A few years ago, I started asking myself a pretty simple question:
How prepared is my family if the systems we rely on suddenly aren’t available?
I wasn’t thinking about end-of-the-world scenarios. I was thinking about the things that actually happen—and that I've experienced myself over the years.
Power outages. Winter storms. Wildfires. Earthquakes. Internet and cellular outages. Evacuations. Supply disruptions. Roads being closed when you need to get somewhere. Equipment failing when the power is already out.
The kinds of events that may not make for exciting television, but can make a normal day more difficult.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how many things my family depends on working exactly as expected:
Electricity
Internet
Cell service
GPS
Grocery stores
Gas stations
Online accounts
Cloud storage
The ability to look up an answer to almost anything in a few seconds.
Most of the time, that works amazingly well.
Until it doesn’t.
One question led to another
Like a lot of things in my life, preparedness turned into a rabbit hole rather quickly.
You start by thinking, We should probably store some water.
Then you wonder how much water you actually need.
How long stored water lasts.
How to treat water if your stored supply runs out.
Where you would get more if the taps stopped working.
One question becomes five.
We should probably have some way to store or generate power.
Backup power leads to batteries.
Batteries lead to solar.
Solar leads to figuring out how much power your equipment actually uses instead of trusting the number printed on the box.
How do we communicate if our cell phones stop working?
Radios lead to antennas, frequencies, licensing, and realizing that simply owning a radio doesn’t mean you know how to communicate with anybody.
We should probably have some food stored in case the grocery store is empty or we can't get to it.
Food storage leads to gardening, preservation and cooking without normal utilities.
Then comes the uncomfortable realization that buying things and knowing how to use them are two very different forms of preparedness.
There are maps, first aid, household documents, emergency contacts, equipment manuals, local information, evacuation plans, offline reference material, and a dozen other subjects I hadn’t given much thought to before.
I certainly didn’t figure all of that out overnight.
I still haven’t.
I’m not a survival expert
I want to state this as clearly as possible.
I’m not a survival instructor, doctor, farmer, electrician, radio engineer, or wilderness expert.
I’m a dad, an IT guy, and someone who enjoys the outdoors. I have spent the last few years trying to make my household a little more prepared than it was before.
Some things I’ve researched. Some things I’ve tested. Some things I bought and later realized weren’t nearly as useful as I thought they would be.
I’ve changed my mind about things. I’ve found holes in plans I thought were pretty solid. And I’ve learned repeatedly that owning equipment is not the same thing as being ready to use it when you’re tired, stressed, in the dark, or trying to help your family at the same time.
That ongoing learning process is really why The Ready Dad Project exists.
I won't pretend I have all the answers. What I can do is share what I'm learning as I search for them.
Preparedness without the fear
One thing that has bothered me as I’ve learned more about preparedness is how quickly the subject can become dominated by fear.
There is always another catastrophe to worry about. Another countdown. Another reason you supposedly need to buy something immediately. Another prediction that society is about to collapse.
That isn’t what I want this project to be.
There are enough realistic reasons to become more prepared without inventing new things to be afraid of:
A winter storm can knock out power.
A wildfire can force a family to evacuate.
An earthquake can disrupt roads and utilities.
A cellular outage can make it unexpectedly difficult to reach the people you care about.
A prolonged power outage can turn something as simple as keeping phones charged, finding information, cooking dinner, or entertaining kids into a real challenge.
Preparing for those things doesn’t require living in fear.
Ideally, it should do the opposite.
The more capable you become, the less intimidating a disruption becomes.
What I’ll be sharing here
The Ready Dad Project is where I’m going to share what I learn as I keep working on this for my own family.
That will probably take us in quite a few directions:
Backup power and solar.
Water storage and treatment.
Radios and communications.
Offline maps and information.
Household documentation.
Practical skills.
Food, gardening, and preservation.
Equipment I’m actually using or testing.
Technology that can still be useful when the internet isn’t.
Ways to make plans and equipment usable by the whole family instead of just the person who originally set everything up.
And probably plenty of topics I haven’t thought of yet.
Sometimes I’ll know the subject well. Sometimes I’ll be starting from scratch and taking you through what I find.
When something is safety-critical, I’ll point back to authoritative sources rather than asking you to take my word for it. And when I get something wrong or change my mind, I’ll tell you that too.
The goal is pretty simple
I’m not trying to prepare my family for every possible disaster.
I’m trying to make us a little less dependent on everything going exactly according to plan.
A little more informed.
A little more capable.
A little more comfortable when the power goes out, the internet disappears, plans change, or something we normally depend on suddenly isn’t available.
If that sounds useful to you too, I hope you’ll follow along.
I plan to share something new here about once a week, and I’d especially like this project to become a conversation rather than just me publishing articles into the void.
So I’ll start with a question:
What’s one thing you wish your household was better prepared for?
If you’re subscribed, hit reply and tell me. If you’re reading this on the website, subscribe and join me as I figure this stuff out one practical step at a time.
There’s plenty left for me to learn.
That’s kind of the point.
Practical resilience for everyday families.
— Troy
