Home Emergency Preparedness Audit

Most households believe they're prepared. They have a bag somewhere in the closet, a few flashlights, maybe a case of water under the stairs. Then a real event hits — a three-day power outage, an ice storm, a boil notice — and the gaps appear immediately. Water runs out on day two. The 72-hour blackout checklist gets abandoned because there's nothing to check off. The stored water supply turns out to be four bottles of Evian from a grocery run two years ago.

The audit below is designed to surface exactly this — where your household would actually break.

What a preparedness audit actually measures

A preparedness audit is not a gear checklist. It's a stress test across twelve categories that matter when infrastructure fails. We ask specific, quantified questions — not "do you have water?" but "how many gallons of stored water do you have today, and when did you last rotate it?" The difference between those two questions is the difference between false confidence and real readiness.

Each question maps to a vulnerability score from 0 to 3: 0 means the category is covered, 3 means you'd be in serious trouble within 24 hours. Add the scores at the end and you have your prioritized fix list — not someone else's generic recommendation, your specific household's ranked gaps.

The 12 audit questions

Work through each question honestly. Score 0 if you fully meet the standard, 1 if you're partially covered, 2 if you're significantly short, 3 if you have nothing. Write the scores down — the goal is a ranked list, not a grade.

1. Water — quantity and rotation

Do you have at least 1 gallon per person per day for 14 days, stored in food-grade containers, rotated within the last 12 months?

Score 3 if you have less than 3 days' worth or have never rotated your supply. Score 1 if you meet the 72-hour mark but fall short of 14 days. Most households score 2 here — they have some water but not nearly enough. See our deep-dive on long-term home water storage for container selection and rotation schedules.

2. Water — treatment capability

If your tap went down tomorrow, could you make any water source in or near your home safe to drink without electricity? A quality gravity filter, a supply of unscented liquid chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite 6-8.25%), or iodine tablets each count. Knowing only how to boil water counts as a partial answer — you still need fuel and a fire-safe setup.

Score 2 if the answer is "I'd boil it" with no backup fuel plan.

3. Food — caloric supply and shelf life

How many days of food do you have that requires no refrigeration and no cooking? Count only what your household would actually eat under stress — not the mystery cans from 2019. FEMA recommends 3 days minimum; we recommend 30.

Score by days: 0 points if ≥30 days, 1 if 8-29 days, 2 if 3-7 days, 3 if less than 72 hours. Note expiration dates on a single sticky note inside the pantry door so you don't have to inventory everything again in six months.

4. Power — primary outage response

What happens to your household in the first hour of a grid-down event? Score 0 if you have a generator, inverter battery, or solar with storage and you've tested it in the last 90 days. Score 1 if you have a generator but haven't run it recently. Score 2 if your plan is flashlights and hoping. Score 3 if you have no plan and no backup lighting beyond your phone.

A single 500Wh portable power station (Jackery 500, Bluetti EB55, and similar) costs under $400 and covers lighting, phone charging, and a CPAP for three to four days.

5. Communications — off-grid information

If cell towers fail — which they reliably do within 4 hours of a major regional disaster — how do you get emergency information? A battery-powered or hand-crank NOAA weather radio is the minimum acceptable answer.

Score 0 if you have one and know how to use it. Score 1 if you have a radio but haven't verified it works. Score 2 if your only plan is social media and cellular data. Score 3 if this category has never occurred to you.

6. Medical — prescriptions and first aid

Does every household member who takes daily medication have at least a 30-day emergency supply on hand? Do you have a first aid kit with wound care beyond Band-Aids — gauze, medical tape, SAM splints, a tourniquet?

Score 0 only if both answers are yes. Score 2 if prescriptions are managed paycheck-to-paycheck with no buffer. Score 3 if you have neither a supply buffer nor a real first aid kit. Prescription buffers require talking to your doctor or pharmacist about emergency dispensing — it's worth one phone call.

7. Security — home defense posture

During a prolonged grid-down event with delayed emergency services, is your household prepared to deter or respond to a threat? Score 0 if you have locks, lighting, a defensive tool you know how to use, and neighbors you communicate with. Score 1 if you've thought about it but haven't acted. Score 2 if your security plan is "call 911." Score 3 if you live in an area with high crime and have taken no steps.

This is the category most people are surprised to find near the top of their vulnerability list.

8. Finances — cash and account access

ATMs and card readers require grid power. How much small-denomination cash do you have at home right now? Score 0 if you have $300 or more in mixed bills ($1s, $5s, $10s, $20s). Score 1 if you have $100-299. Score 2 if you have under $100. Score 3 if you have zero.

Also check: do you have a copy of your key account numbers, insurance policy numbers, and contact numbers stored somewhere other than your phone? A one-page laminated sheet taped inside a cabinet costs you 20 minutes.

