To stockpile 72 hours of supplies

I think people are confused as to why 72 hours is quoted. It's a short enough time that people could afford to have that amount of supplies. It's long enough that the government could get water and supplies to you if they choose to do so.

If things get bad, quite a few squirrels visit my garden.

'Lovely bit of squirrel' might become a reality.

How does one go about catching a squirrel though?

My brother and his family was on holidays in spain last year when there was major flooding, they were staying in a village up a mountain, the flooding didn't actually really hit their area, (he said they had a slight bit of rain one day) and local radio and hire car company had warned them not to drive on a certain day, but below them in lower land areas there was a lot of flooding, however their power and surrounding village's power lines were all wiped out, water was contaminated, there were bodies in flood drains your not drinking from taps after that even if it looked clear, and it was out for more than 3 days , there was no internet, wifi and pretty well no banking , there was water brought into the area by army, some people were airlifted out, but it was couple of miles away to get the water tanks- roads were mostly impassable, but luckily local farmers could get some vehicles through to water, he said the one thing they were not short of was food, everyone was lighting fires and bbq and cooking everything fresh and just handing it out , some businesses couldn't get staff in or out and they were scrabbling around locally trying to find beds mattresses etc - kids thought it was brilliant cornflakes with fanta for breakfast , time off school as they couldn't get to airport, and when they wanted an ice cream the shop owner just gave them the whole 3 litre tub , but they didn't have candles for days as the shops and restaurants gave out what they had but there was no restocking

I live alone so could start eating myself in a pinch 😊I've enough for a few days and a good few tins of things.

I don't stockpile, but if advised by Gov to do so I will, otherwise no.

I confess to having a spare month's supply of my vital medication, without which I'd get unwell very very quickly. I got a private prescription when away for a break and used that up so I have a month's in hand from my usual script.

One of the highest impact things which could happen would be a failure of the electricity network. The National Risk Register says a reasonable worst case scenario for that would be a week without power but since out sewage and water purification systems rely on electricity those would also go down. It doesn't need to be a major nuclear crisis for a few days without water to be feasible: National Risk Register 2025 - GOV.UK

@DazzlingCuckoos or if you have a bbq get some charcoal

My store cupboard and freezer are always full. It's not stockpiling, but something my mother always did, prior to online ordering and home delivery becoming a thing, and I just followed her example 'just in case'. If something unforeseen happens, then we have always got enough in store to feed us for at least a week. Old habits die hard.

At the moment that’s me. I have in my fridge a yoghurt a can of cherry sugar free tango. Some milk and 2 slices left of a loaf. I do however have enough toilet roll for about 8 weeks 😂

thiswilloutme
You may need to scrape off the top layer of grey stuff when you open the jar.......speaking from childhood trauma experience

I've got my jars of home made Jam and chutney circa 2011 - labels now well faded so every meal would be a surprise......

I usually have a more than a few days worth of food in the house.
However, a relative was without power for 4 days last year shortly before christmas due to bad weather.
I know I have a torch on the phone but I have insisted we keep a torch in a specific place in case of any outage.
Of course, this does not imply shops are without power etc.

It's a family joke that I have diligently stocked first, a Brexit Cupboard, which then became a Covid Cupboard, and has now been repurposed as a Putin Pantry. It contains a lot of pasta, pesto (all now approx 2 yrs past their sell-by date), teabags and chocolate oranges. All the essentials.

But then I grew up next to the sort of facility that, were it bombed by enemy forces, you'd want to be dead asap, and not worrying about sourcing olive oil.

<eyes up the rather large Koi in the fishpond>

Dang.
DS (uni break) audited my food cupboards last week, foolishly discarded out of date treasure in a Disgusted of Bristol manner.
Triumph was 2008 something and 2013 something else, he binned them.
We may regret that youthful foolishness.

If a big enough national/international disaster happened that required everyone to hole up, I don't think 3 days is going to be enough!

I have often thought about getting a little camping stove as we're all electric for our cooking, so it could be helpful in a power cut anyway.

72 hours without teabags could turn me quite nasty to be fair

Don't worry ladies I have at least a year's supply & am willing to share. I'm incapable of speech in the mornings until I've had at least 3 mugs of tea & need regular top-ups in order to keep functioning. 😂

Easily have 3 days worth of food in but if the power goes off that would be a problem.
Trying to cook everything from the freezer before it goes off on a camping stove would be a challenge

Oh ok, that makes sense. I'd still drink it in an emergency though. Or even just if I'm a bit thirsty.

Water has bb date. I ghink eventually plastic degrades and you may get microplastics in the water or it won’t taste as good. It’d probably be fine for ages though.

I'm in Devon so plenty of fresh water, mushrooms to forage, and apparently wild boar on dartmoor so we're all set. Dd is obsessed with bugs so we have lots of woodlice, beetles, millipedes and the like so plenty to snack on if necessary.

We also live in a rather unsavoury part of Devon so there will likely be a crackhead or two roaming around hawking steaks, washing powder and Gillette razors.

If Vlad decides to attack us, you won’t need three days of supplies, as he’ll pop a few nukes over to us and we’ll be dead.

Thats a pleasant thought for a Thursday afternoon.

Wait... water goes off??