Prep Series Week 1: Getting Into the Preparedness Mindset

Elizabeth Doerr

and

Brekke Wagoner

Apr 05, 2024

Also, we’ve decided to make this first post free for all subscribers! If you’d like to receive the remaining nine weeks of content (and all other toolkits I have planned beyond this one), you can join as a paid subcriber now!

If you have any questions along the way, feel free to comment below and/or email us at crammingfortheapocalypse@gmail.com. Happy Prepping!

Friends,

Welcome to Week One of this 10-week preparedness journey! We’re excited to have you along for the ride. This introductory discussion is meant to set the tone and the process for this journey.

But first…

What to Expect

Let’s start by going through what you’ll be learning throughout these 10 weeks. We’ve broken up each week’s lesson into specific areas that help get you to the point of preparedness for your basic needs lest disaster strike.

Here’s a roadmap of what topics we’ll cover for the next 10 weeks:

How to Use this Guide

We’ve done our best to make this guide as digestible and not-too-overwhelming. However, because preparedness is, by nature, overwhelming and kind of scary to face head-on, we can’t promise you won’t be overwhelmed. There’s a lot of information in these posts and in many cases, we’ve erred on the side of more info than less for those who really like details. But for some who read a big block of text, that’s going to be very overwhelming. So here’s what we recommend (esp. for the easily overwhelmed):

Begin with the workbook. We have created a handy downloadable/printable workbook for each week. This workbook will guide you through the action steps to take one-by-one. That workbook will be at the top of each post. By the end of the ten weeks, you will have a complete workbook.
Use the toolkit posts as your guide through the workbook. Each section of the workbook corresponds to a section in the post which includes helpful tips and sometimes examples that will help you work through that section.
Know that you do not have to complete all the action items in one week even in a month. I know that we called this “10 Weeks to Preparedness,” but in reality, it’ll take you longer than 10 weeks to get to where you want. Think of it as a year-long process and these steps and going through the workbook will incrementally get you to a place of preparedness over the next several months. When you want to go back to one of the posts to reference, you can find all published posts at the Resources and Toolkit navigation bar at the top of the Cramming for the Apocalypse Substack page.

Now Let’s Get Started

As promised here is your handy downloadable printable workbook for Week One: Getting into the Preparedness Mindset.

Download Workbook Week One

Download this workbook and fill it out as you read through this section. And of course, before jumping in, just a reminder that after this week, these workbooks and guides will only be available to paid subscribers. So to continue on this journey after this week, make sure to upgrade to paid if you haven’t already!

The Preparedness Mindset

Preparing for a disaster is daunting. First, it feels like the long-ass list of things to do and items to procure just feels like too much when taken in all at once. Second, disaster preparedness can bring up anxiety and fear about the disaster in question. To prepare requires you to have to think about a disastrous, scary event that could separate you from your family or put the community around you in harm’s way. It can feel so much easier to ignore it. Not unlike having to make a living will or advance directives that dictate to your loved ones the medical actions to take if incapacitated, envisioning a difficult future event can be a huge barrier to action. And similar to those who have actually made advance directives (one in three adults in the U.S.), the percentage of U.S. adults prepared for disaster isn’t terribly high (around 45% according to FEMA’s 2022 household survey).

We know exactly the daunting-ness of disaster preparedness. One of us is still trying to get her shit together (literally and figuratively) and perhaps that is the very reason she’s writing a book about preparedness. The other one has made it her life’s goal to make preparedness palatable. Can you guess who’s who in this scenario?

That’s exactly why we’ve teamed up! We want to create a toolkit that can walk you step-by-step through the preparedness process that guides you incrementally through preparedness. Preparedness does not have to be done in one fell swoop.

We both believe preparedness for those of us in privileged positions where we have the time, money, space, resources, and education have a responsibility to take agency over our preparedness. Elizabeth has written about this in the past, but it bears emphasizing that you taking these steps is part of taking care of your community. By preparing, you’re making it less likely that you’ll need assistance from emergency services and, therefore, freeing up those services for people who aren’t in privileged positions to prepare. Thus, by taking these steps, you are not just thinking about yourself or your survival, but you’re thinking of your community.

And in doing so, you will also gain a sense of ease. When Elizabeth and her husband put together their will and advance directives after their son was born, there was a sense of security that no matter what happened to them, he’d be taken care of. The same feeling of relief comes when thinking through disaster scenarios, knowing that you have a plan.

With that, let’s begin with how to get into the preparedness mindset.

Don’t Let Perfection Become the Enemy of the Good

One reason why many people don’t take steps to prepare for disaster is that they don’t think they’re going to do it right. Or they think that they have to tick off all checkboxes on a list they’ve been given. The truth is, any preparedness is good preparedness. There is no right or wrong way to do it (unless you add too much bleach to your water, otherwise, there isn’t).

So the first thing you need to do is get perfection out of your head. Some water stored is better than no water stored. Some food stocked up is better than no food stocked up. Just do what you can, take your time with it, and make it work for you.

With that said and done, let’s get started.

What’s Your Disaster?

We begin with this because it helps to think through both scenarios and concrete actions that are easy to take.

First, let’s talk about disaster scenarios. With climate change, we’ve come to see the unpredictability of types of disasters. Monsoon-like rains in Southern California? Freezing in Texas? Surely those couldn’t have been expected. And it’s okay that they’re unexpected. We can never plan for every single scenario, so it’s important to think about what are the most common disasters that could occur in your area and to think through that lens.