9. Mobility — evacuation readiness

If you had 15 minutes to leave, what would you take? Score 0 if you have a go-bag packed for every household member, your vehicle has at least half a tank of fuel as a daily habit, and you have a pre-decided destination and a backup route. Score 1 if you have a partial kit but no route plan. Score 2 if you'd spend 10 of those 15 minutes deciding what to grab. Score 3 if evacuation has never been a consideration — especially important if you live in a flood zone, wildfire interface, or hurricane corridor.

10. Documents — identity and recovery

Do you have physical copies (not just digital) of: passports, birth certificates, social security cards, property deed or lease, vehicle titles, insurance policies, and vaccination records? Score 0 if yes, stored in a fireproof bag or safe. Score 1 if you have most but not all. Score 2 if they exist somewhere but you'd need to search for them. Score 3 if you couldn't locate them under stress.

A single fireproof document bag — under $30 — solves this category in one afternoon.

11. Skills — practical capability

Could every adult in your household perform these four tasks without looking them up: start a fire safely, treat a deep wound with pressure and bandaging, shut off the main water valve, and navigate to your bug-out location without GPS?

Score 0 if yes to all four. Score 1 if two or three. Score 2 if one. Score 3 if none. You can own $2K in gear and fail to shut off your main water valve under pressure. A Red Cross first aid class plus a real fire-extinguisher drill in the driveway closes more gaps than another $200 of gear.

12. Pets — animal preparedness

Do you have a 14-day supply of food and any necessary medications for every pet? A carrier or crate that can be loaded in under 2 minutes? Vaccination records accessible with your other documents? Score 0 if all three. Score 1 if food supply exists but medications or records are not current. Score 2 if you have food but no portable containment. Score 3 if pet preparedness hasn't been part of your thinking — most emergency shelters don't accept animals, which means your evacuation plan breaks down the moment you try to implement it.

Scoring your vulnerability list

Add your 12 scores. Maximum possible score is 36 — that's a household with zero coverage across every category. Most households land between 14 and 22 on a first audit, which is not a failure; it's information. The goal isn't to score 0 immediately; it's to know exactly where you'd break.

Sort your scores from highest to lowest. The top three categories on that sorted list are your actual vulnerabilities — not the ones preparedness blogs told you to worry about, but the ones your specific household would fail on in the next real event. Address them in order. Don't buy a third filter if you scored 3 on finances.

The five most common gaps we see

Across households that complete this audit, five categories generate the highest scores most consistently. Water treatment capability is number one — people own filters but don't understand the difference between filtration and purification, so they'd handle turbid creek water fine but fail on a viral contamination event. Knowing how to boil water safely is the no-equipment fallback that every household member should be able to execute.

Communications is number two — cellular dependency is nearly universal and nobody has a NOAA radio anymore. Documents are number three — this one is fixed in an afternoon but stays broken for years because it feels low-urgency. Cash is number four — the assumption that cards always work is only true until the first major outage. Skills are number five — the hardest to fix quickly but also the most durable investment over time.

Your 30-day fix schedule

Take your top three vulnerabilities from the scoring exercise and assign one fix per week for the next three weeks. Week four is a retest — run through the relevant audit questions again with fresh eyes. For households with scores of 18 or higher, we recommend running the full 12-question audit again in 60 days rather than 30.

The audit itself takes 30 minutes; building the habit of updating it annually takes one calendar reminder. Set it now for the same date next year before you close this tab.

FAQ

How often should I run this preparedness audit?

Once a year minimum. Run it sooner after a move, a new baby, a major health change, or adding pets — those events break your previous assumptions.

Is a score of 20 or higher a sign that I'm dangerously unprepared?

Yes — score 20+ means three or more major categories are broken. What matters is which ones. A 22 concentrated in water and documents is fixable in weeks. A 22 spread across twelve categories suggests you haven't started yet.

Do renters need to approach this audit differently than homeowners?

Mostly no. Renters can't install reinforced doors or whole-house generators, so security and power require portable alternatives — door wedges, power stations, faster evacuation. Water, food, comms, documents, and skills are identical either way.

My household has family members with medical needs. How does that change the scoring?

It makes power and medical automatic 3s until you have a tested solution. That's a battery backup sized for insulin refrigeration or a CPAP — not an assumption, a tested plan reviewed with your doctor and a backup route to a medical facility at your evacuation destination.

Can I use this audit to prepare for both short-term outages and longer grid-down events?

Yes. The 14-day water and food standards cover regional disasters like hurricanes and ice storms. Running the audit twice — once for 72-hour readiness, once for 30-day — shows where your coverage drops fastest and which categories matter most beyond two weeks.

[1] Build A Kit | Ready.gov · Ready.gov / FEMA

[2] Power Outages | Ready.gov · Ready.gov / FEMA