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Stay Prepared

once your own household has what it needs, look around you

In an emergency, help goes first to the people who need it most. Everyone else is expected to manage for a while. The better prepared your household is, the more you can do for the people near you.

1 contact

outside your area, that everyone in your street can call

A street check-in planThree homes on one street: yours, next door and over the road. Each has a line up to one contact who lives outside the area, and arrows between the homes show neighbours checking on each other.one contactoutside the areayounext doorover the road
Agree who calls whom now, while phones still work. Next door checks on you, and you check on them.

Research on disasters shows ordinary people are the first responders: they share generators, cook for strangers and check on people they have never spoken to. The people who come to harm are the ones nobody thought to check on. So sort your own household first, and then be the person who knocks.

four things to do first

None of these cost money, and the first two take an afternoon.

  1. Know a few neighbours by name

    Two or three is enough to start. Start with anyone older, disabled, living alone or with young children. They are most likely to be missed.

  2. Agree a simple check-in habit

    With a couple of neighbours or family members: if something disrupts normal life, who knocks on whose door, and by when?

  3. Find the network that already exists

    Most areas have something: a mutual aid group set up in 2020 and still quietly running, a residents' association, a community flood group, a WhatsApp group for the street, a parish or community council, a place of worship, a community centre. Search your area name with 'mutual aid' or ask at the library.

  4. If nothing exists, start small

    A note through a dozen doors with your name, number, and an offer to set up a street group chat is how most neighbourhood networks begin. You do not need a constitution or a committee.

see what to get