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.

Do the pod math: 1 × 14 × N

One gallon per person per day, times fourteen days, times pod size: 28 gallons for a two-person pod, 56 for four, 84 for six. Hot weather, illness, or pets push the number up — round up, not down. And the target doesn't have to live in one apartment: split it across every pod member's place.

Pick a ring, not a finish line

There's no single "right" budget. Foundation (~$30/person) is the fastest path to not-zero; Built Out ($75–150/person) gets you to the fourteen-day target; Fortified ($250+, shared across the pod) is true redundancy. You can sit on different rings for different wedges — the goal is steady progress between now and Lab 6, not buying everything today.

When the grid drops, bug in first

Most NYC emergencies don't require evacuation — if you're outside an evacuation zone, the job is sheltering safely at home 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.

Prep in a pod, not alone

Two to six people who prep together — splitting cost (bulk water and filters are cheaper split), splitting storage across apartments, splitting roles so each person owns a wedge. Treat it as a block project: a communal fund, a shared "emergency node" of gear, bought 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

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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 lab also introduced the Resilience Wheel — the map for the whole series: six wedges of preparedness crossed with three budget rings — and spent the night on the first wedge, water. The goal by the end 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 pod 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.

Know your threats

What we're actually prepping for in Brooklyn: hurricane, flood, storm surge, a prolonged power outage, civil unrest, a virus or chemical agent. Most of them end the same way — sheltering in place, at home, for up to fourteen days.

The Resilience Wheel

The map for all six labs: six wedges — water, medicine & PPE, food, power & charging, communication, security & defense — crossed with three budget rings: Foundation, Built Out, Fortified. Tonight's assignment: the water wedge, at least the inner ring.

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

Meet your pod

A pod is two to six people who prep together — splitting cost, storage, and skills. One person owns water; others own comms, power, or security. Pick pod-mates by trust and geographic proximity — and if you came solo, the pod exercise is how you stop being solo.

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
Do the pod math: 1 × 14 × N
One gallon per person per day, times fourteen days, times pod size: 28 gallons for a two-person pod, 56 for four, 84 for six. Hot weather, illness, or pets push the number up — round up, not down. And the target doesn't have to live in one apartment: split it across every pod member's place.
04
Pick a ring, not a finish line
There's no single "right" budget. Foundation (~$30/person) is the fastest path to not-zero; Built Out ($75–150/person) gets you to the fourteen-day target; Fortified ($250+, shared across the pod) is true redundancy. You can sit on different rings for different wedges — the goal is steady progress between now and Lab 6, not buying everything today.
05
When the grid drops, bug in first
Most NYC emergencies don't require evacuation — if you're outside an evacuation zone, the job is sheltering safely at home while everyone else is unprepared. Doubly true in a pandemic, where NYC's role as a global crossroads makes it an early hotspot.
06
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.
07
Prep in a pod, not alone
Two to six people who prep together — splitting cost (bulk water and filters are cheaper split), splitting storage across apartments, splitting roles so each person owns a wedge. Treat it as a block project: a communal fund, a shared "emergency node" of gear, bought incrementally over a year — not a panic-purchase.
08
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 reference tables from the session, 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

The water wedge, ring by ring

The deck's three budget tiers for water resilience — move outward as time, money, and pod resources allow.

Ring	Budget	The kit
1 · Foundation	≈ $30 / person	Bathtub WaterBob; two 7-gallon jugs; a backup purification method (unscented bleach, 8 drops/gallon, or tablets); know how to drain your hot-water heater — 30–50 gallons already on tap
2 · Built Out	$75–150 / person	30-gallon stackable containers; jugs sized to your pod math; a portable straw or pump filter; dated labels and a yearly rotation
3 · Fortified	$250+ / pod, shared	55-gallon barrels or bulk modules split across pod homes; a gravity filter for daily use, not just emergencies; no single point of failure

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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