To stockpile 72 hours of supplies

Well the plan for the country works on zones. If we don’t have enough power there is a published system for rolling blackouts. Each area has a blackout period for a set time. You can look up your zone online. So actually having solar chargers is very sensible. Obviously if there is none at all it doesn’t help but if there were shortages of electricity eg due to a low gas supply, then rolling blackouts would come first

I had a 5 day power cut once and that impressed on me the importance of storing water. Luckily I predicted the power cut because we already had some shorter ones and the weather was getting worse so I filled a massive bucket full of water which provided for our water needs those 5 days, though it was unpleasant.

Nowadays I always keep a stock of food and bottled water and I have a couple of big empty water cannisters that I can fill up at the natural spring I drive past every day going to work. It is very nice spring water, I really ought to get some just for drinking now!

Daft really. If there's no power, the mobile data system won't be working either, beyond a few hours of battery back up systems!

When our city's power was lost in Storm Desmond, the mobile network didn't work either until they got diesel generators placed around the town to restore some kind of power to the grid, which took 2/3 days and wasn't reliable as the diesel kept running out!

Great to see where his priorities lie 😜

Im happy with my restock. It’s all in working order and in date and stored away now.

DS1 (20) went to the shop today and came back with a solar charger for his phone and a solar battery charger saying that you never know what will happen at the moment. Even the Optimistic youth seem concerned.

Or it could be store specific. Or it might have been a very temporary blip.
That poster couldn't possibly know.

My point was simply that it affects everyone so we should all be more aware.

@marsaline ! that is for @OneTC to decide -

this depletion could very well be ‘region specific’ with distribution centres
strategically placed -
eg we are on the cusp of 3 counties, one County’s supermarkets are
invariably better stocked than closer ones.

There is no need to say since the advice is for all of us, it isn't region specific.

You don't need to rush out and spend hundreds of pounds, just gradually over the next few weeks build up more resilience, starting with the most important things first.

Water and food are the most important. You can start this for literally zero cost.

Fill any flasks, water bottles and used plastic milk bottles with water and put them in your fridge. - done. You suddenly have a small stash of drinking water.

I know Im harping on about water butts but they really are a good way to store water (and replenish the stock). You frequently see them for about a fiver on Facebook marketplace and some councils subsidise them too (although they are only about £30 full price). I now have four linked together at the back of my garage. They hold 210 litres each so thats 840 litres of water sitting there. So even if it didn't rain at all (unlikely) then that is 280 days worth of drinking water (3 litres a day) or for a family of four that is 70 days of drinking water.

For one water butt at 210 litres that would last a family of four about two and a half weeks.

Obviously nobody wants to drink the water from their garden water butt unless they really have to!

where is this? can you say, region perhaps? I noticed tinned fish was in short supply, from sardines to salmon

You'll have to go to iPlayer and look. As far as I can recall, the inside of the crisp packets is silver and shiny. You turn the packet inside out and presumably put it on top of the water.

It might only be salt and vinegar packets.

When I get a chance I shall have another look.

At last! A sensible mother's day post!

Mother’s Day today so I’ve forced the kids to help me fit another water butt and dig out a raspberry patch.

How does that work?

Interestingly, this past week on TV I watched a programme - QI I think, where a walkers crisp packet came up. If you turn the crisp bag inside out, it has a metallic lining. One of the uses was to put then in a water butt and it cleans all the insects etc. from the water.

Also shake it to reoxygenate it

You’d want to filter it ideally to get rid of any particles floating in it (you can use tights) but yes you can use purification tablets or a few drops of bleach (quantities in link up thread))

I have a water butt. Could I just use water purification tablets with the rainwater?

I always have enough food to do two weeks ( would be weird combinations) because I'm semi rural and have a disabled child.

I also have 30l of bottled water because when our water was cut off, people was queuing for hours until 30 hours in, then it calmed down.

I don't want to rely on someone else saving us in a squeeze as no one helped during covid and I needed specific things for disabled ds.

I did hear there was a version with adhesive on one side, to stick to clothing, for athletes, but I have not seen any for sale on the internet.

Definitely have at least 72 hours worth of relatively fresh food. But I have an entire freezer filled with 3 pigs (obviously if power went we’d have to eat through it all anyway). We have big water containers and water purification tablets (not because we’re preppers but we do a lot of wild camping).

Dh has a few rifles, so in theory, we could take out a few pigeons and rabbits, a pheasant or two. We can fish. If the end times came and push really came to shove, I’ve got 10 chickens I could slowly work my way through. I wouldn’t eat the dog though, and frankly, she’s all fur and bone so I don’t think she’d make a good meal. 😂

I used to live abroad in a place prone to natural disasters. I had to take an earthquake preparedness course for my job. One thing they taught us which always stuck with me was to keep cash in the house. People tend to panic about a month’s worth of tinned potatoes, but a more likely occurrence would be electricity going out, internet/mobile towers going down, and no access to global banking systems so people might need to rely on cash. I don’t tend to be someone who ever has cash, I don’t buy into the paranoia about a cashless society, but thinking about it now, it’s probably sensible to have a small stash that could keep you going for a few days of essentials.

Mine all smell and taste of canteen curry. I should probably spend a lot more on them but, then again, it won't matter if they're my only veg option.

I had a Tesco delivery half an hour ago and they had no sterilising tabs left of the Fred'n Flo variety and the send Milton fluid instead, at the same cost to me.

Perhaps people are stocking up on them too.

Temu have tiny compressed cloths which swell up when put in water. 50 takes up a very little space. You only use them once, but you would anyway, because washing would take a lot of water you won't have.

Dried veggies take up less room.