Do some family research

But realistically, if the lights go out, the tap water stops flowing, and a
family member takes ill — all at the same time — a stack of emergency how-to
books will be little help if no one in your family is familiar with them.
Frantically flipping pages and trying to speed-read by candlelight is not a
good way to learn. If you wait until an emergency hits before attempting to
learn how to respond to it, you may be too late. The stress and panic of an
emergency situation make it very difficult to think clearly. You definitely
need to be thinking clearly to absorb new knowledge from a book.

I suggest assigning a research job to each family member. Break down your
emergency preparedness library into sections and make one person responsible
for being familiar with each one. Suggested sections might be: health and
medicine, food and water, light and heat, money and barter, and safety and
waste disposal.

Now of course, you want to be sure the family members involved in this plan
are old enough and mature enough to handle the task. It won’t do much good
to assign the health and medicine job to your eight-year-old. (“C’mon Becky!
What kind of knife did the book say I should use to remove Mommy’s spleen?”
Just kidding.)

Each person taking part in this program should become familiar with the
books and other resources in his or her section. They certainly don’t have
to memorize everything and become instant experts in that field. They
should, however, spend enough time browsing through the books to develop a
general knowledge of what information each book offers and how it is
organized. Taking notes and writing up an outline could also help.