Start here · War: minute 0
Days 2 to 7: wartime routine
- Water: if service comes back, use it but treat it: boil 1 minute (3 minutes above 6,500 ft), or add 2 drops of unscented 6% bleach per liter and wait 30 minutes (double if cloudy). A Sawyer- or LifeStraw-type filter for doubtful sources (chapter 3).
- Cooking: the home's gas stove if it works; a camp stove only outside, away from the building, never indoors "with a window open" (chapter 22). Never charcoal or a generator indoors or on a balcony: carbon monoxide kills more people in blackouts than almost anything else.
- Sanitation: if the toilet has no water, a bag inside the bowl with sand or lime; close it and take it out daily. Don't leave empty cans in view: they advertise that you have food (chapter 21).
- Health: clean even small wounds seriously. Heat plus little water brings heat stroke: watch for dark urine and dizziness. Medicines that need cold go in a cooler.
- Money: pay rent, insurance and utilities as soon as there's a connection and download your statements. Assume cards and transfers may fail for several days. Don't turn everything into cash either: 2 to 4 weeks in bills and the rest spread across different banks.
- Reassess every day, at a set time, with the trigger table. "We're staying" today isn't "we're staying" tomorrow.
- Mind: a fixed routine and jobs for everyone. Idleness breaks people before scarcity does.