Plan for what worries you
Each one starts with how likely it really is and how long it lasts, from primary sources. Then it runs your own setup through it, day by day.
- Where to start prepping: water and food, then power, then shelterStart with water and food for a few days, then two weeks, then power to keep water flowing and food cold, then shelter. Each step covers far more real outages than the last, until about three months, when storing more stops paying off.
- A long power outage: winter storms and ice stormsPlan for about four days without power, and two weeks if ice storms reach you. That's how long the worst recent US winter outages lasted.
- When the grid goes down for monthsIt has happened in the US: after Hurricane Maria, most of Puerto Rico had no power for months, and the last neighborhood waited 328 days. What kept people going was local power, water and medicine, not stockpiles alone.
- A solar flare that takes down the gridA Carrington-class solar storm wouldn't fry your phone or your panels. It threatens the big transformers on the grid, and Lloyd's estimated 20 to 40 million Americans could be without power for weeks to a year or two.
- An EMP: what it would do, and will your solar survive?Solar panels survived a strong simulated EMP in Sandia's tests. The weak points are long wires: the grid, and the cables into your inverter. Keep spares wrapped, and power that doesn't depend on the grid.
- Hurricane power outages: how long, and what keeps you goingMost homes get power back within days of a hurricane, but the hard-hit ones wait weeks. After Beryl in 2024, heat killed more people than the wind. In September, solar refills a battery fast once the clouds clear.
- If Yellowstone erupts: ash, a dimmer sun, and your powerA Yellowstone super-eruption is very unlikely (USGS puts it near 1 in 730,000 a year) and would come with warning. If it happened, the threats to your power far away are wet ash shorting power lines, ash on your panels, and a dimmer sun for a year or two.
- The Cascadia earthquake: power for months, not daysOregon's own plan expects electricity to take 1 to 3 months to come back in the Willamette Valley and 3 to 6 months on the coast after a full Cascadia earthquake. Two weeks of supplies is the floor, not the goal.
- A nuclear attack: what the official guidance says to doGet inside, stay inside, stay tuned. Federal guidance is to shelter in the most protective building nearby for at least 12 to 24 hours, because fallout radiation drops fast: every seven-fold increase in time cuts it about ten-fold.