In this article for the Conversation UK, academics from across the UK discuss the government’s recent focus on household-level preparedness for national emergencies, such as the risk of power failure. The authors explore whether the government’s marketing of household-level preparedness fails to address existing inequalities inherent within our society. They argue that this approach may in fact drive further vulnerability, by positioning individual resilience at odds with community resilience, and calling for a greater level of community resilience-building in conjunction with household preparedness.