PREPARED FOR TUESDAY

Most people don't know where they stand.

You have some things. A case of water in the garage. Batteries in a drawer, probably the right sizes. A flashlight that worked the last time you checked, which was a while ago.

What you don't have is a straight answer to a simple question: if the power went out Tuesday morning and stayed out until Friday, would this family be fine?

This is twenty-seven questions that answer it. It takes about twenty minutes and a pen.

Not doomsday. Tuesday.

A transformer blows. A storm sits on the county for two days. A pipe goes and the boil notice arrives on your phone. These are the emergencies that actually happen, and nobody has ever been called crazy for being ready for them. They get called the neighbor with the lights on.

What's inside

1. Water — 5 checks. How much you actually need, the boil rule and the bleach ratio written out in plain numbers, and the thirty to fifty gallons already sitting in your house that most people never think of.

2. Light — 4 checks. Why lanterns beat flashlights, one headlamp per person, and the one rule that causes house fires every single outage.

3. Warmth — 4 checks. Counting blankets tonight, the one-room plan, and the carbon monoxide rule stated the way it should be — never, not once, not for a minute.

4. Information — 3 checks. How you hear what your county is saying after the towers go quiet, and the five-minute signup to do while the power is still on.

5. Power — 3 checks. Charging phones safely, and the low-power habits that turn one bank into three days.

6. Family Plan — 8 checks. Meeting points, the out-of-state contact, the meds list, the documents, the cash, and why every kid needs a job. This is the longest section and it is the one people skip.

Then you count them up.

The last page scores you. There are three outcomes and none of them is you've failed — the lowest band exists because most homes start there, and it tells you the two things to fix first.

More than half the list costs nothing.

Seventeen of the twenty-seven boxes are a conversation, a piece of paper, or twenty minutes on a Saturday. We say so on the page. Where a box genuinely needs equipment, we name what we make and what it does — and we say plainly what it doesn't do. You can close this list with our gear, someone else's, or things already in your house. What matters is that it gets closed.

Who this is for

You have a house, a family, and a normal amount of time. You are not building a bunker. You would just rather find out what's missing on a quiet weekend than on the third dark night with everyone asking you questions.

Who it's not for

If you want collapse scenarios or a shopping list of gear you'll never use, this isn't that. There is no fear in it. It is a list, on paper, that you walk around your own house with.

8 pages. Print it, stick it on the fridge, work it three boxes a weekend.

At that pace a family is done in about two months. It arrives by email within minutes — no waiting, nothing to ship.

Free inside every Stronghold kit. You can keep it either way.