The Southwest Desert emergency checklist

Covers: Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada

This is an emergency checklist for Southwest Desert households, where the deadliest disaster is a power outage in July. Whatever stops the grid or the water, the needs are the same, and here the first one is bigger: water. Start with the 3-day list. For a family of four, that begins with 18 gallons, half again the national baseline, because this region's heat demands it. Every amount is calculated for this region and your household.

Why is an outage more dangerous here?

Because air conditioning is life support in a desert summer. When it stops, indoor temperatures climb past safe within hours, and the people it hurts first are the oldest and youngest in the house. Your checklist includes battery fans, cooling towels, electrolytes, and battery power to run them. Plan the low-tech layer too: the coolest room in the house, shades down before the sun hits the glass, and checking on the neighbors whose AC is also dead. Heat is the emergency this region should plan for the way the Gulf plans for hurricanes.

How much water in a place with none?

One and a half gallons per person, per day. Four people for three days is 18 gallons; ten days is 60. Desert water travels a long way through electric pumps to reach your tap, and a monsoon flood can foul a system as fast as a drought strains it. Store the water before either happens. Your checklist includes the containers, plus plain unscented bleach and purification tablets with amounts, for the notice that follows a compromised system.

What do monsoons actually do?

Flash floods, blown transformers, and washed-out roads, in minutes, at the end of the hottest days. The weather radio on your checklist covers the warning. The waterproof document folder and the go-bag cover the leaving, if a wash between you and town becomes a river. Never drive into water on a road; most flash-flood deaths in this region happen in vehicles, in water that looked crossable.

What about wildfire smoke and dust?

N95 respirators are on every checklist. Smoke drifts in most summers whether or not the fire is local, and a haboob can drop visibility and air quality in the time it takes to close the windows. The same respirators, the same plan.

And winter?

Desert cold is real at elevation, and a hard freeze here bursts pipes in houses built for heat. The checklist's warm layer is lighter than a northern region's, but it exists: blankets, sleeping pads, and mylar blankets that hold body heat, plus the same stored water that serves every other season.

Pick your number of days

Start with 3 days, then build. Each list adds to the one before it.

• Southwest Desert 3-day emergency checklist
• Southwest Desert 10-day emergency checklist
• Southwest Desert 30-day emergency checklist
• Southwest Desert 90-day emergency checklist
• Southwest Desert long-term preparedness roadmap
• Southwest Desert go-bag checklist

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