Prepare Electronic Devices for a Natural Disaster

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During hurricane season, you might be thinking about emergency planning, safely using a generator, or evacuating your home, especially if you live in a coastal region.

And while your first priority in storm prep remains securing the safety of people, pets, and property, packing the right electronics, keeping them powered, and using them wisely can make a big difference in staying safe and connected.

Here are 12 tips from officials, disaster experts, and Consumer Reports' electronics testers for using your devices when there's a major storm.

1. Pack the Right Gear

The Federal Emergency Management Agency suggests prepacking a go bag in case you need to evacuate your house quickly in an emergency. This bag should include vital supplies to take care of you and your family, including food, water, medicine, plastic bags, and a flashlight, as well as COVID-19 supplies like masks, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant wipes. Adding the right electronics can provide a crucial communications lifeline.

The primary device to bring with you is your smartphone. But if you may need to be away from home for days or weeks at a time, a laptop may provide a vital tool for everything from contacting your relatives to looking for a hotel room or transferring money between accounts. (Make sure you know your passwords, as well. A password manager can help.)

A laptop or tablet can also provide a diversion for your kids to play games or watch videos. Because streaming video isn't an option if the internet is unavailable, consider downloading a couple of movies or television episodes that everyone likes from iTunes or Amazon.

If your computer has a DVD drive, tossing a couple of your favorite DVDs into your bag isn’t a bad idea. If you have a battery-powered radio—or even better, one that’s powered by hand-cranking—be sure to throw that in the bag as well.

2. Charge All Your Devices

Once you’ve picked your devices, the next step is to make sure they can power up. "Start by fully charging all your devices—your phone, your tablet, and your laptop—well ahead of an emergency event," says Maria Rerecich, senior director of product testing for Consumer Reports. "Then remember to put all your chargers in your go bag." Ahead of time, purchase spare batteries or portable chargers and be sure to charge them, too.

Remember, a smartphone could become the primary way you summon help and track your relatives in a disaster. It's a survival tool—and one that works only if its battery is charged.

3. Bring Your Car Charger

Bring a car charger, or buy one if you don’t have one. It's a useful way to top off your phone if you lose power. If you’re worried about draining your car battery with your phone, well, don’t. “You’re not going to kill your car battery,” says Richard Fisco, head of electronics testing for Consumer Reports. “You could charge 20 phones simultaneously and your car would still crank.”

4. Stash a Power Strip

In a crisis, the right $10 gadget can improve your life immeasurably. When Rerecich’s home was left without electricity after Superstorm Sandy back in 2012, she packed a power strip and found it invaluable while charging her devices with similarly powerless neighbors at a nearby public library. "Instead of taking turns plugging and unplugging devices, we could power six devices at once," she says. "Everyone was happy."

5. Conserve Your Phone's Power

The other side of the energy equation is doing all you can to conserve energy. “Most phones have a battery-saver mode, which disables automatic updates and notifications,” Fisco says. He adds that you can also save energy by reducing your phone's display brightness and turning off the auto brightness feature, which may override your new stingier settings.

Turn off WiFi if you're on the road and away from a WiFi network. And abstain from using power-hungry apps unless they’re totally necessary. “If you’re really concerned about conserving the charge in your battery, you shouldn’t be streaming video, shooting video, or even taking pictures,” Fisco says. (Here are the smartphones with the best battery life in CR's testing.)

6. Pack in Plastic

"Electronics and water don't mix," Rerecich says. To keep your devices dry, she suggests packing a variety of zipper-seal bags: sandwich-sized for smaller phones, quart-sized for larger phones and AC adapters, and gallon- or jumbo-sized for tablets and small laptops. 

7. Back Up to the Cloud

You should be backing up the hard drive of your computer and any other devices. If you’re using a physical hard drive to do that, you should consider backing up to the cloud as well so that your data will be safe even if your regular backup drive gets damaged. Cloud backup is either free or quite inexpensive.

For example, Microsoft's OneDrive offers 5GB of storage free and 100 GB for $2 per month. If you have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription, you have 1TB of OneDrive space included free.

Apple’s iCloud will store 5GB free and up to 2TB for $10 per month.

You can also use Google One as you would iCloud and OneDrive; 15GB of storage is free and 2TB costs $10 per month. However, you will be sharing that space with your Gmail account.

