Have a plan

Keep yourself and your family safe during emergencies resulting from earthquakes, storms, wildfires and other natural disasters that may cause power outages or interruptions of your energy service.

• Keep emergency food and supplies on hand. Suggested list.
• Know how to manually open and close electric doors, such as your garage door.
• Know how to properly shut off your natural gas and electricity if needed.
• Create and practice an evacuation plan in case you need to leave your home or business.
• Prepare to assist your neighbors, people with special needs, the elderly and pets.
• Have a cellular or corded phone (cordless phones will not work during an outage).
• Identify an out-of-town contact. Long distance calls may be easier to make than local calls. Someone from out of the area may have an easier time relaying a message.
  • Make sure everyone in your family knows the phone number of your out-of-town or emergency contact and that they have a cell phone, change or a pre-paid phone card.
  • Know how to send a text message which may be able to get around network disruptions when a phone call can't get through.
• Check out resources around you that provide safety training and preparedness tips:
  • American Red Cross power outage preparedness list
  • American Red Cross: People With access and functional needs
  • Make it Through
  • Ready.gov