--- title: "Create a BeReady plan: the 7-step wizard, start to finish" url: "https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/help/beready/plan-wizard" description: "A step-by-step walkthrough of the BeReady plan wizard, from address and household to scenarios, impacts, duration, and generating your personalized plan." source: "BePrepared Solutions" --- Tutorial # Create a plan: the 7-step wizard, start to finish Creating a BeReady plan means working through a 7-step wizard: address, household, configuration, scenarios, impacts, time horizon, then review. On the review screen you press Build my plan and wait up to 6 minutes for your personalized plan. Updated October 6, 2026 To create a BeReady plan, open the plan wizard and answer seven short steps: address, household, configuration, scenarios, impacts, duration and review. Each step asks one focused thing. Press **Build my plan** on the last step, and your personalized plan is ready in up to 6 minutes. It opens on its own. Your plan is only as personal as what it knows about your home, so each answer feeds a specific part of it. Nothing here is graded, and you can change any answer right up to the moment you generate. ## Starting a new plan Go to **BeReady > My Plans** and click **New plan**. If this is your first plan, the button reads **Create your plan**. You can also go straight to [the plan wizard](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/beready/plans/new). BeReady covers one plan at a time, and Combo covers three. If you already have that many, **New plan** opens a short note instead of the wizard. On BeReady it points you to Combo. On Combo it asks you to delete a plan you no longer need first. See [changing your subscription](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/help/account/change-subscription) if you need more room. If you have Combo (BeAware plus BeReady) and no finished BeAware Baseline Report yet, a screen appears before step 1. It recommends running the report first, so your flood zone, wildfire risk, seismic profile and historical air quality can feed the plan. Choose **Create Baseline Report first**, or **Continue without baseline**. If a report is already being generated, the first button reads **Open BeAware monitoring** instead. You can re-run your plan after the baseline finishes, and the data flows in then. This screen appears each time you open the wizard until a baseline is finished. For what the report measures, see [how the Baseline Report scores your address](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/help/beaware/baseline-severity). Inside the wizard, a stepper across the top shows where you are. **Back** and **Continue** sit at the bottom, and on wider screens the footer reads "Step 3 of 7" with the step's name. Continue stays dimmed until the current step has what it needs. From step 2 on, a one-line summary under each heading tracks what you've told it so far, for example "For your family of 4 in Newark." ## Steps 1 to 3: your home and household ### 1\. Address: "Where is this plan for?" ![Step 1: where the plan is for](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffzyqrmrcsdoxzvdmlgom.supabase.co%2Fstorage%2Fv1%2Fobject%2Fpublic%2Fhelp-center-media%2Fbeready-wizard%2Fstep1-address.png&w=3840&q=75) Step 1: where the plan is for Pick a saved address, or choose **Use a different address**, start typing, and pick a suggestion from the list. Continue only turns on once you pick a suggestion, because the plan needs the address's exact location. Give it a short **Label** like "Home" so you can tell plans apart later. This location is what pulls in your local risk data, including flood zones, utilities and the nearest hospital. Saved address cards carry small tags. **Local risk data** means a finished BeAware Baseline Report exists for that address, and your plan will use it. A tag such as "3 on file" means a household roster is already saved there. You can rename, edit or delete a saved address from its card. Picking a saved address does two things for you. If step 2 is still empty, it imports the household saved for that address. It also pre-fills step 3 from your last plan at that address, with a note: "We pulled this from your last plan at Home. Change anything that's different." ### 2\. Household: "Who's in your household?" Add each person with **Adult** or **Child**, and each pet with **Pet**. The wizard doesn't add you automatically, so list yourself along with everyone else who lives there. The first person you add starts with your first name filled in. Every person needs a name, and a household needs at least one person, so a pets-only roster can't continue yet. Every pet needs a species. For each person you can also note age, gender, medical conditions, special needs, power-dependent devices and refrigerated medications. Tick **This is a service animal** on a pet, and the plan treats it as medical equipment with evacuation priority equal to a person. If you've built a household before, use **Import from…** to pull a saved roster in, then edit from there. Names stay private. These details matter because a household plan has to fit the people in it. [Ready.gov's planning guide](https://www.ready.gov/plan) lists the needs to account for, including members' ages, medical needs and equipment, and pets or service animals. ### 3\. Configuration: "Tell us about your configuration" There are four cards, and only the first is required: - **Backup power** (required): None, Portable gas generator, Portable solar / battery station, Whole-home generator, Home battery, or More than one of the above. This is the answer that gates Continue, because the plan branches hard on it. Think fridge, freezer and any power-dependent medical devices. - **Water & sewage**: municipal water or a private well, and municipal sewer or septic. Both start on Municipal. This drives the sanitation and water guidance for when service is interrupted. - **Household skills**: rate First aid / CPR, Fire safety and Navigation as