PREP-CON — Preparedness Conditions
PREP-CON — the Preparedness Condition — is the FFTP five-level framework for civilian readiness posture. It answers one question: how urgently should you be preparing, and what should you be doing right now?
PREP-CON runs 5 to 1. Level 5 — Blue Sky — is the steady, everyday baseline. Level 1 — Black Sky — is an active incident already underway. As the level descends, your posture escalates through pre-agreed triggers and actions.
PREP-CON Is
- A preparedness posture scale — how ready you should be
- Tied to specific triggers and actions you set in advance
- Published daily as a US-wide baseline by FFTP
- Yours to adjust upward for your local situation
PREP-CON Is Not
- A threat forecast or alert system
- A substitute for your own situational awareness
- An estimate of classified government conditions
- A one-size-fits-all national prescription
PREP-CON started as a joke. In a conversation about continuity planning, someone asked whether there was a preparedness equivalent of COGCON and DEFCON. There was — it had simply never been framed as “conditions.” The next day it arrived as a mind map, christened MEACH-CON.
During an EOC briefing in the early days of COVID, a senior VP walked in and asked, “Are we at MEACH-CON 3?” The answer: “Have you looked at the map?” “Yes.” “Uh huh.” Nobody else in the room knew what the exchange meant — but the two who did were already aligned on exactly what posture the organization was in. That is the whole point of a condition scale.
MEACH-CON still exists, with specific triggers and actions for a family and group plan. PREP-CON is that framework formalized for everyone else — the same idea, made usable for any household or Mutual Assistance Group willing to set their own triggers and actions in advance.
Each level pairs a readiness state and sky name with the general posture it calls for. Specific plan-ready triggers and actions are on the PREP-CON Triggers & Actions page (FFTP members).
- Triggers
- None specific. PREP-CON 5 is where you live most of the time — no known or anticipated threat to water, communications, power, banking, or food distribution.
- Posture
- Build and maintain. Rotate supplies, fill gaps, train and exercise skills — medical, communications, and the rest.
- Planning
- Develop your communications plan, keep the family plan current, run your threat and hazard assessment.
- Triggers
- Possible near-future disruption to communications, power, or financial systems; significant severe weather watches; elevated space weather (G3/S3/R3); elevated military or government readiness indicators.
- Posture
- Increase monitoring across your information sources; carry out maintenance and testing on equipment.
- Planning
- Confirm the plan is current and everyone knows it; verify communications gear works.
- Triggers
- Elevated probability of disruption; financial system stress; government continuity actions; widespread supply shortages; significant public health indicators; severe space weather (G4/S4/R4).
- Posture
- Notify your Mutual Assistance Group, stand up a local net, check all Get-Home and Bug-Out bags. Top off fuel and extend food storage.
- Planning
- Move from monitoring to active coordination; confirm everyone is reachable.
- Triggers
- Communications or power disruption expected or highly likely; maximum military/government readiness indicators; civil disturbance or public health emergency in your area of operations; financial devaluation.
- Posture
- Review all communications procedures, make any last supply purchases, raise personal-defense readiness. Load vehicles for immediate departure. Able to move within 2 hours.
- Planning
- Everything is staged; the plan is in everyone’s hands and ready to execute.
- Triggers
- Active disruption of communications, power, or critical infrastructure. No-notice events — travel restrictions, martial law, Black Sky event, grid failure — that demand immediate action.
- Posture
- Execute the plan. Bug out or shelter in place as your situation dictates, initiate your MAG go-code, and establish communications nets.
- Planning
- No planning left to do — only execution. The work was done at PREP-CON 5.
A condition scale is only as good as the triggers and actions behind it. A trigger is an event you decide in advance will raise your level. An action is what you do when it does. The power is in the phrase in advance.
A household with a trigger set on the late-December 2019 reporting out of China — and an action to quietly build up protective and cleaning supplies — was weeks ahead. The 90% who waited for certainty then panic-bought all at once, and that surge emptied the shelves. The retail logistics network can absorb a hurricane; it cannot absorb every store in the country seeing a demand spike in the same few days. The prepared household never saw an empty shelf, because it acted on a trigger instead of a headline.
This page covers the public framework. The companion PREP-CON Triggers & Actions page provides specific, plan-ready triggers for each level, matching actions, and an indicator framework drawn from the FFTP 345-source intelligence registry. Available to FFTP members.
FFTP publishes a PREP-CON level — but it is a US-wide baseline. It is a starting point and a floor, not a ceiling. Your own PREP-CON may be different.
Where you live, your sector, your family situation, and your operational role all shift the picture. A regional event that barely moves the national level may demand a higher posture from you. The national number tells you the general weather; only you can set the level for your own ground.
The DTR identifies threats by location and applies PREP-CON analysis to them, so you can translate the national picture to your own situation. Read the published level as input, use the DTR’s geographic detail to localize it, and set the level you will actually operate at.
Most preparedness failures are not failures of supplies or equipment — they are failures of timing. People kept operating at PREP-CON 5 while the situation already called for PREP-CON 3. A condition scale makes the decision to escalate a deliberate, pre-agreed act rather than a judgment call made under stress.
- It removes the in-the-moment debate — the trigger fires, the action follows.
- It gets the whole household or group onto the same posture with a single number.
- It turns vague worry into a defined next step — the difference between preparing and panicking.
- It puts you ahead of the 90% who only act once a disruption is undeniable — by which point the shelves are already empty.
PREP-CON works because the thinking is done in calm conditions and the acting is done on a plan. Set your triggers and actions while you are at PREP-CON 5, with the room to think clearly. A trigger list written at PREP-CON 2 is a list written too late.