Check the home before the hottest days
Find the shade, airflow, filter, and room limits that are worth knowing while the system is still working normally.
Start the cooling and shade auditWhat to Prepare for Now
Timely preparedness priorities for U.S. households, plus the power, water, communication, evacuation, and home-security plans worth preparing for year-round.
Timely for August and September. These are editorial planning routes, not local forecasts or emergency alerts. Prepare early, then follow current official alerts, local instructions, and building rules when conditions change.
Prepare before it feels urgent
Relevant now
A little work before heat, storms, or smoke is easier than trying to make decisions once a warning is already moving through the day.Make storm decisions before the forecast tightens
Use the early window to check the household plan, the home exterior, and the point at which preparation stops and official direction leads.
Work through a hurricane preparation timelineSet up a cleaner-air fallback
Decide where the household can spend time with cleaner indoor air and what needs checking before smoke makes every option feel rushed.
Build a wildfire-smoke preparedness planCover a summer power outage
Check the short list that keeps food, information, light, and the household's cooling decisions from becoming last-minute guesses.
Build a summer power-outage planUseful in every month
Worth preparing for anytime
Start with the system most likely to interrupt your household, then work through the supporting reads at your own pace.Plan for a power outage
Work from the first hours outward: light, communications, food, water, and a measured plan for the systems the household actually depends on.
Start a practical power-outage planStore and manage household water
Set a realistic water baseline, keep it manageable in the space you have, and understand when storage is not the same as safe drinking water.
Plan emergency water storage at homeKeep essential information reachable
Make contacts, records, alerts, and fallback communication usable when a phone, app, connection, or normal routine is unavailable.
Create an offline emergency information planMake an evacuation decision workable
Prepare the household details, records, transport, and bags before an official evacuation decision leaves little room for improvisation.
Plan evacuation for a real householdStrengthen everyday home security
Notice weak points, preserve safe exits, and improve ordinary household routines without turning the home into a source of fear or escalation.
Use a layered home-security inspectionWhat changes next
- Late-summer readinessAugust and SeptemberCurrent route
- Fall readinessLate September through November
- Winter readinessDecember through February
- Spring readinessMarch through May
This route was reviewed on August 9, 2026; its next editorial review is due by September 21, 2026.