Your bathtub is two weeks of water

A WaterBob (or similar bladder) is about $35 and fills a standard tub in roughly twenty minutes — around 100 gallons, enough clean water for fourteen days. The hard part isn't the gear; it's remembering to fill it in the first twenty minutes.

Layer your water like rings

On the go: a LifeStraw ($15, pocket-size, drink straight from a stream). At home: a Berkey gravity filter (charcoal; fine for questionable water, just not sewage or agricultural runoff). Surge: the bathtub bladder. Block-scale: big gravity barrels. Iodine handles metals, boiling handles pathogens — and you don't need hospital-sterile water, just safe water.

When the grid drops, bug in first

The smartest opening move is usually to stay inside for the first few days while everyone else is unprepared — doubly true in a pandemic, where NYC's role as a global crossroads makes it an early hotspot.

Mesh beats a single line

Internet relays and the cell network failed in Sandy; on 9/11 only Nextel's push-to-talk stayed up. NYC Mesh is a free, peer-to-peer, line-of-sight network — and a single Starlink feeding one node could keep hundreds of neighbors connected. Hardware is about $120, and they help if you can't afford it.

Stage gear as a shared node, fund it together

Treat preparedness as a household or block project: a communal fund, a shared "emergency node" of gear, and an easy proposal to buy it incrementally over a year — not a panic-purchase.

Practice the panic out of it

Skills calcify under stress unless you've rehearsed them. Triage simulations, wilderness and first-response training, and facilitation tools that surface everyone's input turn a scared room into a coordinated one — and bond the people in it.

Resiliency Action Lab #1 · June 23, 2026

Two Weeks, No Grid

Could your household make it fourteen days with no power, no water, no internet? The first Action Lab put a room of neighbors to work mapping the plan — bathtub to Berkey, Starlink to mesh, rice math to a backyard fire.

Lightning Society, Brooklyn, NY

See the event on Luma →

Two Weeks, No Grid — Resiliency Action Lab #1

14 days

the survival window the night was built around

$35

a bathtub bladder = two weeks of clean water

Bug in

the default move when the grid goes down

What this was

The first Resiliency Action Lab wasn't a lecture or a scare session — it was a community-run working meeting, led by Jessica Es. Everyone in the room named the one or two ways their household would break in a real emergency, and the group worked through the fixes together: water, power, communications, food, sanitation, and the neighbors you'd lean on.

The framing was deliberately concrete — not "the apocalypse," but Brooklyn after the next Sandy, or a blackout, or a pandemic where the smartest first move is to stay inside while everyone else is unprepared. The goal by the end of the night was simple: leave with a personalized fourteen-day plan and a short list of gear to buy over the coming year, pooled where it made sense as a household or block.

The session

How the night unfolded

Part 1 · Name the gapwhere each household breaks

Round of vulnerabilities

Each person named the one or two things their household is missing — water, food, medication, power, comms. COVID was the common reference point: the first time many had thought about canned goods at all.

The 20-minute reflex

The night's mental drill: when disaster hits, your first thought is "I have twenty minutes to fill the tub" — training the instinct before you need it.

Part 2 · Work the systemswater, power, comms, food

The water ladder

From a LifeStraw in your pocket to a Berkey gravity filter at home to a bathtub WaterBob to community-scale barrels — layered so you're covered on the go, at home, and at the block level.

Comms when the towers fail

Starlink as a backup (it survives the grid but can be jammed), and NYC Mesh — the free, peer-to-peer, line-of-sight network where a single Starlink node could keep a whole neighborhood online. One household offered to rejoin the mesh on the spot.

Food, fire & sanitation

Calorie math (rice by the sack), a backyard fire pit and propane for cooking once the storm passes, and the unglamorous truth that toilets stop running the moment the water does — so plan the bucket.

Nuclear & pandemic edge cases

Fourteen days is also the fallout window; the city's Cold-War shelter signs are mostly old schools. And in a pandemic, NYC's crossroads geography is exactly why bugging in early beats waiting.

Part 3 · Make it communalfrom household to block

The household hub

Pool a communal fund, stage the gear as a shared "emergency node," and pass an easy proposal to buy it incrementally over the year rather than all at once.

Practice under stress

Stories from a mass-casualty triage simulation — half the room actors, half responders — and the case for inter-community survival training: the skills, plus the bonding that comes from getting through something hard together.

Facilitation & the long game

Liberating Structures (Troika Consulting, 1-2-4-All) to make decisions everyone owns; planting fruit trees and mapping foraging on Falling Fruit; a clothing swap; even practicing navigation without GPS.

What we walked away knowing

01
Your bathtub is two weeks of water
A WaterBob (or similar bladder) is about $35 and fills a standard tub in roughly twenty minutes — around 100 gallons, enough clean water for fourteen days. The hard part isn't the gear; it's remembering to fill it in the first twenty minutes.
02
Layer your water like rings
On the go: a LifeStraw ($15, pocket-size, drink straight from a stream). At home: a Berkey gravity filter (charcoal; fine for questionable water, just not sewage or agricultural runoff). Surge: the bathtub bladder. Block-scale: big gravity barrels. Iodine handles metals, boiling handles pathogens — and you don't need hospital-sterile water, just safe water.
03
When the grid drops, bug in first
The smartest opening move is usually to stay inside for the first few days while everyone else is unprepared — doubly true in a pandemic, where NYC's role as a global crossroads makes it an early hotspot.
04
Mesh beats a single line
Internet relays and the cell network failed in Sandy; on 9/11 only Nextel's push-to-talk stayed up. NYC Mesh is a free, peer-to-peer, line-of-sight network — and a single Starlink feeding one node could keep hundreds of neighbors connected. Hardware is about $120, and they help if you can't afford it.
05
Stage gear as a shared node, fund it together
Treat preparedness as a household or block project: a communal fund, a shared "emergency node" of gear, and an easy proposal to buy it incrementally over a year — not a panic-purchase.
06
Practice the panic out of it
Skills calcify under stress unless you've rehearsed them. Triage simulations, wilderness and first-response training, and facilitation tools that surface everyone's input turn a scared room into a coordinated one — and bond the people in it.

Reference

The cheat sheet

The tables Spike walked through, rebuilt so you can come back to them. Scroll sideways on a phone.

The water ladder

Layered so you're covered on the go, at home, and at the block level — every piece named in the room.

Tier	Gear	Rough cost	Covers
On the go	LifeStraw	$15	Drink straight from a stream; pocket-size
At home	Berkey gravity filter	~$35+ (cheaper used)	Questionable water — not sewage or ag runoff
Surge	WaterBob bathtub bladder	~$35	Fills a tub in ~20 min ≈ 14 days of clean water
Block-scale	Large gravity barrels	$$$	Community supply; charcoal-filtered
Backup	Iodine / boiling	$	Iodine for metals, boiling for pathogens

A 14-day bug-in plan

The systems the room worked through, one by one.

System	The move
Water	Fill the tub in the first 20 min; layer LifeStraw → Berkey → barrels
Power	Solar + batteries to keep lights, charging, and tools alive 7–10 days
Comms	An NYC Mesh node for peer-to-peer; Starlink as a jam-resistant backup
Food	Shelf-stable calories (rice by the sack); a backyard fire pit + propane
Sanitation	Toilets stop without water — plan the bucket system early
Community	A household hub, a communal fund, neighbors who know the plan

Go deeper

Resources & where to plug in

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