices and download offline maps and documents, pick up prescriptions, and make contact with your household to confirm the rally point and check-in time.
No. It is general household preparedness guidance drawn from FEMA, Ready.gov, and American Red Cross recommendations, and from the Signal Fire Index's own framework. Adjust quantities to your household, health, and budget.