The Mountain West & Northern Plains emergency checklist

Covers: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming

This is an emergency checklist for Mountain West and Northern Plains households. Out here the defining hazard is distance: crews, deliveries, and help all take longer to arrive, whatever went wrong. That's why this region's deeper lists matter more than most. Start with 3 days, but plan to keep building. For a family of four, the 3-day list begins with 12 gallons of water, calculated for this region and your household.

See your 3-day checklist

Free, no account. Set your household size and every amount updates.

Why prepare for longer out here?

A ground blizzard closes the interstate. A slide closes the pass. A fire closes the county road. Nothing else has to fail for your town, your ranch, or your end of the valley to be on its own for a while. One grocery truck a day serves some of these towns, and it stops when the road does. The 10- and 30-day checklists are built for exactly that math, and the 90-day list is not paranoia here; it's the honest version of how long a bad winter or fire season can stretch supply lines.

What does wildfire season change?

Two things: air and exits. N95 respirators are on every checklist for smoke that arrives from a fire two states away and stays for weeks. And the go-bag exists for the evacuation that gives you an hour: documents waterproofed, medications packed, one bag per person, staged by July. If you're in the wildland-urban interface, add the outside work to your summer: cleared defensible space buys your house time, and the checklist's tarps and gloves handle what the wind drops afterward.

How do you handle real cold?

Pick the smallest room you can all sleep in, seal it, and heat that room only. Your checklist covers what that takes: an indoor-safe propane heater sized for a bedroom, the fuel to run it, sleeping bags rated for real cold, and wool blankets. It also includes carbon monoxide alarms, because the deadliest mistakes of February 2021 were heating mistakes. Never run a generator, grill, or camp stove indoors. If you burn anything for heat, a working CO alarm is part of the kit, not an extra.

One addition for this region: the sleeping bags on this checklist are rated for the cold you actually get, not the cold the label hopes for, and ground insulation matters as much as the bag. Twenty below through a floor takes heat faster than the air does.

What about power when the lines run long?

Rural lines mean rural restoration times; the last mile gets fixed last. Many households out here already run generators, and the checklist covers the pieces that make one useful in a real outage: stabilized fuel stored safely and rotated, heavy cords that match the load, and carbon monoxide alarms in the house. Place a running generator outdoors and far from windows. Never run a generator, grill, or camp stove indoors. For homes without one, a battery power station charged ahead covers phones, lights, and the well of small loads that make a dark week livable.

How much water?

One gallon per person, per day. Four people for three days is 12 gallons; ten days is 40. Wells freeze, springs ice over, and hauling water in February is nobody's plan A. Stored water plus plain unscented bleach and purification tablets, with amounts, covers the gap between the well failing and the well fixed.

Pick your number of days

Start with 3 days, then keep going. Out here, the deeper lists earn their place.

Want the math behind the amounts? Read how we calculate quantities.