Author: Damon Farnham

OmniCORE’s guides, plans and worksheets are free, and they will stay free. Our own funding rules require us to say how OmniCORE is paid for, and to announce any change to that before it happens. So here it is.

How OmniCORE is funded today

OmniCORE is self-funded by its steward through UpRiver Holdings LLC. The site has no advertising, no affiliate links, no sponsored content and no paywalls, and it doesn’t track you.

What’s changing

Starting today, readers who want to can support OmniCORE through Ko-fi, with a one-time tip of any size. A small “Support OmniCORE” link will appear in the site footer and on our new How OmniCORE Is Funded page. That’s the only place you’ll see it.

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Thank you for reading, and for preparing.

Two of the most useful things a household can do to prepare cost almost nothing and take an afternoon: put the numbers that matter on paper, and pack a bag you could leave with in five minutes. Two new worksheets in the OmniCORE Library help you do both.

Wallet Emergency Contact Card (OMC-WKS-003)

Most of us no longer know anyone’s phone number by heart, and phones fail at the worst moments. The Wallet Emergency Contact Card prints four to a sheet and folds to the size of a bank card. The front holds your key contacts, including out-of-area contacts and your country’s emergency number. The back holds your three meeting points, check-in times, radio channel, and the GREEN / YELLOW / RED status message from the Family Communications Plan. Make one for everyone in the household, children included.

Go-Bag Checklist (OMC-WKS-004)

When you have to leave, you may have five minutes or an hour. The Go-Bag Checklist has three parts:

• A go-bag for each person, packed now, with what they need for about three days, including sections for children, infants and pets.
• Grab lists for 5, 15 and 60 minutes, so nobody has to think under pressure.
• A worksheet showing where everything is kept and who grabs it.

Where to start

Print both. Fill in the cards at the kitchen table, pack one bag this week, and run a five-minute drill. You’ll learn more from one drill than from any list.

Both worksheets build on the OmniCORE Readiness Framework: a contact card for everyone is a Tier 0 step, and a go-bag for each person is part of Tier 1.

When something goes wrong, the first question most of us ask is simple: is everyone OK? Answering it is harder than it sounds. Phone networks fill up within minutes of a big event, mobile towers can lose power within hours, and family members are often in different places when it happens.

The new Family Communications Plan (OMC-PLN-002) is OmniCORE’s answer. It’s now in the Library, as a web page and as a printable PDF with fill-in worksheets.

What’s in it

• A PACE plan: a primary, an alternate, a contingency and an emergency way to reach each other, and how long to try each before moving on.
• Who, where and when: out-of-area contacts, three meeting points, and two fixed check-in times a day.
• What to say: every message in four parts (who, where, status, next contact), with three status colors anyone can use: GREEN (safe), YELLOW (need something) and RED (urgent help).
• Choosing radios, country by country: license-free and simple-license options for North America, Europe, Australia and beyond, plus amateur radio, satellite messaging and mesh radios.
• Licenses and emergencies: why licensing matters, what the rules allow in a real emergency, and OmniCORE’s position for extreme situations.
• Tier-by-tier checklists, drills, and three worksheets: a one-page household plan, a radio channel plan, and a message card to keep by every radio.

Where to start

Start with Tier 0. It costs nothing: sit down together, fill in the household plan, choose your out-of-area contacts, and print a contact card for everyone, children included. Then try one drill. A plan nobody has practiced is only a guess.

Built on the framework

The plan applies the Communications and Information & Awareness areas of the OmniCORE Readiness Framework, so its tiers line up with everything else in the Library.

Read the plan, or download the PDF and fill in the worksheets together this week.

Most preparedness advice comes as a list: buy this, store that. Lists are useful, but they don’t answer the question that matters most: how long could your household keep going if normal services stopped? Nor do they tell you what to do first.

The new OmniCORE Readiness Framework (OMC-FWK-001) answers both. It’s now in the Library, as a web page and as a printable PDF.