For Elizabeth (in Portland), that’s either the big Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake that could hit the Pacific Northwest anytime in the next 50 years or wildfire and smoke that has been an annual event in the region. For Brekke (in North Carolina), it’s heat-wave induced infrastructure failure knocking out the grid long-term, or climate-change related flooding along the Carolina coast.

It’s important, though, to not get too fixated on that “focus” disaster because, by definition, disasters are unpredictable. Rather, you can use that disaster vision as a tool to more concretely think through such things as how to store your preps, what you need to consider in evacuation planning, and potential communication methods.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

And the other way to think about preparedness is to think through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

We begin with the physiological needs, once those are met, you can focus on safety needs. After that, our brains and bodies are freed up to think more deeply about psychological needs such as belonging.

There’s also an important aspect to the community here where it’s acknowledged how central collective effort is involved with meeting all of the community’s needs. When someone’s physiological or safety needs are met, they’re also going to be able to help someone else meet those as well. In fact, the research shows that knowing your neighbors is one of the most important factors in resilience and survival post disaster (but more on that later in this series).

So think about this preparedness journey as a way for you to meet future-you’s physiological and security needs so that you can free yourself and others up to help others meet those needs when the time arises. As we think about what our basic needs are, and what it takes to not just survive an emergency situation, but to maintain our calm and confidence so we can lead our families and local communities through a crisis. This series is meant to help you prepare to take care of your basic needs—the physiological and safety needs. Some of this series will address the belongingness aspect and may touch on the other needs in Maslow’s hierarchy, but they’re a consequence of building up resilience for those basic needs.

Now, let’s get to the practical and specific aspects of your mindset. Here’s what you want to think about when preparing:

IMPORTANT NOTE: You do not need to start using these as the basis for your plans immediately. We don’t want you to start getting overwhelmed. We will cover these later in the series. However, we lay them out here so that you can think through how disasters might affect your region and can help you think through what resiliency plans look like for you. Utilize the workbook to guide you through the process so you don’t get too in under your head.

No matter the cause of the potential disaster – whether a weather-related event, civil unrest, or international conflict – these three areas of preparedness will be the foundation for building a resiliency plan.

Loss of Utilities: In many disasters the utility grid fails, whether for a brief period (less than 24 hours) or for an extended multi-day (or week!) period. The climate crisis also means that planned rolling blackouts or brown outs may be of concern, especially if you rely on the grid for medical support. Take time to look around your residence and inventory what utilities you use and how. Electricity, natural gas, water and sewer, internet and cell phones –even your garbage collection – these are all everyday “utilities” that may be compromised after a disaster scenario. What would you do if they were all cut off at once? What would be the most important utilities to have as back up? For most of us that’s electrical and water, but your situation may be different (such as if you use propane, or solar power, etc).
Get into a preparedness mindset – What are ways to create backups to these most essential utilities? And, realistically what are your essentials and what are your wants. You might think that electricity for a refrigerator is an essential, but in reality, you could live without it if you planned ahead. You might need to plan for a C-Pap, however. Think critically and creatively about addressing these essential losses. If you’re new to prepping and unsure, there are some great videos and online resources to get you started!
Loss of Supply Lines: While this is second on the list, it’s not of secondary importance. A loss of access to supplies can create or exacerbate an emergency situation. We’ve grown up with global capitalism, and a “just-in-time” delivery system for most of our everyday goods. That shelters us from just how precarious many of the markets we rely on really are. Consider the items you use daily that would be essential in a crisis –and consider where you obtain them and how often. What if that goes away, or becomes limited? What if access is temporarily stopped, or becomes infrequent?
Get into a preparedness mindset – Consider things like your daily medications, both prescription and over the counter; where do you get these? Where are they made/imported from? Are there alternatives? Can you create a backup supply of these? Consider things like your tech gear, your transportation, your shelter material, and even your food. Where does it come from and how does it get to you? Is it time to start creating alternative pathways of “consumption” –that is, alternative and usually more locally-sourced ways to purchase goods or services – that will be more resilient if global or national supply chains fail? Brainstorm these potential alternatives. They might not be completely viable for rerouting your consumption now, but building up strong secondary local pathways to the more fragile global economy takes time and usually relationships. Starting now as part of your prepared future is key.
Evacuation: The above two categories apply primarily to a “shelter-in-place” scenario, that is it’s safer to stay right where you are and not try to leave. But there are lots of emergencies that may require you and your family to evacuate. Make a plan now. Where can you go? How can you get there? What if the most direct route is blocked? What if gps is down? We’ll talk more about building an evacuation kit (aka “bug out” or “go bag”). But it’s important to begin thinking critically and creatively about what you would need to survive and thrive if you had to leave home.
A key point here: Don’t assume you’ll remember the place. Crisis often leaves us flustered. Establish a location (or two, or three!) where you can head if your local residence is unsafe. Establish a plan for getting there–and a plan for when to leave. Then, build a kit that meets your abilities and needs for getting there.

As with all the preparedness planning and inventorying you do, loop everyone in your household into these discussions. Listen to one another's fears and concerns. Realistically assess your abilities and access. Having a preparedness mindset means knowing what you need and what you want. It also means having a realistic understanding of your skills and abilities–not from a place of judgment, but from a place of empowerment. If you can’t hike with a 50 lbs rucksack, then don’t. Plan ahead for your realistic capabilities.

Call to Action

At the end of each week, we’ll summarize the above content into calls to action. These will be your handy TL;DR checklist resources. All of these action items are included in the worksheet. The worksheet will include just the sections pertaining to this week’s content and then at the conclusion, we’ll provide a download link for the entire worksheet.