We need to have enough tinned food and bottled water to be self sufficient for three days

[CruCru]

There’s a thing in the Times about the Prepare campaign - people need to be prepared for risks like localised flooding, another pandemic, a mass cyberattack which cuts off the internet, disruption to UK space systems that affect GPS signals, conflict and nuclear attack.

I must admit that my first thought was that there are countries in the West Indies who have these sorts of rules - mainly in case of hurricanes. It probably would be useful to have bottled water if we had flooding and the mains water would be turned off. Am a bit horrified by the mention of nuclear war but perhaps this has been overly highlighted by the Times.

Have you seen this? What do you think?

This is my worry. 😬

I placed an order Tuesday, to include 4x2ltr BOTTLED WATER
Sainsbury own, due for delivery tomorrow morning but
now unavailable.

and those saying they've got water purification tablets, these won't be much use in purifying your local stream water if we've had a nuclear explosion. The water will be lethal.

Oh dear…won’t be looking forward to surviving on the stuff from the bottom of the freezer and back of the cupboard.
If it’s a theoretical nuclear attack, well I’m old enough to remember the Cold War. We live near to a facility that’d be one of the first targets, i can remember asking my dad what we’d do if it was bombed - get in the car and drive as close as we can get wasn’t particularly comforting as a child, but would probably be for the best!

@Natsku I completely agree with being calmly prepared but do you have the Daily Fail newspaper trying to convince the public you are only in safe hands with the Tory government who have royally fucked up the privatism of water and energy companies? Did your country come to blows over toilet roll in the pandemic?

We have a nice community and this house us on higher ground, so assuming gravity will still be working in the case of flooding say a few households would come here with the contents of their fridges and wine supplies and we would take it from there together.

So I refuse to worry about this and am looking forward to a sunny long weekend and half term. But will check out the water aisle in a bit because I bet it's empty by now.

Very few on here are offering any practical advise to anyone who might be frightened because of this irresponsible nonsense just humble bragging about how ok they actually would be with survival kits.

This is what announcements in the UK do, bring out the braggers and the terrified. It's an awful mix. Obviously different where you are.

See!

So predictable (not your ordering the unavailablity)

I used to travel on merchant navy ships with my late husband, so my go bag habit stems from there. Almost everybody at sea then kept one (no idea if they do now) In case of having to abandon ship. over 15 ish years we got to the standby to abandon point 3 times....but more to the point, I too live on a hill. Several years ago we had an electrical emergency due to a buried mains cable fracturing. Our whole (small) group of houses were told to turn off our power at the mains, not touch anything electrical and prepare to evacuate if told to....so its not just floods. Like other folk on here, I have lived in areas where winter power cuts and being snowed in were not unusual. It was commonplace to keep emergency stocks in and to share with neighbours.

what advice would you like to have offered?

We have tabloids that rant and rave of course, though how much they rant and rave I don't know because I don't read them. I remember there was some issues with stockpiling during covid (hamstering, as it was adorably called) but nothing on the level of the UK, probably because people are more used to being prepared here, especially outside of the big cities.

But the culture of being prepared is big here, as we have the worst neighbour to the East, and extreme winters with vulnerable power lines in the rural areas (more and more power lines are being put underground now though - where I live now I never need to worry about falling trees or heavy snow causing a power cut as the lines are completely underground between my house and the power station).

That culture can be built up in the UK, it used to have that culture, it can have it again. The same with the culture of looking out for each other, that's still there but needs strengthening. It can be done, but not by ignoring or dismissing warnings and advice, but by doing what you can do yourself, and seeing what you can do for others. For instance in your situation, you see what you can offer (higher ground) and neighbours can offer something else (extra supplies) and all work together. Just need more of that everywhere.

Because whatever happens, the Tories will be out of power so any fuck-ups in dealing with whatever disaster it is - maybe the next pandemic leaked from a Chinese lab - will not be their fault. They will be able to sit back and chortle as Labour gets jeered at for screwing up, as they inevitably will, if it’s Unknown Territory again, as COVID was at first.

Part of my job role is around resilience and preparedness and @Natsku post is one of the best posts I've read on Mumsnet in a very long time.

The UK is way behind other countries in terms of the level of self sufficiency we are able to muster in the event of an incident. We have a level of expectation that there will still be access to emergency services and that help would only be minutes away and in many scenarios, this just wouldn't be the case. Especially any scenario that involves a loss of power as the knock on effects of that are vast.

If you were considering having some supplies in, also think about a battery powered AM/FM radio and advance tune it to radio 2 or radio 4. In the event of a loss of power there would be no dab radio, no text messaging and no tv but radio 2/4 would broadcast emergency messages via analogue network.

"Would you help anyone else less fortunate?"

I would be focusing primarily on my own family, as I've got two sisters, 3 nephews, two sets of parents, 4 adult children and 4 grand children. I'm always the one that is the most prepared in any situation. But I am also the person that will step in ( often the only person) if I see somebody being taken advantage of, intimidated or threatened.

But of course I would try to help some people I am just naturally organised and part of my mental health issues is worrying about the unexpected so I've got a variety of "zombie apocalypse" plans for my own peace of mind. But you also need to remember that the vast majority of people in early January as Covid started said that the uk schools would NEVER close and that furlough would NEVER happen and the shops would NEVER run out. Where as I already had my stock cupboard full and I didn't run short of a single thing in Covid when supplies where short as I already had my stuff. So that left my typical daily purchasing still on the shelves for others to use.