None, Basic or Advanced, so the plan knows what to teach you. - **Out-of-state contact** (optional): a name, phone and relationship for someone outside the disaster footprint. Skip it if you'd rather not share. The out-of-state contact helps when local cell networks are jammed. Ready.gov's family planning advice is to [pick someone out of town, because they may be easier to reach in a disaster](https://www.ready.gov/kids/make-a-plan). The FCC notes that heavy calling during an emergency [can congest phone networks](https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/tips-communicating-emergency). ## Steps 4 to 6: what you're planning for ### 4\. Scenarios: "Select the scenarios you want to prepare for" ![Step 4: choose your scenarios](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffzyqrmrcsdoxzvdmlgom.supabase.co%2Fstorage%2Fv1%2Fobject%2Fpublic%2Fhelp-center-media%2Fbeready-wizard%2Fstep4-scenarios.png&w=3840&q=75) Step 4: choose your scenarios Tap the cards for the events you want covered, at least one of them. Pick severe weather, and a sub-grid asks "Which severe-weather hazards apply to you?" with flood, wildfire, hurricane, tornado, winter storm and earthquake. Unselecting severe weather clears those hazard picks too. If your primary saved address has a finished BeAware Baseline Report, some scenarios may already be checked when you start fresh. A banner says they were pre-selected based on the documented hazards for your address. Uncheck anything that doesn't fit. The order of your picks matters later. The drill library builds its two suggestions from your first two scenario picks, so pick the ones you care about most first. See [how drills are suggested](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/help/beready/run-a-drill). ### 5\. Impacts: "What impacts do you want to plan for?" These are the day-to-day effects of your scenarios, like no electricity, no clean water, or needing to shelter in place. Pick at least one. They shape both the plan's advice and the kits it recommends. ### 6\. Duration: "How long do you want to plan for?" Choose a window: 3 days, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months or 1 year. Longer windows expand the report's depth, so pick the kind of disruption you actually want to ride out. The same window later sets which quantities your supply list uses. See [how supply quantities work](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/help/beready/supply-quantities). When you click Continue on this step, a pop-up appears once before Review. If BeAware has a finished baseline for your address, it lists what gets folded into the plan: FEMA flood zone and flood history, wildfire and smoke exposure, seismic profile, and nearby critical infrastructure. Otherwise it explains the plan will use regional averages. Either way, **Continue to review** moves you on. ## Step 7: review, acknowledge and build ![Step 7: review and build](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffzyqrmrcsdoxzvdmlgom.supabase.co%2Fstorage%2Fv1%2Fobject%2Fpublic%2Fhelp-center-media%2Fbeready-wizard%2Fstep7-review.png&w=3840&q=75) Step 7: review and build The review screen summarizes Address, Household, Configuration, Scenarios, Impacts and Duration. Each has an **Edit** link back to its step, so you can fix anything without losing the rest. Above the button, tick the acknowledgement: "I understand this plan is a personalized starting point for my household, not professional advice and not a substitute for emergency services." **What this means** expands the four points it covers. Then press **Build my plan**. Generation takes up to 6 minutes. You can leave the page open or come back later, because progress is saved as it goes. The plan opens on its own when it's ready. If something goes wrong, the page says "We hit a snag preparing your plan" and asks you to try again or contact support. ## Which answers are required? Six answers are required: an address picked from the suggestions, at least one person with a name, a backup-power choice, at least one scenario, at least one impact, and a duration. Pets also need a species. Water and sewage, household skills and the out-of-state contact are optional. When something is missing, Continue stays greyed out and a short amber note lists exactly what. Typical lines are "Give every person a name." and "Pick a backup power option." ## Why won't Build my plan activate? Build my plan stays inactive until you tick the acknowledgement checkbox above it. That checkbox is what unlocks the button. If the box was ticked but the plan didn't start, re-check it and try again. ## What happens to my draft if I close the tab? Your answers are saved as a draft in this browser for 7 days. Reopen the wizard, and a banner reads "Welcome back. Your draft is restored. Drafts expire in 7 days." Use **Start over** to clear it and begin fresh. The draft lives in the browser you used. Opening the wizard on another device or browser starts from step 1. ## Two example households A parent of two in a hurricane-prone county picks their saved home address, adds both kids, and marks "None" for backup power. They select severe weather, then hurricane, along with the no-electricity and no-clean-water impacts. With a 1-week window, they have a plan in a few minutes. Someone on a private well and septic system fills in those two answers under Configuration. Their plan comes back with sanitation and water-pressure guidance written for their setup, instead of generic city-water advice. A finished plan is your household's written answer to "what do we do?". Your supply list, your drill suggestions and your Skills Tracker all build on it. For more on what to do after your first plan, browse [the help center](https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/help). --- _Guidance here is general and cannot account for your circumstances. In an active emergency, official instructions from local authorities take precedence over anything published by BePrepared Solutions._