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Shelter · Reference · Basic

Start From Nothing: Your First 72 Hours

The order to do things in when you have no power, no water and no gear — and what to skip until it matters.

This is for educational purposes only. Not professional medical, electrical, or safety advice.

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Start From Nothing: Your First 72 Hours

Warning

Do not drink water from a flooded, industrial or sewage-affected area no matter how clear it looks. Boil or treat everything you drink.

  1. 01

    Stop and sort your priorities

    You can last about 3 hours without shelter in bad weather, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. Fix things in that order — not in the order that feels urgent.

  2. 02

    Build a stopgap shelter in the first hour

    Before dark and before you're tired: a lean-to, a tarp, or a pile of debris. Get off the ground and out of the wind. You can improve it later; you can't get warm after sunset for free.

  3. 03

    Find water before you plan meals

    Rain, roofs, dew, streams, snow, the water heater and toilet tank in your own house. Two liters a day minimum. Filtering is optional; disinfecting is not.

  4. 04

    Start fire while you still have daylight

    Tinder, kindling, fuel — gather three armloads of each size before you strike anything. Fire gives you warm water, dry clothes, boiled water and a signal.

  5. 05

    Make yourself findable

    Three of anything means distress: three fires in a triangle, three whistle blasts, an orange panel on the roof. Do it before you need it.

  6. 06

    Then, and only then, think about food

    Foraging and trapping burn more energy than they return for the first two days. Spend the third day on food, not the first.