Preparing for War or Apocalypse

So are the family members all going to be very local to collect them quickly, they could be a drive away or on holiday.

Mum of two here too ☺️ In all honesty, where people fall down in planning is sufficient drinking water. Water bottles won't cut it because it's not sustainable. If you're looking for practical advice, it's advisable to buy a water butt and proper water filtration system - e.g. a Berkley with ceramic filters (not brita!). These filter out bacteria, particulates, heavy metals etc. Our water butt holds 100 litres of rain water and our water filter can make can make 8 litres of clean drinking water every 2 hours. Judging by the weather we've had recently, we could have at least 10 litres of drinking water a day purely from rain lol.

Re the generator, it isn't for powering the whole house, it would keep the freezer and some lights going. (Very noisily)
I don't know for how long per gallon of fuel… but you only need to plug the freezer in for a couple of hours a day. If you keep it closed.

Likewise, we have a huge Anker power unit, a recent gift from DS2 for my camping trips. Huge overkill, unless I want to run a houseful of electrical goods in my van!

I have heard bits of information out there about maybe prepping for three weeks, ie getting in bottled water and a few extra tins. Apparently if something does happens which disrupts our country on a large scale, this is the length of time it would take for business to resume. I have quite a few bottles of water and have been buying extra tins of stuff, just stacking them in the attic. I’m probably being a bit silly, but just want to have some prep in place, even if just minimal.

Are you in the UK? I have always wondered why more people don't have generators. I don't know one person who does (including me) - I just think they seem such a good idea. Would the generator be able to power your whole house or just parts of it, and for how long?

You're the only one I've heard of.

Yep, me too OP. Been saying it for weeks now.

I don't talk about it with many people, they either get it or they don't. People thought I was mad for stocking up on extra basics when Covid was still in its infancy and long before the first mention of a lockdown anywhere, those stores saw me through the entire lockdown and we never went without. Didn't have to wait in a queue snaking miles around a Tesco carpark, or get screamed at and called selfish for getting more than four loo rolls like my poor dad did.

I just think it's just common sense to have some shelf-stable food stored away, if you're able to.

You could be the best prepper in the world and some big hard bastard thugs would eventually come knocking. If they can brazenly do it in the co-op down the road now, they’ll definitely put your best laid apocalypse plans to shit. Best to think about arming yourself and building a fortress too…

have lots of tinned food, tin openers, water, disaster plans including lists of written phone numbers. Also plan to collect family members quickly to keep us all safe

As long as you don't get obsessed (or become a hoarder!), it's a good idea to have a plan in place in case of some type of weather/natural disaster. How would you contact family if there was a widespread cell outage, etc.

Knowing you are at least somewhat prepared eases anxiety as well.

Edit: Worrying about a post-WWIII apocalyptic scenario is taking it too far though. Don't drift into panic and paranoia

Not this again. These posts are way too regular and do little other than scare people.

I don't know if you are but we've been here so many times that it's boring. Been reading a history book about the 1970s and people went on like this then. And here we still are.
YAButterlyU and paranoid.

No, it will take more than some tins, bottled water and tin openers to survive a war. Let alone anything bigger. You need fairly good medical knowledge, defensive skills and the ability to take a life if it came to it.

Honestly, I’m not sure I want to though. I don’t want to necessarily spend endless days in a refugee camp at the mercy of the Red Cross, wondering if my family are dead or somewhere lost in the camp. Watching people around me slowly starve. Watching as simple infections kill people. I have a young child so people will automatically know how to exploit me, through threatening them.

For any sort of environmental/nuclear disaster or the zombie apocalypse, I don’t have the medical knowledge to survive. I don’t have the hunter skills to get food. I’d be useless at trying to kill an animal, I have no idea how to prepare meat from scratch. I can’t even grow tomatoes on a tomato plant so I’m not going to have my own off-grid garden. I’m not going to win in a fight against someone who comes to take my food or shelter or medicines. I hope I’m part of the first wave gone and if not, you’ll probably find I’ve traded everything remotely valuable for some cyanide pills.

My tins always end up rusty so no tins for me. I have a torch, paracetamol and would like some water purifier maybe. Food for about a week but it wouldn't be high end restaurant. 3 meagre litres of water in case of disaster for 4 people. Is it much? No. Is it enough? Maybe. No disaster like this was here yet.

Unless the apocalypse/war was worldwide (in which case pass me the vodka) I think the best prep would be a car, a valid passport, a load of cash, jewellery you could pawn and a sleeping bag. I'd be straight to the airport/ferry port/small boat for a one way ticket out of here.

I don’t think anyone who has watched ‘Threads’ would want to survive an apocalypse. Terrified the life out of me!

I was prepped for Brexit and a new baby which meant when covid struck I was positively swimming in bog rolls and pasta, thank you.

Not saying I had any sort of DIAGNOSED anxiety issues, but we didn't set foot in a physical shop for twelve months... (Got deliveries, but the stuff I had stashed was a godsend.)

Everyone lolling at this thread has very quickly forgotten the shortages of summer 2020 and how hard it was to get deliveries or get hold of particular items.

Now I'm a single parent with a small child and have no time to be as prepared, but frankly I'm not ditching the tin cupboard or the wind up radio just yet.

No I don't do any of this, far too busy enjoying my life. You could've done the same in the time you spent doing all that too!

This. Haven't you seen The Last of Us? I'd rather have died in that initial spray of bullets.

You can drink your urine once a day. Need fresh water in between.

God i hope i dont survive an apocalypse, I'm a fat bugger, somebody would want to eat me

I do understand OP, it does sometimes feel like we are teetering on the precipice and that the world is in an utter state atm. But twas always thus.