Most UK families have no emergency plan. They assume one will materialise when needed — that someone official will knock on the door, that the information will be on television, that it will be obvious what to do. It usually isn't. A family emergency plan is not a sign of paranoia. It is the difference between a stressful 72 hours and a dangerous one.
This guide walks you through creating a practical family emergency plan from scratch — what to include, how to build it, and how to make sure everyone in the household actually knows what to do.
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Why UK Families Need an Emergency Plan
The UK has a reputation for muddling through, and mostly it works. But the last few years have illustrated the limits of that approach. Storm Eowyn in January 2025 knocked out power to 700,000 homes — some for five or six days. The July 2021 floods forced evacuations across London, Yorkshire, and the Midlands with almost no warning. In August 2023, a national emergency alert was sent to every mobile phone in the UK. Most households had no idea what to do with it.
Emergencies in the UK are rarely catastrophic. They are, however, reliably disruptive — power cuts, severe weather, flooding, transport shutdowns, brief communications outages. A plan does not need to cover every scenario. It needs to cover the four or five things most likely to happen to your family, in your area, in the next five years.
Step 1: Identify Your Household's Specific Risks
Start with your geography and your household. Generic plans are less useful than specific ones.
- Flood risk: Check the Environment Agency flood map. If you are in a flood zone, your plan needs an evacuation route and a grab bag.
- Power dependency: Does anyone in your household depend on electrically powered medical equipment? If so, register with your energy network's Priority Services Register — this gets you proactive contact during outages.
- Elderly or vulnerable family members: Do you have a plan to check on parents or grandparents who live alone? Who does that, and how do they make contact if phones are down?
- Children in different locations: Where are your children during the day? What is the school's emergency protocol? Does your plan account for a scenario where you cannot collect them immediately?
Write down the top three risks your household actually faces. Everything else flows from there.
Step 2: Agree on a Communications Plan
When an emergency happens, the first thing families do is try to contact each other. The first thing that often fails is phone networks — either congestion overwhelms the signal or power cuts take out local infrastructure.
Your communications plan needs to work when mobile networks do not.
- Designate an out-of-area contact. Choose a friend or relative who lives outside your region. Everyone calls them to check in. It sounds counterintuitive, but out-of-area lines are often clearer than local ones during local emergencies.
- Agree a meeting point. If phones are down and family members are in different places, where do you go? Agree a primary and backup location — somewhere everyone knows, close to home but not inside it.
- Write the key numbers down physically. A list of emergency contacts on paper is not a luxury. Phones run out of battery. Contacts lists become inaccessible. Write it out and keep it in your emergency kit.
- Know how to send a text when calls won't connect. Text messages route differently to calls and often get through when voice calls fail. In a congested network, send a text first.
Step 3: Build Your Emergency Supplies
A family emergency plan is only as good as the supplies that support it. The standard recommendation — from the Red Cross, the Cabinet Office, and most local emergency planners — is 72 hours of self-sufficiency. Three days. That covers most UK emergencies without requiring a dedicated storage room.
Power and Light
Every plan needs a light source and a way to keep devices charged. Central heating requires electricity to run even on gas boilers — when power goes, so does heating. A portable power station or a well-stocked power bank means phones stay on, lights work, and you can monitor official updates. Call 105 (free from any phone) to report a power cut and get network updates.
→ GridReady Power Outage Kit covers torch, power bank, and emergency essentials in one package.
Communications
A battery-powered or hand-crank DAB/FM radio is the most underrated item in any emergency kit. When internet goes down and phone signal drops, BBC Radio 4 (93.5 FM in London, or your local BBC station) continues broadcasting. It is how local authorities communicate evacuations, road closures, and shelter locations.
→ GridReady Emergency Comms Kit includes a hand-crank radio with USB charging.
Severe Weather and Shelter
If your risk assessment flagged severe weather — storms, flooding, prolonged cold — your supplies need to include warmth and water. Emergency foil blankets retain 90% of body heat. A 72-hour water supply (3 litres per person per day) covers the scenarios where flooding or burst pipes affect the mains.
→ GridReady Severe Weather Kit covers warmth, water, and storm preparedness.
Step 4: Create Your Plan Document
The plan lives on paper. Not in a phone. Not in a shared note. Paper.
Keep it simple — one side of A4 is enough for most households. Include:
- Your household's top 3 emergency scenarios
- Out-of-area contact name and number
- Primary and backup meeting points
- Location of your emergency kit
- Key local numbers: 105 (power cuts), local council emergency line, GP out-of-hours
- School's emergency protocol and who collects your children if you cannot
- Any medical information relevant to your household (medications, allergies, equipment)
- Where the gas and electricity mains switches are located
Print it. Put a copy in your emergency kit. Put another copy somewhere in the house that isn't the kit — in case you cannot reach the kit.
Step 5: The Family Emergency Plan Checklist
Use this as your setup checklist and annual review prompt. Print it, complete it, update it once a year.
Planning (Do Once)
- ☐ Flood and severe weather risk checked for your postcode
- ☐ Household registered on Priority Services Register if anyone has medical or accessibility needs
- ☐ Out-of-area contact agreed and number written down
- ☐ Primary and backup meeting points agreed with all household members
- ☐ School emergency protocol confirmed — who collects children and what is the fallback
- ☐ Gas and electricity mains locations known by all adults in household
- ☐ Elderly or vulnerable relatives — check-in responsibility assigned to a named person
Supplies (Build Once, Review Annually)
- ☐ 72-hour water supply stored (3 litres per person per day)
- ☐ 72-hour food supply confirmed — no cooking required for at least some items
- ☐ Light source for each main room — torch or LED lantern, batteries checked
- ☐ Power bank charged and stored in kit (10,000mAh minimum)
- ☐ Battery or hand-crank radio tested
- ☐ Blankets and warm layers accessible — not buried in a wardrobe
- ☐ Basic first aid kit stocked
- ☐ Prescription medications — 7-day supply kept where possible
- ☐ Copy of key documents (passport, insurance) in waterproof pouch
Communications (Do Once)
- ☐ Emergency contact list written on paper and stored in kit
- ☐ 105 (power cut reporting) saved in all household phones
- ☐ Met Office weather warnings set up for your region
- ☐ Environment Agency flood alerts set up if in flood-risk area
- ☐ Local council emergency page bookmarked
Annual Review
- ☐ Plan reviewed — any new household members, new medical needs, new address?
- ☐ Food and water supplies rotated
- ☐ Battery and power bank charge levels checked
- ☐ Emergency contact numbers still correct
- ☐ Children old enough now to know the plan — have you talked them through it?
Step 6: Practice It
A plan no one knows about is not a plan. Once a year — the start of autumn is a natural prompt, before storm season — run through the basics with your household.
- Show children where the emergency kit is and what is in it
- Walk through the meeting points — make sure everyone can find them
- Call the out-of-area contact so the number is familiar
- Test the torch and radio
It takes 20 minutes. It means that when something actually happens, nobody is learning the plan for the first time under stress.
Start With the Essentials
The plan above is free. The kit that supports it is optional — but it removes the scramble. GridReady kits are built specifically for UK households and cover the three pillars of any family emergency plan: power, communications, and severe weather.
Each kit covers a different part of the plan: