About & credits · Grid-Down Guide

About this guide

The Grid-Down Guide is a free, non-commercial collection of practical preparedness and off-grid knowledge, written in plain language for households, with extra notes for the Spokane and Inland Northwest area. It's hosted on superapparel2.com and is free for anyone to read, save and share.

The guide was written from public guidance by FEMA, the CDC, the U.S. EPA, the USDA and FDA, the American Red Cross, NOAA, state emergency management agencies and university extension services. Their recommendations are summarized in our own words, not copied. Numbers such as water storage, bleach dosing and food-safety times follow those agencies.

Important

This is general information, not medical, legal or electrical advice. In an emergency, call 911 and follow instructions from local officials. Have a licensed electrician connect any generator or solar system to your house wiring.

Videos

Videos are embedded from YouTube using YouTube's privacy-enhanced player, and belong to their creators. Click through to the creator's channel to support them.

Offline library

The handbooks in the offline library are U.S. government publications in the public domain, copied from archive.org and agency websites.

Photo credits

Photos are used under Creative Commons licenses or are in the public domain, and were found mostly on Wikimedia Commons. Thank you to these photographers:

Photo	By	License
Amateur (ham) radio transceiver front panel	ArnoldReinhold	CC BY 4.0
Apartment towers dark during a blackout	Eden, Janine and Jim	CC BY 2.0
Backyard vegetable garden with raised beds and a greenhouse	Peter Barr	CC BY-SA 2.0
Battery LED lantern hanging and glowing	Tony Webster	CC BY 2.0
Black cast-iron wood stove in a home	Daniel Schwen	CC BY-SA 4.0
Cast-iron hand pump on a well in a grassy yard	Daniel Schwen, cropped by Ralf Roletschek	CC BY-SA 3.0
Cast-iron pot hanging from a tripod over a fire ring	William Crochot (Medium69)	CC BY-SA 4.0
Cast-iron wood stove with stovepipe and a kettle	Victorgrigas	CC BY-SA 3.0
Close-up of a roaring wood fire	MarcusObal	CC BY-SA 3.0
Compact LED headlamp with headband	Siarhei Besarab	CC BY-SA 4.0
Composting toilet with a bin of sawdust cover material	Hannah Clover	CC BY 4.0
Dog at a disaster shelter beside volunteers	Jocelyn Augustino / FEMA	Public domain
Firewood stacked under a cover in deep snow	Berillium	Public domain
Five-step diagram for tying a bowline knot	Buz11	CC BY-SA 4.0
Glass jars of home-preserved vegetables and fruit	Teunie (nl.wikipedia)	CC BY-SA 3.0
Hand holding a baseplate compass over a topographic map	U.S. Department of Defense	Public domain
Hens foraging in a backyard chicken run	Adoscam	CC BY-SA 4.0
Historic photo of ice-coated utility poles and wires	Brian0918 at en.wikipedia	Public domain
Jars of food processing in a steaming canner	Ryan Snyder	CC BY 2.0
Living room lit by candles during a power outage	artistmac	CC BY-SA 2.0
NOAA weather alert radio	Lg q60.avi	CC BY 4.0
Pallets of bottled water staged for disaster relief	Patsy Lynch / FEMA	Public domain
Parabolic solar cooker focusing sunlight on a pot	Timothy A. Gonsalves	CC BY-SA 4.0
Person checking a bank of batteries stored under the floor	Kiran Jonnalagadda	CC BY-SA 2.0
Portable butane camp stove with fuel canister on a picnic table	Oaktree b	CC BY-SA 4.0
Portable gasoline generator running outdoors on grass	Wikimedia Commons contributor	CC BY-SA 3.0
Pot of water at a rolling boil on a gas burner	Tomwsulcer	CC0
Rain barrel collecting water from a downspout	Cornellrockey	CC BY-SA 4.0
Red first aid kit bag	Renée Kools	CC BY 4.0
Small cabin in a snowy forest	National Park Service	Public domain
Small dog wearing a life vest on a beach	FEMA	Public domain
Small metal rocket stove burning sticks	Cschirp	CC BY-SA 3.0
Snow-covered residential street with power lines	Famartin	CC BY-SA 3.0
Store shelves stocked with canned goods	USDA	Public domain
Tomato slices on the trays of a food dehydrator	Latch (Wikimedia Commons)	CC BY-SA 3.0
Utility bucket truck crew repairing overhead lines	Western Area Power Administration	CC BY 2.0
Wildfire smoke plume over open grassland	Brocken Inaglory	CC BY-SA 3.0
Wooden cabin with a solar panel on its roof in a green valley	U.S. Department of Energy	Public domain

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