Really quite concerned about energy blackouts.

[User63683783736363]

Anyone else? If they actually happen. Hopefully it's just the media scaring us, I try and stay away from the news.

before anyone tells me in being hysterical, please hear me out. I know that all of us are in the same boat but..

I have two dc, both with sen. No power would be hell on Earth if it's the evenings. We had a power cut last night due to bad weather, it was stressful. They need routine. DS is petrified of the dark. We have torches and candles but it's still not ideal.

as well as this I'm concerned about how cut off we will be. Live in the middle of nowhere, don't get phone signal indoors at home so we rely heavily on the internet, wi-fi calling and even now our landline is plugged into our router after having a letter from BT to tell us to do so, so it's not like we can even use an old wired landline.

would mobile phone masts go out in a blackout? Sorry if I sound clueless , we don't get indoor signal but do get outdoor - but I can't sit outside for hours just in case someone needs to contact us.

I have two vulnerable relatives and worried they won't be able to get through for whatever reason!

again, sorry if sound ott. I wasn't too worried but after our power cut last evening for several hours, it got me worried.

Having survived the rolling blackouts in the '70's and more recently the 30 hours of blackout thanks to Storm Arwen, I'm inclined to say "just keep calm and carry on". Ensure you have torches and the odd battery powered light and you will be fine.

Put your postcode into the section where it says find your network operator. Then when it brings up your operator details, scroll down.

I'm sure they won't be for 7 days if they happen but I understand your concerns. As others have said, charge up some power banks. I'd speak to your vulnerable relatives and make sure they have a 2nd emergency contact if they can't get hold of you. For your children, maybe you could prepare by introducing a 'relaxation hour' where you light candles, turn off devices and maybe have a go at board games, paper games like noughts and crosses etc just to get them used to the conditions. You could start every other day and maybe just do it for 30 mins. That way if there is a blackout you can just say 'oh well, let's just have relaxation hour.

I seem to recall that they were around 9 or 10 pm so we just went to bed.

Can you get a landline?

Ours seemed to be early evening but we survived !

The government ought to take this opportunity to give the U.K. population proper emergency planning guidance. Many other countries do this routinely. The scandis for snow, here in Portugal we are advised to have supplies in case of earthquakes. I have 10 litres of bottled water, tinned food, camping stove, dog food, torches, battery packs, wind up radio etc.

basic preparedness should be standard advice, then there wouldn’t be such chaos when e.g. it snows.

There is a thread about this on the peppers board. I'm buying a few bits every month just in case as they are handy to have anyway.

Usb changed torches under £4:on ebay
spare power banks
Batteries from poundland
Head torches
camping led lights

I'm going to invest in a few batery lightbulbs and some of the sensor lights for stairs etc next. If you just buy a few each month then you will be ready by Jan just in case.

I really don't understand the charts.
Are they saying that sometimes people's energy will be off in the daytime? I thought that they were only going to be off between 4-7?

It might sound silly but I'm worried about the burglar alarm. When the power has tripped in the past it's gonr off when power has come back on. Fine if I'm at home to reset it but if I'm at work it could be going off for hours. Not sure if that's going to play out everywhere or if it's a peculiarity of ours I need looking at?

I am confused too

Yes. Peoples will be off at different times. You have to k is what letter you are zoned in then it all becomes clear.

Oh yeah. First thing my mother did getting home from work was make sure the oil lamps were full, candles and matches were handy and hot water bottles filled and placed in beds so at least we crawled into a warm bed a bit later.

Mine says this
Does this mean I'm zone B?

@Era do you have the actual link to that list of black out times? I can't seem to read the screenshots that clearly. Thanks 😊

Do you have a link to this?
I can't read it on my phone

I don't think it will happen. Imagine parents who have really sick kids at home and special medical equipment, machines, etc. That would be insane.

Yes, B. So then you just look at B across the chart.

Hang on I'll post the link. Yes in that example above it is zone B. This is the letter shown on the left hand side of the rota.

Link coming

Not panicking. I have a child. We will have to learn to cope. I think the drip feeding that’s been happening over the past few weeks is to get us ready.

We too are middle of nowhere and often get power outages for one reason or another.
I think you can plan a bit to reduce risks and impact. Get battery lanterns instead of torches- or camping gas ones if you've somewhere safe to put them.
If you've electric heating get sleeping bags for the sitting room in case it gets cold. Or use a log burner, if you have one.
Get a camping gas cooker and easy to heat up meals ready to warm through. Tins are not haute cuisine but quite useful- soups, beans, chilli or curry, chicken in sauce. Have pot noodles at worst.
You'll survive without Internet. Get a few unread books, a few comics, a couple of board games.

OP, writing threads like this isn’t going to help because they are a scaremongerer’s s dream.

The national grid have said that blackouts are extremely unlikely and will be an absolute last resort.

Aside from which, disaster planning has to happen, so when it does the media are practically orgasmic at the idea of saying we’re planning for blackouts.

It’s incredibly unlikely. And people need to stop scaremongering, and that needs to start with the media.

I'm not sure it's totally comparable with the 70s. For a start the move away from the old style wired phones will cut some people off, plus I'd guess there is much more sensitive equipment people may rely on now. In addition things like the higher prevalence of burglar alarms etc going off (if mine is anything to go by as above) and causing a nuisance. Hopefully I'm wrong though.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/995049/esec-guidance.pdf

scroll through to page 18 for the chart and then it gives the rotas. There are 18 levels of blackout. We are currently at level 0 - full supply. level 18 is full constant blackout. Each zone has blackouts at different times of the day according to the day. You will find you're either a beginning of the week zone or an end of the week zone.

It will happen if we run out of energy. This is more likely to happen than ever before since the 70s due to world circumstances and the lack of gas storage in this country.