Medical is the category with some of the best odds of mattering this year — not in a headline disaster, but in an ordinary bad week when the pharmacy is closed or the urgent care is full. Anyone can deal with a boo-boo. Fewer households are ready for a deep cut, a burn, a multi-day illness, or a lapse in a prescription someone depends on.
Hygiene is the quiet other half. When the water stops, sanitation is what keeps a hard week from becoming a sick one — washing, dishes, laundry and bathroom basics without running water. Both halves reward a little preparation enormously, and almost nobody does it until they wish they had.
PrimerIf it's a certainty, then there's no excuse not to properly prepare for it.
Deep DiveTrauma gets the trauma kit. But in a long grid-down event, it's a failed toilet and unwashed hands — not a wound — that put the most people on their backs at once.
Deep DiveThere's no dentist in the bug-out bag. In a long emergency an untreated tooth stops being a nuisance and becomes an infection with nowhere to go — and it's one of the most predictable problems on the list.
Chapter 5 covers Emergency Services — how far help is, and how long it takes. The rest of this category becomes a plan through Category Plans in Chapter 14.
