Lists Worth Keeping
Short lists. True stories behind them.
What ran short in real emergencies, which familiar advice is wrong, and what the numbers say. Each list is sourced and takes about five minutes.
By Dan Whelan, founder of New World Survival
Researched from government agencies, university extension services, and other published sources. See our sources
Why a book of lists
The list is the hook. The story is the point.
In 1977 a family of three writers published a book of nothing but lists, and it sold millions of copies. The trick was never the format. Each list came with a small story, and the story was what made you turn the page.
This section borrows that idea for a quieter purpose. Every list here is built on something that actually happened, or on a question a real agency has actually answered. The stories are true and the numbers are sourced. Nothing here is a shopping list; our Top Lists and The First 100 already do that job.
What you should get from each one is a little clearer picture of how things fail and how households get through, and perhaps one thing to do differently this week.
The lists
Five so far, more as they are earned.
From real events · 10 items
What Ran Short in the Texas Freeze of 2021, and What Held
Power, water, groceries, plumbers, safe heat. The numbers behind each one, and the few things that did not fail.
Read the list →
Myths that sound right · 9 items
Nine Preparedness Myths That Sound Right
Generators, gas ovens, cold refrigerators, open windows, highway overpasses. What the agencies actually say.
Read the list →
Curiosities · 8 items
Eight Animals That Have Knocked Out the Power
A squirrel stopped the Nasdaq. A monkey blacked out Kenya. Jellyfish shut a reactor. And the one number that explains them all.
Read the list →
From history · 8 items
Eight Pieces of 1950s Atomic Advice, and Which Ones Still Hold
Always wear a hat. Bury your face in your arms. Checked line by line against what Ready.gov says today.
Read the list →
From history · 7 items
Seven Things a 1930s Kitchen Never Wasted
Soup bones, stale bread, sour milk, jelly pulp, the flour sack. From the USDA's own radio scripts, dated to the day.
Read the list →
More are being researched. They will appear as they are finished and sourced.
How these are made
The same shape every time.
Every list follows the same shape: the story, the list, what it means for you, and the sources. The story is first because it is the reason the list exists, and the best ones save their turn for the end, the way a good radio story does. The list is scannable because most readers arrive from a search and want the items quickly. The sources are last and are never optional.
This section ranges wider than the rest of the site. Some lists are about household preparedness. Others are about things that fell from the sky, advice from 1950s pamphlets that aged badly, or the animals that have knocked out the power grid. The test for a topic is not whether it is useful. It is whether it is true and whether it is worth five minutes.
Everything here is real. Nothing is composite, imagined, or dramatized. When a list is built on a real household or a real event, the people and the numbers are real and the source is linked. Any claim that could hurt someone if it were wrong, such as carbon monoxide guidance, food safety, or water treatment, is checked against a primary source before it is published: the CDC, CPSC, USDA, EPA, NFPA, the National Weather Service, or an equivalent. If we cannot find one, the claim does not go in.
Looking for what to buy?
The lists that rank things.
If what you want is a ranked list of what to own, by category, with cost bands and the reasoning for each item, that lives in the Recommended section.
The Top Lists