This website was created to help the author making sense of the confusing information available online about surviving disasters and other emergency situations. Visit the About page to learn more.
Site last updated: 25 June 2025
Our vulnerability varies greatly depending on our personal circumstances (residence, age, gender, health, etc.) but no person or society is immune to emergencies, catastrophes or significant life upheavals. The following list makes for grim reading, but we can be certain to face several of those challenges during our lifetime:
1. Natural disasters due to:
• extreme cold:
- ice storms
- snow blizzards.
• extreme heat:
- wildfires
- heat waves, megadroughts
- dust storms, sand storms.
• extreme rain and wind:
- rainstorms, hail storms
- thunderstorms, lighting storms
- tropical storms, tropical depressions, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, medicanes.
• flash floods, mega floods, tide surges
• mudslides, landslides, avalanches
• earthquakes
• tidal waves, tsunamis
• volcanic eruptions:
- lava flows
- ash clouds
- pyroclastic flows
- ash and pumice fallout.
• sinkholes
• meteors / comet strikes*
• solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) disrupting radio / satellite communications and power grids via EMPs*.
* extremely rare but possible
2. Crop failure, resulting from:
• soil depletion, lack of fertilisers
• diseases and pests (e.g. rats, locusts)
• extreme weather events (e.g. droughts, floods) and other natural disasters
• civil unrests and wars
• climate change.
Crop failure may result in a sudden drop in food production, and potentially generate widespread famines.
3. Epidemics and pandemics: a sudden onset of contagious disease affecting people's health on a grand scale and disrupting social life either as a result of the disease itself (overrun hospitals, mass deaths) or from the precautions put in place to manage it (quarantine, lockdowns, border closures).
4. Technological and industrial catastrophes: accidents that occur where bulky hazardous materials are produced, stored, transported or used. For example:
• failure of dams and water reservoirs
• leak or explosion at oil, gas, chemical, biological, electrical, nuclear plants
• cyberattacks and data breaches.
Such disasters may occur due to natural events and/or because of lack of maintenance, incompetence, human errors, sabotage, hacking, civil unrest, wars. Those events can generate explosions and shock waves, as well as widespread and long-lasting contamination and pollution of air, soil and water, potentially resulting in mass deaths and ecosystem collapse.
5. Economic downturns: a direct consequence of the above disasters, of the inherent fragility of an economy (resulting in stock market crash, bubble bust, defaulting on public or private debts) or due to civil unrest and wars. The consequences of economic chaos include:
• hyperinflation
• currency devaluation (resulting in incapacity to pay for imported food and energy)
• insolvency of the state
• businesses going bankrupted
• mass unemployment
• income received by pensioners and social aid beneficiaries plummeting in real value
• civil unrest and wars.
6. Civil unrest and wars: attacks on people and property (looting) following from any of the disasters listed above, or arising from social conflicts (strikes, riots, gangs' activity, popular protests and uprisings, insurrections, revolutions, terrorism, military coups) as well as from international conflicts (colonial invasion or warfare conducted via conventional, digital, chemical or/and nuclear means).
7. Personal disasters that may affect you, your close family or your friends:
• chronic illnesses (physical or mental)
• accidents and injuries with long term effects
• family conflicts, relationship breakups (divorce), becoming a single parent
• legal battles (child custody, estate division)
• unplanned pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions
• physical, sexual or mental abuse including bullying
• behavioral or substance addictions
• crushing debt repayments, major financial losses (due to bad investments or market failures)
• work conflicts
• unemployment (due to redundancy, bankruptcy, workplace damaged or destroyed by any of the disasters listed above)
• death of family members or friends, including by suicide and murder
• home eviction
• house fire
• hacking and identity theft
• unplanned and sudden relocation (forced exile, becoming a refugee)
• robberies, break-ins, home invasions
• assaults and rapes
• kidnapping, imprisonment, torture by a state or rogue agent.
In addition, disasters might compound each other (polycrisis). For example, a severe drought may push two countries sharing a limited water supply into an all-out armed conflict resulting in deaths, destruction of property, economic collapse, as well as pollution from chemical warfare plus masses of refugees becoming victim of famine and diseases.
On a personal level, financial problems can create or reinforce poor life choices (e.g. gambling, alcohol consumption), further compounding money troubles.
Local or national disasters can interrupt essential services for a very long time, resulting in:
no health care / no medical services
no utilities:
. no water treatment / no water distribution + contamination of town supply by chemicals and/or sewage
. no energy distribution (power outages, power grid failures)
. no communication networks (disabled: land lines, mobile phones, TV channels, radio channels, internet access, etc.
. no garbage removal or sewage disposal.
no transport available (blocked roads, highways, airports, seaports, public transports, etc.)
no manufacturing or delivery of essential goods (disrupted supply chains of: food, fuel, medical supplies, etc.)
no financial exchange possible (banks, ATMs, electronic points of sale, etc. all closed)
no security, no law & order (failed state)
no social or geographical stability (panic fleeing, mass migration, refugee crisis)
no personal freedom (quarantine, martial law, loss of civil liberties, forced military mobilization).
The social and economic networks of your local community, or even of the entire country where you reside, can become seriously affected after a major disaster. Possibly resulting in the break-down and even collapse of state authority (failed state), when basic responsibilities of a sovereign government are no longer assumed. The global and enduring impacts on people and societies can be felt long after the immediate cause has disappeared.
Personal disasters might stop you from providing for yourself and your loved ones. Your physical and mental health, as well as your financial and material assets, could be severely diminished or taken away from you completely.
You cannot prevent the majority of disasters, be it personal, local or national. Most of them are beyond your control. Additionally, when a major one strikes, your state or local authorities might not be responsive, or be overwhelmed by the scale of the emergency. Leaving you alone and without support.
However YOU, and people around you, can learn how to prepare for threats, how to cushion their impact, and how to recover and adapt after disruptive events. So explore the following links to build up your adaptability and resilience. Become mentally and physically prepared to handle those worst-case scenarios, in order not to be overwhelmed by surprise or despair. This mindset helps reduce the paralyzing fear of the unknown and builds a more robust character capable of enduring hardship.
By order of importance: