Most households have thought about emergency preparedness at some point. Fewer have actually written anything down or talked through what they would do. That gap is where things go wrong. A family emergency plan is not a binder full of… 

Electricity is the one utility that everything else depends on. Water treatment, fuel distribution, communications, refrigeration, payment systems, hospitals, logistics: all of it runs on the grid. When a short power cut hits, most households barely notice. When a serious,…