How it works

• Six tiers, each measuring how long your household could manage on its own: from T0 (foundations that cost almost nothing) through one week, one month, three months and six months, to a year or more.
• Twelve capability areas that every household depends on: water, food, shelter and warmth, health, sanitation, power, communications, information, safety, evacuation, finances, and community.
• Clear criteria for each tier in each area, so you can check where you stand. Some criteria count only once you’ve actually tested them, such as a drill, a dry run, or using a filter for the first time. Equipment you’ve never used is a plan, not a capability.
• A simple score. Your household’s headline score is its weakest area. A month of food with no stored water is a three-day plan, not a one-month plan. Fix the weakest area first.

Where to start

Every household should reach T1, one week, in every area. We recommend T2, one month, as the target for most homes. Start with T0 in your weakest area: most of it is information and agreements, and it costs nothing.

Built to work anywhere

OmniCORE readers live in many countries, so the framework doesn’t assume where you are. Where a recommendation depends on local rules (radio licensing, firearms law, building codes) or on climate, it says so. Self-defense is covered too, including firearms where local law allows them. Firearms are treated as tools that come with real responsibilities, and as an option rather than a requirement.

What comes next

Every OmniCORE plan, guide and worksheet now builds on this framework. The Family Grid-Down Preparedness Plan applies its tiers to a long power outage. A scorecard version of the framework, the Household Readiness Assessment, is next.

Read the framework, or download the PDF to print and keep with your household plans.

Preparedness usually starts at home: water, food, heat, a plan. But some of what reaches our households starts far away. A conflict on another continent can raise the price of heating fuel. A closed shipping lane can delay imported goods. A jump in interest rates can change what a loan costs. Most of us hear about these events, but it is hard to tell which ones matter for our own homes, and what, if anything, to do.

Starting this week, OmniCORE publishes a Readiness Weekly Digest every Sunday to help with exactly that.

What the digest gives you

• One readiness level for the week, from 1 (Routine) to 5 (Follow official guidance), so you can see at a glance how much pressure households are under.
• The few developments that mattered most, in plain language, each linked to its source.
• How they can reach your community through eight parts of daily life: energy, shipping, conflict, food, money, communications, travel and health.
• A short checklist of sensible steps, with links to the library where they help.
• An exposure map showing 11 world regions, because readers live everywhere.

What it is not

The digest is not an official warning, and it is not a forecast. It is a calm, sourced summary meant to help you decide what, if anything, to do this week. For emergencies where you live, always follow your local authorities and official alert systems.

Where to find it

• The Readiness page, linked in the menu, always shows the current level and the latest digest.
• A small readiness note at the top of every page links there too.
• Each digest also appears on the blog.

The first digest, for the week of 9 November, is out now: read it here.

Like everything on OmniCORE, the digest is free to read and share under CC BY 4.0. If something looks wrong, or you have ideas for making it more useful, tell us.

Most of us know we should be better prepared. Fewer of us know where to start, and a lot of preparedness material makes it harder: it’s built around one dramatic scenario, it sells gear, or it assumes you’ll be on your own.

OmniCORE takes a different approach. The name stands for Community of Readiness & Endurance, and it’s an open-source initiative to help individuals, families and local communities prepare for disruptions of any kind.

What makes it different

All hazards, not one scenario. Storms, heat, earthquakes, wildfire and long power outages all call on the same basic capabilities: water, warmth, food, communication and each other. OmniCORE plans build those capabilities rather than betting on a single prediction.

Open by design. Everything in the library is free to read, print, share and adapt under a Creative Commons Attribution license. If a plan helps your family or neighborhood, take it and make it yours.

Tested where people live. The material isn’t meant to stay theoretical. Local community groups put it into practice, and what they learn comes back into the library. The first is a rural community in Washington State.

Built for the moment you need it. Every library item is a web page and a printable PDF, because when you need a preparedness plan most, the internet may be down.

The first library item

The Family Grid-Down Preparedness Plan is a layered plan for getting a household through a power outage lasting anywhere from one week to one year. It starts with steps that cost almost nothing, such as knowing your home’s dependencies, agreeing on a family plan and meeting your neighbors, and builds from there.

If you’re not sure where to begin, start here. Most households can finish the foundations in a weekend.

What’s next

More guides will follow as they’re written and tested, each announced here. Questions, corrections and ideas are welcome at hello@omnicore.blog.