3 Things You Must Do Immediately Following Any Disaster

You've got all your preps in order and your family on board, but do you know how you'd immediately react when the crisis is upon you?

We're talking the first 30 seconds upon disaster striking, which may be all you have to come up with a plan to ensure your family's survival.

Ideally, you have access to multiple means of communication and live in a place that could alert you to the coming of some kind of threat, giving you enough time to react and formulate your plan to hunker down or evacuate to a safer location.

In the United States, there are tornado-warning sirens located in most Midwestern towns. The East Coast usually has a heads up on hurricanes and severe storms by means of local weather reports.

Unfortunately, folks living in Southeast Asia aren't as lucky. Recent tsunamis have killed, displaced and affected thousands of individuals who were without warning of disaster striking.

The same is true all over the world, where flash flooding, tornados, blizzards, hurricanes, tsunamis and other violent weather patterns are all too common and inflict serious damage.

That's why it's important to have a plan laid out ahead of time and know how to react as soon as a crisis situation rears its ugly head, even if there's no guarantee you'll have a heads up to the coming crisis.

Every prepper, family and survival group will have their own priorities and varying course of action of what to do when disaster strikes. It all very much depends on your location, the type of disaster and your individual circumstances.

Regardless of whether you intend to hunker down at home or bug out and get out of dodge, the way you react in the first minute of a crisis will determine your course of survival.

Below we'll identify 3 things you should (or shouldn't) do within the first 60 seconds (give or take) of a disaster survival situation.

 1. Don't Stall - Don't Panic

The immediate human response is to panic in a dangerous or life-threatening situation. Eventually, adrenaline kicks in, and you go into survival mode, but it's a very natural response to lose your head when facing a crisis situation.

Don't. You need to take a moment to break, collect your thoughts, and start putting your emergency preparedness plan into place, which you should have laid out well in advance of doomsday.

If you intend to bug out, the sooner you do so the better. The state of roads and navigable routes will be unknown.

You should have several escape routes in place and multiple meet-up destinations laid out for your family or group. If you're relying on a bug-out vehicle, make sure it's fueled, loaded with your gear and ready to hit the road within 60 seconds.

If you're hunkering down, your goal will likely be to get your family to a designated safe room or shelter.

Immediately upon making sure everyone is safe, start coming up with a plan as to how you're going to get through the situation.

The most important thing is to remain calm. You should already have your plan laid out and your family on board, so all you have to do is rely on your training and put your preps into action.

 2. Have a Back-Up Plan

Disaster often strikes with little notice and brings with it unknown variables that affect the way you survive.

Even if you're intent on hunkering down at home no matter what goes on outside, you should always have an escape route and bug-out plan in place.

If you're bugging out, you should also have a back-up plan in case vehicles, communications, evacuation routes and rendezvous points are compromised. Be ready to adapt and react to new challenges.

Even after the first minute of a disaster, your situation could change dramatically. You could be following your plan when all of a sudden the second wave of chaos erupts outside.

That begs the importance of always being prepared and having a Plan B in place. From there, the same rules apply as above.

3. Gather Water and Food

Among the most critical components for survival are food and, more importantly, water.

It's likely that a major disaster will cause electricity, water and other basic services to be disrupted if not shut off completely.

So whether you're bugging out or hunkering down, you should store/carry as much water as possible.

At home, you can fill up all available bathtubs, sinks and other spare vessels before the pipes run dry.

Alternatively, know your way to the closest source of freshwater or ground well. If bugging out, stick to routes that will keep you close to a source of potable water, and make your designated location equally close and well stocked.

You don't want to be part of the masses of people running to the grocery store when all hell is breaking loose - that is if they remain open. In any case, looting will occur sooner or later, and you want to avoid the mobs at all costs.

Make sure that every member of your family or group has at least a 72-hour supply of food and water on hand to survive the first three days of a disaster.

If you're hunkering down, make sure your shelter or safe room is well stocked with plenty of extra food to survive long-term, along with medical supplies and other essential items.

In the first 60 seconds of an emergency, make sure you're considering food and water as they are more important to your survival than (almost) anything else.

Though not an exhaustive list, considering these three things ahead of time will give you a much better chance of surviving a disaster situation.

If you remain calm, follow your established plan, have a back-up plan, and secure enough food and water to survive the first wave, you'll be much better off to come up with a way to thrive long-term, no matter what's happening outside.