Most household emergency plans amount to "we will ring each other". That is not a plan, it is an assumption about infrastructure, and it fails precisely when it is needed, because everybody else in the area is making the same call at the same moment.
A good plan has a property that sounds odd until you see it: it works when nobody can contact anybody. Everything below exists to produce that.
Why the plan must not need a phone
In a widespread event the mobile network congests within minutes, the power may be off, and the phone in question may be flat, lost, broken, wet, or in a coat somewhere else.
So the plan is a set of defaults, agreed in advance and known by everybody, that people follow without needing to be told. Communication, if it works, is a bonus that lets you vary from the default.
Simple beats complete. A three-line plan everybody remembers is worth more than a two-page one nobody has read. If you cannot say the whole thing out loud in twenty seconds, it is too complicated.
The three places
Home is the default and it is usually right. Most emergencies are best handled by everybody getting home and staying there. The instinct to move is usually wrong, and moving is where people get hurt.
The local meeting point is for when the house itself is the problem: a fire, a gas leak, a structural failure. It should be:
- Within walking distance, and reachable by the youngest and slowest member of the household on their own.
- Outside, and obvious. A specific lamp post, a particular gate, a named corner. Not "the park", which is large.
- Not across a main road for anybody who might arrive alone.
- Somewhere it is reasonable to stand for a while without being asked to move on.
The out-of-area place is for when the whole area is affected. A named relative or friend, far enough away to be outside the same event, whose address everybody knows and can reach.
Name all three specifically and write them down. Vagueness is what fails.
The out-of-area contact
Separate from the out-of-area place, and it is the highest-value item on this page.
One person, well outside your area, who everybody rings or texts. They hold the picture: who has checked in, from where, and what they are doing. Everybody gets the information by contacting one person rather than by contacting everybody.
Why it works: local networks congest first, and calls out of an affected area often connect when local calls will not.
- Ask them first, and explain what the job is.
- Everybody has the number on paper, not only in a phone.
- Children learn it or carry it.
- Give them a copy of your plan, so they can tell somebody where you were headed.
The card
One card per person, in a wallet, a school bag, a coat pocket, and one on the fridge or inside the cupboard door by the front door.
On paper, laminated or in a sandwich bag. The whole point is that it works with a dead phone.
Photograph it as well, so it is also on every phone, but the paper is the primary.
Review it once a year. Numbers change, children change schools, and a plan built around an address somebody moved out of is worse than none.
Children
The part that needs the most thought and the least drama.
- Find out your school's actual policy before you need it: whether they hold children on site, where they go if the school is evacuated, and who is authorised to collect. Most parents have never asked.
- Make sure the school's authorised list is current and includes somebody who is likely to be nearby.
- Teach the plan, not the fear. "If anything happens and you cannot find us, go to X and wait, or ring Y" is a calm instruction. It does not need a frightening explanation attached, and giving one is counterproductive.
- Practise the walk to the local meeting point with them, in daylight, more than once, so the route is familiar.
- Give them the card, and check they still have it occasionally.
- Older children can hold more of the plan and should. An eleven year old can memorise a number, walk to a meeting point and give a grid reference.
- Do not build a plan that requires a child to make a judgement call. It should be a single instruction with no branches.
See the children's tier for the version written for them directly.
Defaults, so nobody has to decide
The heart of the plan. Write these as flat statements everybody knows.
Examples worth adapting:
- If something happens and we cannot reach each other, everybody goes home and stays there.
- If home is not usable, everybody goes to the local meeting point and waits there for at least an hour.
- If you cannot get home at all, ring the out-of-area contact and tell them where you are, then stay put.
- Nobody goes looking for anybody. This is the one that saves lives and it is the hardest to agree to.
- Nobody crosses moving water. See river and flood crossings.
- We stay where we are unless there is a reason to move, and cold, dark and bad weather are reasons to stay.
Nobody goes looking for anybody deserves the emphasis. Searching for a family member who is following the plan means two people moving in an emergency instead of none, at night, in the conditions that caused the problem. Agree it in advance, out loud, because in the moment it feels impossible.
Leaving a note
The oldest and most reliable message system there is, and it needs no infrastructure.
Agree one place where notes go: the inside of the front door, a particular kitchen cupboard, under a specific stone by the gate.
Every note says four things: who wrote it, the time, where they have gone, and when they expect to be back.
"Gone to Mum's, on foot, 14:20, back by 6 or staying" tells a returning family member everything they need and saves them a search.
Leave one even for a short errand in an ongoing emergency. Especially then.
Rehearsing it
A plan that has never been said out loud is not shared, it is written down.
- Say the whole thing at the table once, and have each person repeat their part back.
- Walk to the local meeting point with everybody, once, so it is a place rather than a name.
- Do a test check-in: everybody texts the out-of-area contact from wherever they are on an ordinary Tuesday. It takes a minute and it tests the number, the habit and the person.
- Try it with the phones off. Ask everybody what they would do. The gaps show up immediately and they are always in a different place from where you expected.
- Review annually, along with the smoke alarms and the first aid kit.