FIELD NOTE 01 / Stay safe / First 72 hours
So the lights went out. Now what?
A first-day briefing for outages, displacement, or interrupted services. Start with the hazard in front of you and the people beside you.
Your objective
Leave this briefing with a short list of immediate needs, safe next actions, and a time to check again.
Gather these
- Paper and pencil
- Local alert information or a battery radio
- Your household plan
- A safe place to talk
The procedure
Identify the actual problem
Write the time, what you directly observed, and the latest local instruction. Distinguish an outage from a fire, flood, chemical incident, or evacuation. Use hazard-specific official instructions; a generic recovery checklist cannot choose shelter for every event.
Account for people
Privately check who is with you, who is missing, and who needs assistance with transport, communication, mobility, or care. Include children, older people, and pets. Contact emergency services for urgent threats when available; do not send untrained people into a hazardous area.
Use the household plan
Confirm your agreed meeting place and contact route. If the planned location is unsafe, communicate the change through the agreed contact. Bring paper contact details and an accessible route map when evacuating; do not delay an urgent evacuation to retrieve belongings.
Make a needs board
Use four columns: need, evidence, next action, helper. Check water, food, shelter, sanitation, essential care, and communication. Write 'unknown' when you cannot verify something. Give each action a backup person and a next check time.
Choose a small next step
Open the relevant guide below. Solve the most urgent dependency first, then reassess. Rest and hand over tasks rather than letting one exhausted person become the entire emergency system. Seek help from surviving services and community groups.
Stop and get help when…
- An evacuation order or immediate hazard overrides this checklist.
- Do not enter damaged buildings, floodwater, or areas with fallen wires to retrieve supplies.
A small, safe practice run
At a kitchen table, pretend phones are unavailable. Each person explains where the paper plan is and one task they can safely do. Never switch off essential medical equipment for a drill.
Your field worksheet
Copy these prompts onto paper. Keep personal information private.
- Time / hazard / official instruction:
- People needing help (keep private):
- Need / evidence / next action / helper / backup:
- Next check-in / location:
Sources and limits
Sources checked . The sources support the safety and reference facts; the worksheet and drill are Oikos planning suggestions.
Regional examples need local adaptation. For specialized treatment, building work, waste systems, or food processing, use qualified help and complete technical references.
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