My family knows where they are and how to use them.

That means they could keep phones charged, run lights, and power smaller electronics without needing me there to walk them through everything.

For a normal outage lasting a few hours, we’d probably be fine.

But once I started thinking about an outage lasting overnight—or longer—I realized there are some pretty obvious gaps.

We have a generator.

Everyone knows we have it. They know where it is.

But I’m the one who knows how to use it.

Nobody else in my family has actually started it before.

That’s a problem.

If I’m an hour away from home when the power goes out, having a generator sitting there doesn’t necessarily mean my family has usable backup power.

Technically, the capability is there.

Practically, it still depends on me.

And that made me realize something I’m probably guilty of in several parts of our preparedness.

I’ve spent a lot of time acquiring equipment.

I haven’t necessarily spent the same amount of time making sure everyone else knows how to use it.

Cooking is another good example.

I keep a Gas One portable butane camping stove with our emergency supplies, along with fuel for it.

I also have a Snow Peak GigaPower backpacking stove that uses isobutane cartridges.

So if the power were out, we have more than one way to boil water, heat food, or prepare a simple meal without relying on the electric stove.

Again, from an equipment standpoint, we’re in pretty good shape.

But I’ve never actually walked my wife and kids through both of them.

Where are they stored?

Which fuel goes with which stove?

How do you install the fuel?

How do you light them?

Where can they be operated safely?

My wife could probably figure the Gas One out.

But the more I think about it, “she could probably figure it out” isn’t really much of an emergency plan.

I don’t want somebody trying to learn how an unfamiliar fuel-burning stove works while they’re already dealing with a stressful situation.

And once again, I don’t need to buy anything.

I need to teach someone else how to use what we already have.

A normal power outage doesn’t automatically mean losing cellular service.

Most of the time, we could probably still call or text each other.

But larger events can be different.

I’ve already experienced a severe storm where power, home internet, and cellular service were affected at the same time. I eventually had to drive somewhere just to get a usable cell signal.

That experience is one of the reasons I’ve started thinking more seriously about backup communications.

We actually have several radios.

I have three Motorola MT352TPR handheld radios, two Cobra HH 50 WX ST handheld CB radios, and a Baofeng UV-5R.

So technically, we have several communication options that don’t depend on the cellular network.

But there’s a problem.

Nobody else in my family really knows how to use them.

We haven’t decided which radios we would use first.

We haven’t established channels.

We haven’t tested realistic range around our neighborhood.

And we haven’t practiced what we would actually do if the phones stopped working while I was away from home.

I’m also still working toward getting my amateur-radio license, so that side of things is something I’m learning as I go.

Once again, I own the equipment.

But I haven’t turned that equipment into a functioning family communication plan.

That may be the biggest thing I learned from thinking this through.

If I make a quick inventory of our preparedness, it looks pretty good.

Lighting?

Yes.

Portable backup power?

Yes.

Generator?

Yes.

Emergency cooking?

Yes.

Radios?

Yes.

But that isn’t really the right test.

A better question is:

Can my family use all of it if I’m not there?

And suddenly the answers look different.

The flashlights and lanterns are family-ready.

The Anker SOLIX C1000 and EcoFlow RIVER 2 are family-ready.

The generator?

That’s still mostly Dad-ready.

The Gas One and Snow Peak stoves?

Also mostly Dad-ready.

The radios?

Definitely Dad-ready right now.

That distinction matters a lot more than how much equipment is sitting in my garage or emergency supplies.

I have a feeling this happens in a lot of households.

One person becomes the preparedness person.

They research the generator.

They buy the batteries.

They organize the supplies.

They pick the radios.

They know where the fuel is.

They know which extension cord goes where.

Over time, that person becomes the household emergency manual.

That works great—as long as that person is home.

But emergencies don’t wait until everybody is conveniently together.

I work in IT, and depending on where I’m working that day, I can easily be an hour or more away from home.

There could also be a situation where I’m home but injured, sick, helping a neighbor, dealing with damage somewhere else, or simply occupied with another part of the emergency.

If the entire plan depends on one person, then it really isn’t much of a family plan.

There’s another thing I’m realizing as I think through all of this.

Teaching my family how to use the equipment is important.

But I probably shouldn’t expect everyone to remember every step six months later.

A simple instruction card attached to the generator could explain how to start it, what fuel it uses, what can safely be connected, and how to shut it down.

The emergency stoves could be stored with the correct fuel and a simple reminder about setup and safe operation.

The radios could be labeled with which ones we would use first, what channel we would start on, and what our basic communication plan is.

None of this needs to be complicated.

The goal should be that somebody can walk up to the equipment during a stressful situation and have a pretty good idea of what to do—even if I’m not standing there.

That seems a lot more useful than assuming everyone will remember a conversation we had months earlier.

That might be the most encouraging part of this little exercise.

The biggest gaps I found don’t require another trip to the store.

I don’t need another generator.

I don’t need another stove.

I don’t need another radio.

I need to spend some time with my family.

Someone besides me needs to start the generator.

We need to pull out the Gas One stove and practice setting it up and using it safely.

We should do the same with the Snow Peak stove.

And we need to take the radios out and figure out what a simple family communication plan would actually look like.

That might include testing them around the neighborhood and finding out what kind of range we can realistically expect instead of relying on whatever number was printed on the package.

Most of that could probably be accomplished in an afternoon.

And I think it would improve our preparedness more than buying another piece of equipment.

Here’s the exercise I’m going to try with my own family, and it might be worth trying with yours.

Pick one piece of emergency equipment that normally depends on one person in your household.

Then have somebody else take over.

Have them find it without being shown where it is.

Ask them to explain what it does.

Have them walk through how they would set it up.

And, if it can be done safely, let them actually use it.

Don’t jump in immediately if they hesitate.

See where the questions come up.

Maybe they can handle it perfectly.

Maybe the generator instructions aren’t as obvious as you thought.

Maybe nobody knows which fuel goes with the stove.

Maybe the emergency radio is sitting in a drawer with a dead battery.

Maybe everyone knows exactly what to do.

Either way, you’ll know more about how prepared your household actually is.

And then try another piece of equipment the next time you have a free afternoon.

The goal isn’t to turn every member of the family into a preparedness expert.

It’s simply to make sure the whole plan doesn’t fall apart because one person isn’t there.

Before thinking through this article, I probably would have said our family was fairly well prepared for a power outage.

And in a lot of ways, we are.

We have backup power.

We have lighting.

We have multiple ways to cook.

We have several forms of backup communication.

But this exercise showed me that I was measuring preparedness mostly by what we owned.

That isn’t enough.

A generator that only one person can operate isn’t quite the same thing as family backup power.

Radios nobody has practiced with aren’t quite the same thing as a communication plan.

A stove packed away with emergency supplies isn’t quite the same thing as knowing how you’ll cook dinner when the power is out.

So I have some homework to do.

Fortunately, this time the solution isn’t buying more gear.

It’s making sure the people I bought it for can actually use it.

And that may be one of the simplest preparedness improvements I can make.

Practical resilience for everyday families.

— Troy