14 official U.S. government emergency documents, free, downloading immediately. Ready.gov publishes these as a wall of 37 PDFs in no particular order and with nothing written for a parent. Here they are sorted by what to do first, with a plain note on who each one is actually for.
Where these come from. Every document on this page is published by Ready.gov, a website of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA states that most material on its sites is free of copyright and may be copied and distributed without permission; we host copies so you get them instantly, and link the live version of each so you can confirm you have the current one.
We are not the government. Made for This Day is a private shop. We are not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, FEMA, DHS or any government agency, and nothing we make is an official document. For anything life-safety, the official version linked beside each file is the one that counts.
Start here if you have done nothing. One page, twelve actions, most of them free. It is the only one on this list you could finish tonight.
The canonical supply list. Work down it rather than guessing - the things people forget are water quantity and a manual can opener.
A fillable card so everyone knows one out-of-area number and one meeting place. The single highest-value thing with children.
What to photograph and where to keep copies. Do this once and it is done - the hour best spent on any of this.
What to do before, during and after. Read it before the season, not during it.
Includes the point most people miss: your homeowner's policy almost certainly excludes flood.
The hazard that kills more Americans than the dramatic ones. Matters most if you have a baby, an older parent, or no air conditioning.
Food safety, medical devices, and carbon monoxide - the generator section is the important part.
Lightning safety and the 30-30 rule. Short, and genuinely useful with children.
Drop, cover, hold on. Worth reading even well outside California.
The money side nobody plans for: cash on hand, account access, insurance records.
Twenty-one pages, and the most thorough thing here if you are caring for someone else. Written for caregivers, not for agencies.
Twenty pages aimed at an older adult's own household. Useful to read alongside the caregivers' guide if you are planning for a parent.
Shelters do not all take animals. This is the page that tells you what to arrange in advance.
We also make our own printables for the part these documents leave out — the child-facing half. See all our free printables →