Once you read the following list of tips, be sure you share it with friends and family. It's never a bad idea to formulate a plan just in case.

And now for the list you've been waiting for:

The first thing you have to do is to get back home quickly and safely. You and your family should have all previously established this as the number one priority. Ensure that everyone is accounted for.

The biggest problem will be finding a means of transportation; as you know, most cars will not work anymore. A lot of preppers overlook this aspect because they have a faraday cage and think they have everything covered. But if the EMP is powerful enough, a faraday cage is not 100% reliable.

Immediately convert any cash into useful assets like food, water, medicines, and supplies like clothing and fuel. Your money will become worthless very quickly, so use it up at nearby shops. A can of meat will cost thousands of dollars in a few days.

After your family is safe, you should contact neighbors and establish regular meeting times (at sunset for example). Together you can make an inventory of skills and supplies. Brief everyone on security, from traveling in pairs to avoiding walks at night. Establish regular patrols and danger signals if attacked. Don’t underestimate your neighbors; maybe they are not preppers, but considering we don’t know 100% what will go down after the EMP hits, you never know what you might need, and they could have it. It’s better to be in contact with them—so long as you don’t brag about your stockpiles.

Begin to ration food and water, and consider how to deal with human waste, dirty water, and trash. If necessary, dig a pit at least 100 yards from the nearest food or water store and a minimum of one foot in depth. Trash should be buried or burned on a daily schedule and moved away from your home to keep rats away.

Secure your home before nightfall, checking the perimeter for breaches and ensuring that doors and windows are locked. Empty tin cans on a string are a simple early warning system for intruders, and broken glass can act as a barrier to entry.

To me the scariest thing about an EMP strike is the lack of communications. You might not realize how dependent we are of electronics but imagine a day without your phone and no way of contacting your family, no way of knowing if they are ok. A phone gives you a sense of security. The only thing that will work in that moment is a HAM radio or a two-way radio. Every person in my family has a faraday cage in their car with a radio in it, so we could communicate the moment an EMP strikes. I actually made a device that you can attach to your radio. This will enhance your communication range and you could reach people almost 70 miles away. Because this option will be known by fellow preppers, you should choose a frequency and a time of day. The best hours to talk will be in the middle of the night, plus it’s always a good idea to use disinformation tactics like in the military. This will prove very helpful because you would reach people a town or maybe two towns away. You can find out what is going on, how the EMP affected them, the supplies that they have and how you can use your resources to help each other out.

Immediately secure all the water in your home, filling bathtubs and any other container with the remaining water via the municipal supply, within pipes, and from storage and rainwater tanks. To flush pipes, turn off the water at the shutoff valve, put a container under the lowest faucet in the house, and then open the lowest faucet and then a second faucet higher up.

Prepping for this kind of disaster takes a lot of time and work and involves every area of prepping. You start with the basics: supplies, bug out bags, solar panels, etc., but the more you learn about EMPs, the more you realize how complex and convoluted is. You won’t have Internet access and your computer will fry, so you won’t be able to google your way out of the problems that will arise. So having a physical EMP guide by your side that helps you deal with all EMP effects will prove crucial.

If you ever find yourself in any survival situation (including an EMP attack), don't let yourself panic. It may be hard to do, but allowing yourself to panic could lead to poor decisions that lead to a more dangerous scenario. On how else to prepare yourself for an EMP, visit Ask A Prepper.