Building a Disaster Preparedness Plan

Building a Disaster Preparedness Plan

Key Points – Building a Emergency Preparedness Plan

• Some Basic Steps to Build a Disaster Preparedness Plan from the American Red Cross
• Building a Disaster Preparedness Plan That’s Unique to Your Family and Where You Live
• Thinking Long-Term with Your Disaster Preparedness Plan
• “By Failing to Prepare, You Are Preparing to Fail.” – Benjamin Franklin
• 4-Minute Read | 23-Minute Watch

Building a Disaster Preparedness Plan

Our team frequently emphasizes the importance of having a stress-tested financial plan that prioritizes your financial and life goals and hedges against many forms of risk. When you think of things that eat away at your hard-earned wealth, what do you normally think of? Taxes, inflation, debt, and healthcare costs are typically top of mind for people, but what about natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, and blizzards? Let’s talk about building a disaster preparedness plan.

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Our Hearts Are with Those Affected by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton

Before we dive right into building a disaster preparedness plan, our team wants to send its condolences to those who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. Natural disasters can obviously be devastating even if you have planned for the possibility of them. We hope that life can return to even the slightest degree of normal for those people sooner rather than later.

The American Red Cross’s Disaster Preparedness Plan

There are several variables that can come into play as you’re building your disaster preparedness plan. A disaster preparedness plan for someone in Florida is likely going to look a bit different compared to someone in California or Kansas. What natural disasters should you be preparing for? The American Red Cross laid out three basic steps that it recommends for an emergency plan—regardless of the type of emergency/natural disaster—as you’re building your disaster preparedness plan.₁

1. With your family or household members, discuss how to prepare and respond to the types of emergencies that are most likely to happen where you live, learn, work, and play.
2. Identify responsibilities for each member of your household and how you will work together as a team.
3. Practice as many elements of your plan as possible.

Natural Disasters That Everyone Should Prepare for

Keep in mind that there are some natural disasters that can impact people regardless of where they live. For example, the Midwest doesn’t have the same threat of hurricanes as the East coast, but flooding and damaging winds can happen anywhere.

The same goes for extreme hot and cold temperatures. Extreme heat is obviously more likely in a place like Arizona while extreme cold is more likely in a place like Minnesota. And then there are some states in the heartland that experience both more so than other parts of the country.

Your Disaster Preparedness Plan Isn’t Just About You

Just like with numerous other aspects of a financial plan, there’s so much more to consider with building a disaster preparedness plan than yourself. What about your spouse, children, pets or anyone else who may be living with you? Do they have any health-related conditions that need to be accounted for within your disaster preparedness plan.

For example, let’s say there’s a tornado warning, but you or someone else in your family has mobility issues. How do you plan on getting everyone to a safe location in your home or somewhere else nearby? Remember that your home is replaceable, but you and your loved ones aren’t.

Thinking Long-Term with Your Disaster Preparedness Plan

The last sentence is pivotal for everyone in your family to understand, but as a wealth management firm, we’d be remiss if we didn’t touch on the financial impact of losing your home or other assets. It’s critical to have a good understanding of what your homeowners’ insurance policy covers. There may be other insurance policies that you need in addition to homeowners’ insurance depending on the type of natural disaster.₂

Your disaster preparedness plan also involves so much more than being prepared for when a natural disaster strikes. If your home sustains significant damage or needs to be completely rebuilt, what will your long-term living situation be? It’s important to have multiple contingency plans.

If a wildfire destroys your home and many other homes nearby, do you have other family and friends you can stay with who weren’t impacted by the wildfire? If that isn’t a possibility, do you have enough saved in an emergency fund to rent a home or book an extended stay at a hotel or Airbnb?

An Emergency Contact List and Fireproof Safe

Many natural disasters also include the possibility of power outages. If you find yourself without power and don’t need to evacuate, it’s important to make sure your family has enough food, water, and other necessities if you’re without power for an extended period.

How will you provide heat or cooling to your home while the power is out? If it’s too hot or cold, that’s yet another reason why it’s critical to have an emergency contact list—both in your phone and on paper. Having a radio, portable phone chargers, flashlights, and batteries are just a few examples of things you should have handy if you lose power.

If you are in a situation where you need to evacuate, make sure that you have a fireproof safe to keep copies of important financial documents and have an electronic record of them as well. The same goes for any other items that can fit in the safe that have significant value to you and your family. Having a digital backup of family photos is something to strongly consider as well.

By Failing to Prepare, You Are Preparing to Fail

Speaking of electricity, consider these wise words from Benjamin Franklin as you’re building a disaster preparedness plan, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Having a disaster preparedness plan is a key component of risk management, which is one of our Modern Wealth Management’s Advantage Offerings.

Do you have a financial plan that’s tailored to your goals and considers risk management, taxes, estate planning, investments, and your company retirement plan? If your plan doesn’t focus on each of those components, start a conversation with our team below.

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The Modern Wealth team has subject matter experts in each of those areas that collaborate on the client’s behalf. Each aspect of your financial plan—including your disaster preparedness plan—should be unique to you, and we’re here to help you with that. It’s our goal to help give you make informed decisions with your money, freedom from financial stress, and time to spend doing the things you love.

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