Prepare Yourself & Your Family
Prepare yourself and your family for possible flooding by creating and practicing a family emergency plan and assembling your disaster supplies kit. When you are in areas of heavy rains, tsunami, hurricane or tropical storm surge, you may need to prepare to evacuate or to survive on your own for a period of time.
Being prepared can reduce fear, anxiety, and losses that accompany disasters. Communities, families and individuals should know the warning signs of floods and flash floods and be ready to evacuate their homes, take refuge in public shelters and know how to care for their basic medical needs.
Begin by reviewing Red Cross guidelines on preparing your family for a flood, creating a family disaster plan and an evacuation plan.
Here are additional online sources to help you assemble a basic emergency supply kit and create an evacuation plan and additional emergency plans for yourself and your family and pets.
- Red Cross 'Flood Safety Checklist (PDF)
- FEMA's Are You Ready? guide to preparedness
- Hawai‘i County Civil Defense's Hurricane Preparedness Guide includes lists for creating home survival and evacuation kits that also work for other types of flooding.
- FEMA's detailed disaster supply checklist to print and complete.
- Let's Get Ready helps kids prepare for emergencies.
- Preparing Your Pets for Emergencies Makes Sense (PDF) by FEMA.