what’s in your emergency plan?
the most difficult thing i’ve done this week is create emergency plans with my partner, discuss with other family members, and put together some of our emergency go bags. i’m writing about how we’ve gone about this so it may serve others — especially other queer & trans, working families — and to see what y’all are thinking about too. what’s in your plans? how have you talked with your people, children, elders? what’s in your go bag?
*i have no affiliation with the creators but i thought this was a cute graphic. image from creative commons.
emergency prep plans
we’re talking about scenarios a, b, c, d…if my partner’s school moves to online classes this fall, what do we want to do? if i lose my job (our only income), what will we do? if one of our family members gets really sick from covid-19, what then? if the US government doesn’t provide the support it promises? what if shit hits the fan like something out of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower? we’re thinking about food system or supply chain disruptions, power outages, no access to water, those types of things.
something that helped us come to these plans is an inventory of our resources. for example, we have access to multiple modes of transportation. we have two bicycles and a car. in which scenarios do we use bikes, the car, or both? we learned a lot from Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Half Assed Disabled Prepper Tips for Preparing for a Coronavirus Quarantine including information about water storage. we didn’t have a water storage plan at the beginning of March, so we bought two 5-gallon Coleman water storage containers (we chose based on what money and stores we had access to) to add to the eight gallons we try to keep on hand for drinking water (Leah and other preppers in general encourage storing 1 gallon per person per day for at least two weeks in event of water system outage/shortage).
some additional and essential steps we have taken include:
- deepening our relationships with our neighbors and coworkers
- joining social media groups for local mutual aid, gardening, and foraging
- servicing our car
- doing maintenance on our bicycles
- trying to thrift additional supplies (no luck so far!)
- applying to adopt a dog
- growing as many vegetables as possible on the limited land and space we have access to. we ran out of containers, so this even includes growing lettuce in plastic bags!
- limiting our expenses (for example, we have only ordered take out once this month)
- checking in on our extended families, with an emphasis on elders and youth (this included a dance competition!)
- checking in on queer and trans youth, and Black youth we are connected to
- deepening spiritual/ancestral practices
- reading Afrofuturist and sci fi books available at our libraries
- participating in Disability Justice and Transformative Justice webinars such as Moving at the Speed of Trust facilitated by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Elliott Fukui
- continue donating to and amplifying needs of native tribes, especially those whose land we live on
- donating and supporting QTPOC groups and funds like Black Trans Covid-19 Community Response Grant, Trans Women of Color Coalition Survival Fund, and Casa Ruby LGBT Center
family discussions
i don’t really know how people have apocalypse prep conversations with their families, especially elders, folx who don’t live close to each other, or people who are emotionally distant. but these are some covid-19 specific ones we came up with and intend to ask our families.
- How are you preventing spread of coronavirus in your household currently? Are there additional steps you can take?
- What are your plans if you, or someone in your household, gets covid19? Who will care for who? Does this plan feel good and consensual to everyone?
- How will you isolate yourself in your house? Or if you must, how will you share space?
- Do you have enough food, medications, cleaning supplies to last throughout the 14-day recommended isolation period? If not, how will you access them?
- What if you have to go to hospital? How do you want us to care for you in the hospital?
- What if your illness worsens? If you get sick and do not survive, what would you want to happen? Do you have a will, or note describing your wishes (especially in event you are put on a ventilator)?
these CDC websites helped us develop the coronavirus-specific questions.
CDC — Get Your Household Ready for COVID-19
you may notice we don’t have questions about mental health for our families, and that’s our personal case for a lot of reasons. we did end up having a beautiful conversation about mental health with my partner’s family yesterday, where everyone shared what they’re doing to stay alive/well. my spouse and i have survived crises together, and have personal plans/practices of what works best for us that we may be able to share more about in the future.
for resources on mental health crises, i recommend:
Icarus Project — Crisis Toolkit & Mad Maps
Healing Justice Podcast — Mad Maps (podcast interview about mad mapping)
Dean Spade — Mad Maps for the Pandemic (an example of what a personal mad map/crisis plan could look like)
emergency go bags
creating our go bag made everything feel too real. the prophetic writings of Black and brown, queer and trans, disabled, sick, and crazy authors like Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, adrienne maree brown, Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Ursula Le Guin, and others — their writings came to life as my partner and i made our list of supplies and began to gather them. i have included the photo above to share what is in my primary go bag.
i think that the term “go bag” might be used widely in white man dominated prepper communities, but i know it to be a radical QTPOC term originating from Octavia Butler’s character Lauren Olamina. in the words of Toshi Reagon (creator of an otherworldly Parable of the Sower musical!), Lauren is a 15 year old Black femme who “really understands that the way her community is working is not sustainable and that a drastic change has to happen.” Lauren prepares for the changes/disasters that she knows are coming by packing what is essentially her go bag. this is a backpack of emergency supplies that she can quickly grab and go. i can share more of what her bag contains and what tools serve her later.
my primary go bag contains the following:
- personal documents (birth certificate, social security, passport, marriage certificate, etc.)
- wallet with credit cards and additional id’s
- phone and charger
- laptop computer and charger
- water bottle
- pocket knife
- change of clothes (wrapped in waterproof plastic bags)
- diva cup
- toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, other toiletries
- glasses
- medicines we take daily (vitamins, allergy meds, plant-based medicines)
- pain medicines (ibuprofen)/first aid supplies
- teas & snacks
- lightweight silverware
- small containers spices, soy sauce and hot sauce packets
- my journal, pens, and extra notepad
- waterproof matches
- can opener/tool to open cans
- photo album/personal keepsakes
- childhood blanket
- duct tape
- sewing kit
- extra ziploc and water proof bags
- newest vegetable and herb seeds we have on hand
to be honest, we aren’t sure exactly what scenarios to prepare for. our main priority is a car trip halfway across the country to where our families live if one of them gets sick. another potential is a more permanent move out of where we currently live. yet another is a disruption in the food system as more and more farmworkers and supply chain workers are exploited and get sick. there’s also possible power outages because of anticipated flooding in the Mississippi River basin this spring.
that’s what we got for now. i’d love to hear from you. what steps have you taken to prepare and strengthen your family and community during this time of pandemic?
