How we calculate your emergency checklist

Every emergency checklist quantity on this site is calculated, not guessed. We start from the FEMA baseline of one gallon of water per person, per day, and the Red Cross kit guidance. Then we adjust for the hazards in your region and multiply for the people in your home.

Where do the numbers start?

With the two sources most people already trust. FEMA's kit guidance (opens in a new tab) sets the floor, like that gallon of water per person, per day. The Red Cross (opens in a new tab) publishes supply lists in the same range. We use their published amounts as our starting point. When we change a number, this page tells you why.

What does your region change?

We group the country into 8 regions by what actually fails there. Not by state lines. A Gulf Coast home needs board-up hardware before a hurricane. A Plains home needs safe indoor heat for an ice storm. A desert home needs more water, not more blankets. Your region decides which items appear on your checklist and which never do. It also raises some amounts, like water in extreme heat.

What does your household change?

Some items scale with people. Water, food, and masks do. Some are one per home, like a weather radio or a fire extinguisher. Fuel scales with both your home and your days. You set the number of people once, and every quantity on the page updates.

How does the math work? A real example

A Fort Worth family of four picks the Southern Plains 10-day checklist. Here is the water line, step by step.

The checklist says 60 gallons. That is the whole method. Every quantity on this site is calculated the same way, from the same data. You can check any of them by hand.

What do the durations mean?

Three days is where FEMA starts, and it is where you should start too. The 10, 30, and 90-day checklists build on it. A longer list does not repeat the shorter one. It adds to it. One number changes shape along the way: stored water caps at 30 days. Past a month, storage stops being the answer. A filter and a second water source take over. The Indefinite list is different in kind. It is less about supplies and more about systems and skills, like growing food and making water safe for good.

Is the go-bag calculated the same way?

Same data, different rule. A go-bag is not a short version of the 3-day list. It is what you carry when you leave. We calculate it for one person. Build one bag for each person in your home.

What if a number looks wrong?

Tell us. We check every report against the data, and we fix what fails the check.