Left food out for a natural emergency (5)
I believe the answer is:
flood
'a natural emergency' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'left food out' is the wordplay.
'left' becomes 'L' (common abbreviation).
'out' indicates putting letters inside.
'l' going inside 'food' is 'FLOOD'.
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for flood that I've seen before include "lot of water" , "Inundate" , "Oversupply" , "Spate" , "Inundation" .)