Coping + Hoping: Emergency Prep from a Poly Queer Black Woman

Waking up November 7, 2024, felt like waking up into a world I didn’t recognize. It was a day of mourning for me—mourning for the misguided safety and hope for progress I mistakenly had.

As a Black woman, who identifies as Queer and polyamorous, I move through the world with love in my heart and fear in my mind. I couldn’t understand how hate, after every historical iteration we studied, had won once again. How love for community was overthrown by the lies. Women and children dying with no respite was the preferred choice, condemned over the price of eggs. 

I feel fear. I know what it is like to have every aspect of your identity under threat. To realize every day you live that the world you know was specifically designed against your best interest—against the interest of most with the exception of the few in power. Hate is not sustainable, but it’s easier to turn fear into hate rather than love. It’s challenging to see this all take place and not be overwhelmed with fear. 

To keep a level head, it is important to be prepared. We don’t know what the future has in store, but there are basic things that you can do to increase the safety of your loved ones.

One of the challenging tasks of being an adult is the anxiety that, given your adult status, you will be responsible for knowing what to do in the event of an emergency. Emergency Preparedness is an underrecognized branch of Public Health. People have dedicated their lives to the study of, and made a career out of, helping people be as prepared as possible for the worst. Websites have already been created to start these conversations and guide you through figuring out a plan that works for your family. 

List of common items to have in case of emergency / Ready.gov

My own family includes three adults, two cats, and a medium-sized dog. When it comes to preparing for emergencies, one good go-to site is ready.gov. It has detailed sections to go over the different aspects of preparedness that would be good to take into consideration. We want to be fortified in case anything happens, and we want to make sure that we aren’t scrambling around trying to grab what we can fit in our hands and hoping we don’t forget anything important.

As a household of individuals that have never made it out of the house (or into another room for that matter, without having to go back for something we’ve forgotten), it’s a hard ask to know off the top of our heads what we should have if we needed to leave for an extended period of time, or what to have on hand if we needed to hunker down inside.

Preparedness depends on the emergency. There are some instances where you will want to leave your house, stay indoors, or find a shelter that isn’t your dwelling. A good place to start is to look into what types of threats, environmental or otherwise, are most common in your area. I work from home so I’m almost always home during the day, but my partners work outside of the home, one far away and one closer. We have to create plans for different scenarios. If I’m home and they’re out, what do we do? When should we meet at the house or an alternate location? How will we come together and figure out next steps? Since I work for a response agency, I might be called to work once we’re squared away. With so many options, it’s entirely reasonable to feel overwhelmed. 

WA State Department of Health site, Emergency Prep section / doh.wa.gov

The important thing to remember is that preparedness is a marathon, not a sprint. You can slowly accumulate the things you need. Resist giving in to panic buying or hoarding. In getting ready you want to make sure you’re settled, but also that your neighbors and community are your allies; mutual aid and support might end up being necessary should the worst occur. Jeopardizing someone else’s safety to ensure one’s own generally isn’t a cool practice. 

It can also be expensive to gather all the necessary supplies, so pacing yourself can make it easier to get prepared without being detrimental to your daily life. The more prepared you are, the better your chances of survival. Ready.gov has plans for people with children, elderly family, people with disabilities or accessibility needs, and pets! It can certainly give you peace of mind to know what to do and where to go in case anything ever happens. 

As stated before, I don’t know what the future will have in store. I will continue to move with love, face my fears, and be the kindness I want to see in the world. But making sure my loved ones and I are as prepared as possible is the peace of mind I need to work through my fears. My family and I have agreed to checking in every couple of weeks to make sure we’re making persistent strides towards preparedness. 

I want to share these resources with as many people as I can, because in my mind, the better prepared everyone is, the better the chances of our collective survival. If we survive, then there will always be hope.

Hope is the combatant of fear. Hope keeps the door open for love.