National Preparedness month started in 2004 (22 years ago) by FEMA in response to the 2001 terrorist attacks.  This month-long observance encourages Americans, businesses, and communities to plan for natural disasters and other emergencies.  The 2026 version’s focus is to “protect family and friends”.  Since you have 30 days in September to prepare, we encourage your family to not only take a proactive approach towards preparedness, but also to start or improve your family’s preparedness level.  If you have not started preparing, continue reading to take the first steps for safeguarding your family from potential danger.  If you have started preparing, this is the perfect 30 days to improve or expand your preparedness level.

If you have not started preparing a disaster plan for your family, here are the recommended steps to get started.  The graphic above is a perfect example of how to get started.  We recommend that you have a family meeting to discuss and write down action steps and the answers to these questions:

• How will your family members receive emergency alerts and warnings?  Check out our tiny course ‘Basic Communication Plan Tiny Course’ here.
• What steps does your family need to take to create a shelter in place plan?  Here is our tiny course for creating a shelter-in-place plan.
• What steps or ideas does your family have to create an evacuation plan if you are forced to leave your home?  Here is our tiny course for creating an evacuation plan.
• How will your family members communicate before, during and after a disaster when some family members may not be at home? 
• What items do you currently have in your home to create an emergency preparedness kit, and which items do you need to purchase or find to create a complete emergency kit?

The preparedness plans your family creates or expands upon requires an assessment of your family’s household needs.  Those needs depend on the makeup of your family.  You need to consider special resources if you have babies, infants, young children, mobile teenagers and even senior citizens or other family members living with you.  Do you have pets?  They should be included in a new preparedness plan or addressed in your current plan that you are improving.  An important part of any preparedness plan is communication, especially if you have family members that are away from your household.  You will have to encourage family members to communicate before and after a disaster to know that each family member is safe.  To do so you should discuss different methods or ways to communicate so that all family members know how to ‘check in’ and acknowledge they are in a safe place. 

There are numerous online resources to guide you in answering some of the questions we have listed above.  The National Weather Service has a four-step process to help you build your personalized preparedness plans.  You can access that process on their website here.  The Ready.gov website lists resources and information on preparedness by individual state and American territories.  You can access those resources on their website here.  The https://family-preparedness.com website also has numerous resources to help your family create or expand their preparedness level.  The website has numerous quizzes to help your family identify your current level of preparedness.  In addition, there are numerous tiny courses located here to help you identify how to build or expand your preparedness plans.  These courses are only $27 and should take less than 10 minutes to complete a course.

Why prepare?  Even though the month of September is designated National Preparedness Month, let us not forget what real disasters usually happen during this month.  The most frequent disasters in September are wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and miscellaneous disasters (landslides, drought, water problems, and volcanic activity).    The impact of these September disaster types can be reduced by having a family shelter-in-place plan and a family evacuation plan.  If you have teenagers or young adults away from home during a disaster, your family should also have a family communication plan.  Our website is built to give you the resources to start or expand your readiness level.  The good news is that you have the 30 days of September to build or improve your plans.  This is a ‘go at your own pace’ type task and you aren’t going to need thirty days to complete the task.  Most families can accomplish building a preparedness plan in a couple of family meetings and within a couple of days.  If you choose to take your time, do so because your family will be more prepared than over sixty percent of the families who have not even started or considered taking this family preparedness step.  Do not let the month of September slip away.  Start preparing now and make your family safer for the rest of this year and the next year!

Note: If your family wants to take small steps during the month of preparedness, we recommend that you check out the website ‘Plan for Awesome’.  Check out Melanie’s 30-day preparedness process here.