For Families

District of Columbia

2major federal disaster declarations since 2015.

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA · declarations data as of 2026-08-21

What gets declared in District of Columbia

Ranked by how often it has actually been declared here — and what goes wrong in each, which is almost never the thing people prepared for.

Public health emergencies

1 declaration in District of Columbia

The illness is not the whole emergency.

In June 2020, 41% of US adults had avoided medical care because of COVID concerns — 12% skipped urgent or emergency care and 31% skipped routine care. The households that struggled were the ones with a prescription, a chronic condition or a caregiving duty and no plan for any of them.

Source: CDC MMWR

Do this tonight

Write down every prescription in the house with its dose, and find out how early each one can be refilled.

Snowstorms

1 declaration in District of Columbia

It is the car and the shovel, not the cold.

About 70% of winter storm deaths happen in automobiles. Roughly 100 more people a year die while shovelling snow, and over half of those are cardiac. The safest thing most households can do in a snowstorm is stay off the road, and stop shovelling before they are tired rather than after.

Source: NOAA / NSSL

Do this tonight

Decide now what would actually make you drive in a snowstorm. Most of the reasons people give themselves at the time do not survive being written down in advance.

Most recent declarations

FY2020Covid-19 Pandemic
FY2016Snowstorm

What to do about it

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The 72-Hour Checklist

One page. Works for every hazard on this list, because the first ninety minutes look the same in all of them.

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Another state

Family elsewhere? The map covers all fifty states and the District of Columbia.

Outpost also equips buildings in District of Columbia — evacuation chairs, transfer slings, operator training and the records that prove your people are current. For facilities →