Your family Emergency Plan should include personalized details about your family members, house, and community. It should also clearly outline different emergency responses, such as evacuating, sheltering at home, and preparing essential items. Planning for evacuations Our template prompts you to include a home escape route, which is a floor plan of your home that shows possible ways to escape from every room. You can draw this floor plan by hand or on the computer. If needed, prepare to escape from windows with ladders or ropes and add instructions for doing so. Consider how evacuation routines may differ depending on the emergency, such as a fire, flood, blocked exit, or separation of family members. Account for the physical needs of each family member and plan escape routes that everyone can navigate safely. After you evacuate your home, meet your family members in a safe location. Our questionnaire asks you for meeting areas both outside your home and outside your community. Some municipalities may designate storm shelters when needed, but you can also choose your own meeting points. Planning for sheltering at home Severe weather, industrial accidents, or public health emergencies may call for people to shelter in place (i.e., stay indoors) until the danger recedes. Again, it’s important to assess all potential risks to your community in particular and plan accordingly. LawDepot’s Emergency Plan template prompts you to consider a safe indoor location, but where you go inside your house to wait out the danger will vary depending on the circumstances. For instance, if there is a tornado or earthquake, go to your basement or seek shelter under a table. Add instructions for closing doors and windows to cut off ventilation if there is a nuclear or chemical accident. Learn how to insulate and heat your home safely in case of a winter power outage. Preparing essential items In addition to your Emergency Plan, it’s also important to prepare essential items and documents (such as a first aid kit, an emergency items kit, and photocopies of IDs, insurance policies, etc.). Our template includes checklists that will guide you through these extra preparation tasks.