@frozendaisy - exactly - from Sainsbury Aylesbury, ten miles away,
the nearest large store for deliveries, I bet there were boot loads of water
driven away yesterday, now hope their reordering ‘system’ can be adjusted
pdq.
We have a water filter jug which will be useless if our water supply is cut off
as it was 2 summers ago, without warning when a mains pipe burst.
Thames Water is our supplier

I’m just thinking… of so many! rude, mocking, insolent remarks from people
on discovering we have bottled water, of the ‘tap water not good enough for you’
‘more money than sense’ commenters, now wondering whether they are the customers with capacious boots (trunks)

The DM is totally irresponsible, but then we have always known this.

Bollocks.
The state trying to exert their control again.
In Prague, they doing it by trying to price Czech people out of living there.
😂

I believe everyone should have plans in place and supplies for a number of situations. Obviously war, civil unrest and anything nuclear is difficult to prepare for but the most likely interruptions to normal life like illness, loss of electricity/water supplies, extreme weather and flooding, fire...etc are easy to plan and prepare for.

I have lists with plans and supplies for the situations above in my phone, for example a power cut, we have a box in the cupboard which contains battery packs, batteries, cables, torches, candles, lighters, matches, a gas stove and gas bottles, we also have battery powered fairy lights in almost every room of the house anyway so if the power goes out it's just a case of turning them on.

I think it's sensible to be ready for just about everything, especially if you have a family to protect, I know that even without electricity and water, I can cook my kids dinner and keep them fed, warm and hydrated plus if we have a severe storm I can keep them safe and protect our property.

Just fewer "I'm alright jack" and perhaps calmly reassuring some who may be more sensitive to these sorts of announcements that getting a tin or two and keeping a bit of water in is a good idea but not to worry too much.

But no that's not what you get.

There's nothing to worry about. Right now today there is nothing out of the ordinary to change your behaviour for in the UK.

Yet I am expecting bottled water to be sold out on this Thursday morning because of irresponsible reporting and reactions and god knows what else. But there we go.

It's the communities in the UK which are woefully underprepared for a disaster. People are selfish and reactionary and no amount of tinned tuna is going to change that.

So advice I don't know, "don't be a dick"

We have the smallest homes in Europe. Where the fuck is all this stuff meant to go?? I have no bloody room for a week's worth of water and tinned food.

We've got a teenager who needs to revise and "what's the point the world is heading for disaster" is the last thing we fucking need.

But that's our problem no one else's. Luckily they don't react to news articles that have no substance.

You can see how these things snowball.

Whatever the government's motivation for announcing this now it's good advice. And as others have said it's standard advice in other countries.

Also, some countries keep strategic food reserves. Germany has a stockpile of things like beans and milk powder to feed its people in an emergency. The UK does not. The UK government keeps strategic oil reserves to last 90 days but no food supplies. The UK used to (years ago) but a government department confirmed to a journalist in 2020 that they think our food supply chains are strong enough. Basically they're leaving it up to the supermarkets to keep us all fed in a crisis.

That may have changed since Covid and the government may have been secretly squirrelling away baked beans for the nation but I don't want to rely on it.

Like some other PPs we live rurally. We have regular power cuts (no gas here) and have also been without water for days. We built up an emergency 'larder' over months by buying a couple of extra items each week and we've been grateful for it so many times when one of us has been ill, there's yet another storm or we just don't want to slog miles to the shops.

It doesn't mean we think some national disaster is imminent but if a sudden emergency did happen we'd be able to hunker down for a while and not add to the chaos. But it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to plan for that when I was living in a city with a supermarket down the road. So whatever their reason for it I'm glad the government has highlighted it.

I think people were probably thinking for something less drastic like a burst main not nuclear war

Finally my family won't think I am crazy for prepping😁

Voldemort and the Nosferatus

I live in the country and pump water with electricity, so I always have a stock of emergency rations. As it happens I am currently clearing elderly stuff - I was looking through a remote cupboard and found that a sequence of (I deduce) something puncturing a passata box, resulting in rusting out the bottom of a can of tomatoes, followed by more rusting of other cans . . . you get the horrid picture - had rendered some of my Covid stock fit only for the bin.

And then didn't close the freezer quite tightly enough - it didn't warm up, but did get frosty, so that will need emptying and defrosting.

So lots of store cupboards meals for me this summer.

I wonder are 'they' really worried about a war, or is it about the recent very big aurora-inducing solar flares? A Carrington event sized flare would make quite a mess of our electrical systems, and the sun is being a bit lively.

If that happens then we’re dead. But it’s highly unlikely and water purification tablets are therefore very useful.

why is everyone so fixated on nuclear war? The issues most likely to be faced are floods, power cuts, loss of water, failing harvests, drought… all of which require sensible people to take a modicum of responsibility for themselves and their families.

I’m just off to Tescos. It will be interesting to see if panic has set in.
I may stock up on bread making flour and yeast.

The sudden election announcement does make me suspicious that the Tories want out before whatever shit is going to happen starts.