My most recent power bill came with instructions for “Outage Preparation.”

Make an outage kit

Have these items available in a bag or backpack in case of a power outage: flashlight, battery-operated or wind-up clock, extra batteries, bottled water, manual can opener, and ready-to-eat canned foods.

Batteries, batteries, batteries.  Ultimately, that misses the point, I’m sure.  Still, this is about as basic an emergency and as basic a kit as it comes.  It’s a start.