When Help Can’t Come: Get Your Family Through Any Emergency

Every big storm, every long blackout, every flood has the same moment in it.

A day or two in, the power’s still out, the roads are blocked and the phones are spotty. And folks realize something nobody wants to say out loud: help isn’t coming. Not yet.

That’s not because nobody cares. When everybody needs the same deputies, linemen and trucks on the same day, they go where the danger is worst, and everybody else waits.

So that is what I have written. Not a book about bunkers or doomsday. A plan for the ordinary emergencies that happen somewhere in this country every single year.

Inside, you will discover:

• Why you should plan for two weeks, not two days

• How much water your family needs, and where 30 to 50 gallons may already be hiding in your house

• A two-week pantry you’ll actually eat, plus medicines, papers and money

• A family plan for when the phones are down and you can’t reach each other

• What to do in the first hour, and how to get through days without power

• How to stay warm or cool, stay informed, and leave fast if you’re told to

• What changes for hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, winter storms, wildfires, heatwaves, long blackouts, earthquakes, and when officials say “stay inside”

• A 30-day plan that gets it all done, one small job at a time

• Pages to print: a family contact card, a medicine list, a two-week shopping list, a go-bag checklist, and what to do if you can’t reach each other

This is not about being afraid. None of it is exciting, and all of it works. You don’t have to do it all today. A little each week, and by the end of the month you’re ready.

When you finish, you will:

• Have two weeks of water, food and medicine at home

• Have a plan your whole family knows

• Know what to do for the emergencies most likely where you live

Help is coming. Your job is to be fine while it’s on the way.

— Cole

Instant download. 83 pages. Yours to keep and print.