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?

I’m not sure what use a list of emergency contacts would be @Gunnersforthecup if the phone networks and power is out. Am I missing something?

wake up people

the government trying to tell you basic survival skills as if they're heroes

ha ha ha

wake up

What do we need to wake up to?
I feel like your message has some big deeper meaning that I'm not understanding.

I didn’t compile the list. However, if the electricity went out but the mobile phone battery was still working, a list of numbers would be very useful.

I can imagine a scenario in which my phone was dead, but my teenager had a charged phone,in which case we could get help via his phone, for instance?

The meaning to my post is how on earth have human beings got to the point where they actually listen to a group of people they're persistently berating... slag the government off then start doing what they say.

Where have basic human instincts gone? So much that we need to be told to have contingency plans for ourselves and families

It is called brainwashing. i'm not talking about everyone on this thread. It's the complete control they're trying to have on us ...that's why i am saying wake up ...trying not to sound like a lunatic

If the power is out nationally then the phone masts won't be working

It won't be the government that have made these preparedness plans and item lists, it'll be experts who are paid to figure this sort of thing out.

I have been in a situation in which we had a power outage locally but could call for help on a mobile.

I suspect that in some situations this would not work, but in some situations it might and could be useful.

So it might be worth having this checklist.

which, as I said, I did not compile myself. So there’s not much point asking me more about it

I do think it's wise to keep some cash, but most of the shops around here can't operate when banks and networks are down, so don't know if they'd be able to sell anything anyway

Maybe we should get a walkie talkie and learn morse code.
Or semaphore.
Or smoke signals

Which working phone masts would you use?

I see a whistle is on the list, does everyone know the international distress signal and how to respond

See my post of 19:29

When we lived in England in the 1960s my mother was a scientific intelligence officer in the Civil Defence (had her own Geiger counter!). They were told one of the most calorie-dense foods to stock in case of emergency were Mars bars, and that dessicated coconut was good because the body could process it without needing extra water. I have no idea whether that seems like sound advice nearly 60 years on.

Project eat the contents of the freezer here has gone okay this week - today's lucky dip was chicken with leeks, mushrooms, and Dijon mustard, cooked a couple of months back, zapped in the microwave with a little parmesan from a nearly but not quite empty bag. Next week will be about sausagemeat.

I’m old & was a teenager during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
This is what we were told to do
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/cold-war-on-file/civil-defence-advice/

Oh that is really interesting @Darklane, thanks. Comparing it to our booklet. What did your parents think of it at the time?

Well, that's a relief! I'll be alright, I've got a pair of wellies and a big coat that does up to the neck.

The thing is, I heard loads of that as 'mummy talk', and never had the horrors and dread about nuclear war that some of contemporaries suffered from. No idea was that a lack of imagination on my part, or exaggerated trust in my poor mother's ability to protect me.

But maybe her and my lifelong habit of always being slightly prepared for emergencies comes from that.

We started on sausagemeat today. Pasta sallad with all the leftover vegetables in the fridge. Tasty actually. 😃

Yes same here, I was 10 years old and don't remember any of it. Its absolutely conceivable that my parents hid the scarey stuff from me and downplayed what they couldn't hide. i know that my parents preparedness habits stemmed from the war.

Honestly, I think this is mainly to cover people if there is more flooding. It was a bit of a horrorshow last Autumn.

In fairness, my water got cut off for about five hours last month. It wasn’t a disaster (it got fixed quickly) but having bottled water would have been sensible. We went out for the day in the end.

@Gunnersforthecup I know you didn’t compile the list. It was an idly curious question not a personal attack!

good point that other phones may have power.

Just popping in over here to gather hints and tips in a calm and rational manner lol.

Started a thread in AIBU because the FT article showed up at the top of my Google feed and someone linked to this one. Other comments were typically "Oh FFS it's just scaremongering by the media" but seeing the FT running an article made my little cynical ears prick up.

Have RTFT now and it's very interesting so thanks 😊 A PP did a great "middle ground" analysis of preparedness which I appreciated.

So as we live in strange and interesting times I will be doing a little "prepping", cat food being a priority of course.

Ironically I am in the process of moving house and downsizing quite radically (lonely old widow with cat is my new incarnation apparently) and I made a point of putting together a box from my kitchen that I labelled "Mistresses Prepper Box LoL" ( because amusing and cryptic Box labels make moving so much more fun I find). I did this a month ago so it was a bit 😳 to see the articles etc pop up today.

Ah well, what will be will be, and I also have my late DPs decorative sword collection (about 30) if TS really HTF. We used to joke about zombie apocalypse. He'll be gutted if we have one and he's missed it, bless him.

Yes yes I'm a bit frazzled so apologies for what is essentially a rambling placemark 😬😅

I wish you a happy removal. Until they died I was old widow with two dogs.

if there is a nuclear explosion, clean water is going to be the absolute least of our problems and that has already been said too.