Keep in mind that backing up any device to the cloud for the first time can take hours if you have a lot of data. It's best to prepare in advance if you can, and if that's not possible, prioritize critical files first.

8. Make a Digital Meet-Up Plan

Just like your family may have a plan to meet at the tree in front of your house in case of a fire, it’s a good idea to agree on a social media meeting place in advance of a natural disaster, says Anita Chandra, an expert on disaster response at the RAND Corp. “Having a social media game plan is part of any disaster plan,” she says. “And it’s something that needs to be thought through.”

The first order of business is to agree on a platform, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, then make sure whatever platform you use is installed on everyone’s devices. Tools such as GroupMe, a group-messaging app, can also make it quicker and easier to communicate.

Also designate an out-of-town contact who’ll know to expect your check-ins. That way, if people in the disaster area have only intermittent service and can't get in touch with each other directly, or even have to borrow someone else's phone, there will still be a central source of information for your family.

If possible, try to agree on a check-in time to eliminate unnecessary worrying. FEMA has detailed tips for setting up a personal plan.

9. Set Up Your Emergency Contacts

Many phone users are a bit haphazard about organizing their contacts, especially for their closest friends and relatives. “We tend not to list people by their relationship to us,” Chandra says. She suggests taking a few minutes to set up an ICE (In Case of Emergency) contact in your contacts list, and perhaps even more than one—your spouse, who’s likely to be nearby, and perhaps a sibling or other close relative who lives out of town.

Additionally, iPhone owners can use the Medical ID function in the device's Health App to set up emergency contacts. Even if the phone is locked, first responders will have access to these critical contacts through the emergency function on the lock screen. On Android phones, the options for setting up emergency contacts vary by model, but you might try the My Information sub menu, or apps such as the Red Cross' Emergency or ICE (free, but with in-app purchases).

Note that on most smartphones, the emergency mode will also allow you to make a 911 call when the phone is locked.

10. Set Up Useful Alerts

Getting the right weather and public-safety information is crucial to making smart decisions during a disaster, and you have more options than ever, says Joseph Trainor, director of the disaster science program at the University of Delaware.

“What do you want? Something simple or something sophisticated?” he asks. The National Weather Service, for example, can give you detailed meteorological information about a storm’s stats that can be interesting but not always useful. “It’s not just about the threat,” Trainor says. “It’s what you’re going to do about it.”

Instead, Trainor suggests focusing on signing up for alerts before a storm or other disaster hits. Pay special attention to information that comes from local and county officials who not only predict what will happen but also offer concrete should-I-stay-or-should-I-go advice based on the latest forecast and other conditions. “These alerts should be reminders that there are things we can do to reduce the risks,” Trainor says.

11. Get Help With 911

The best way to get help when you're in trouble in an emergency is still to call 911. But it’s not always as simple as punching in the numbers.

During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Houston found its 911 system overwhelmed by the sheer volume of calls, a problem made worse when many people hung up after being placed on hold, then called back a few minutes later.

All that accomplished for people in need was getting bumped to the back of the line. So the first piece of advice is this: Even if it's frustrating, stay on hold and wait for help.

If you're calling from a cell phone, remember to note your location because, unlike with a landline, it's not always obvious to the emergency responders exactly where you and your cell are.

You might also be able to send a text message to 911. Text to 911 service has been rolled out in some but not all jurisdictions in the U.S. The FCC suggests trying to make a voice call first, which also allows you to have a real conversation with the dispatcher, who can ask questions that elicit information, including your exact location, that you might not think to include in your text.

However, texting remains an important backup option because there are times when the cellular system is stretched so thin that voice calls fail while text messages can still get through.

During Hurricane Harvey, a number of rescues were accomplished after residents reached out for help via social media. Emergency officials caution that a conventional 911 call from a cell phone or a landline should be your first move, not a Facebook plea for assistance.

12. Document Your Belongings

If you’ve already completed all the other storm prep steps, FEMA suggests taking the time to walk around your house and take photos or video that could provide useful documentation if you have to make an insurance claim.

Take pictures of each room from different angles, individual shots of valuable items, and in the case of electronics, a shot of the model number and the serial number. You may not have to use this photo record, but it could save you headaches and thousands of dollars if you do have to deal with your insurance company after you return home.

Additional reporting by Paul Eng and Tercius Bufete.

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