Preparedness operations toolkit
Emergency Preparedness Tools
Practical tools for turning hazard information into decisions — what to check, what to prepare, what to print, and what to do next.
Use the clusters below like a preparedness desk: start with situation assessment, then move into household resilience, evacuation and shelter, communications, or CERT operations.
These tools are designed for preparedness planning and situational awareness. Always follow official alerts, evacuation orders, local emergency management, and emergency services.
New historical context
Disaster History Atlas
Explore county profiles that keep FEMA administrative declarations and NOAA observed-event records separate, with state comparisons, seasonality, sources, freshness, and limitations.
For nationwide FEMA declaration patterns, use the National FEMA Disaster Heatmap in the featured tools below.
Mission clusters
Choose the workflow that matches the problem
21 standalone tools available
Start here
Featured / Start Here
Begin with the tools that turn local conditions, readiness gaps, hazard history, and practice scenarios into practical next actions before choosing a more specialized workflow.
AlertCheck: Emergency Alert Coverage Check
Check whether your emergency-alert plan has independent backup paths, find single points of failure, and print a private alert backup plan.
Best for
Also useful for CERT, Neighborhood, Travel.
Emergency Exercise Builder
Run a private tabletop exercise with guided scenarios, facilitator-controlled injects, evaluation notes, a hotwash, and assigned improvement actions.
Best for
Also useful for Outage, Evacuation.
My Hazard Passport
Pressure-test the household systems you depend on, find what fails first across six disruption scenarios, and save a private resilience snapshot in this browser.
Best for
Also useful for Neighborhood.
Incident Mode
Keep outage clocks, cold-food timers, runtime estimates, reminders, family check-ins, smoke and evacuation checklists, and incident notes in one offline-capable browser-local workspace.
Best for
Also useful for Communications, Neighborhood.
Situation Action Planner
Turn a developing hazard, alert, outage, or local concern into a simple action plan: check facts, protect people, prepare supplies, communicate, and decide next steps.
Best for
Also useful for Evacuation, Communications.
Household Readiness Gap Analyzer
Find the largest household preparedness gaps across water, food, power, communications, sanitation, evacuation, medical needs, pets, and local hazards.
Best for
Also useful for Neighborhood.
National FEMA Disaster Heatmap
Explore historical FEMA disaster declarations and NOAA event records by county with a national heatmap, state directories, and local disaster profiles.
Best for
Also useful for Travel.
Home systems
Household Resilience
Plan food, water, power, communications, and alert decisions that keep a household functioning when normal services are degraded.
Emergency Food System Planner
Plan emergency food by calories, no-cook backups, prep water, cooking fuel, shelf life, dietary fit, budget priorities, and pantry rotation.
Best for
Whole-Home Outage Survival Simulator
Estimate outage runtime for critical household loads using batteries, generators, fuel on hand, solar charging, vehicle inverter options, and priority tiers.
Best for
Power Outage Triage Calculator
Prioritize food safety, medical needs, temperature risk, generator safety, communications, and backup-power decisions during an outage.
Best for
Remote-Work Outage Backup Planner
Estimate how long router, modem, laptop, hotspot, UPS, power bank, or portable power station resources can support essential work and communications.
Best for
Also useful for Neighborhood.
Weather Alert Meaning Decoder
Translate common watches, warnings, advisories, emergencies, and weather statements into plain-English meaning, urgency, and next actions.
Best for
Also useful for CERT, Neighborhood.
Move or shelter
Evacuation & Shelter
Pressure-test the decisions that matter when you may need to leave, avoid unsafe roads, shelter from severe weather, or create cleaner indoor air.
Evacuation Route Reality Check
Stress-test evacuation routes against chokepoints, fuel, time windows, mobility needs, pets, weather, darkness, and alternate destinations before you need to leave.
Best for
Also useful for CERT, Neighborhood.
Evacuation Time-Budget Prioritizer
Generate a prioritized evacuation action list based on whether you have 5, 15, 30, 60, or more minutes, with life safety and official instructions first.
Best for
Also useful for CERT, Neighborhood.
Tornado Safe Place Finder
Rank the safest available shelter options during a tornado watch or warning based on building type, floor level, rooms, windows, and mobility needs.
Best for
Also useful for CERT, Neighborhood.
Flooded Road Risk Explainer
Check why flooded roads are dangerous and get a conservative do-not-cross risk explanation based on depth, visibility, current, vehicle type, and official warnings.
Best for
Also useful for CERT, Neighborhood.
Wildfire Smoke Clean-Room Planner
Plan a cleaner-air room during wildfire smoke using AQI or PM2.5, room size, purifier CADR, DIY filter options, HVAC recirculation, and mask availability.
Best for
Also useful for Neighborhood.
Earthquake Impact Explainer
Translate magnitude, distance, depth, felt shaking, building type, and local conditions into practical post-earthquake safety checks and household actions.
Best for
Also useful for CERT.
Alerts and nets
Communications
Set up alerting and neighborhood communications plans that still make sense when cell service, power, or internet access is unreliable.
NOAA Weather Radio / SAME Setup Wizard
Plan NOAA Weather Radio and SAME county-code settings so household, office, or neighborhood radios alert for the right locations and hazards.
Best for
Also useful for CERT, Neighborhood.
CERT / Neighborhood Radio Net Planner
Build a practical neighborhood or CERT radio net plan with roles, check-in windows, message discipline, fallback channels, and printable assignments.
Best for
Also useful for Household, Outage.
Team workflow
CERT & Neighborhood Operations
Operational tools for damage assessment and shared situational awareness, with related start-here and communications tools tagged on their primary cards.
When conditions change
Convert the latest situation into a short action list.
The Situation Action Planner is the best next stop after checking live conditions, receiving an alert, or discovering a preparedness gap.
Use these tools with evergreen guides
Pair a tool output with a checklist or guide when you need to brief a household, neighborhood group, CERT team, or workplace.
Historical Disasters
Search the national FEMA and NOAA disaster atlas for validated state and county profiles.
Earthquake Impact Explainer
Power Outage Triage Calculator
Related: Power outage food safety · Generator safety
Wildfire Smoke Clean-Room Planner
Related: Wildfire smoke home readiness
Evacuation Time-Budget Prioritizer
Related: Evacuation trigger checklist
Weather Alert Meaning Decoder
Related: Public alert literacy
Tornado Safe Place Finder
Related: CERT situational awareness checklist