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 reckon the best thing to do for fresh stuff may be to keep some seeds for sprouting and a few empty jars. They'll have a shelf life of a couple of years.

Bags of nuts store well and can be rotated if you normally use them.

Also I'd like a ginger cat too please. We have an ample supply of mice, frogs and seagulls in the garden so I don't reckon we need concern ourselves with extra catfood supplies.

better to get some multivitamins and high fibre canned or dried food. sproutable seeds don't give you much in terms of bulk in for the cost and the faff....also its not instantly available. Nice for a treat but not as practical.

I've prepper tendencies and keep a stock of cous cous (in a box labeled Zombie Apocalypse) which is the ultimate prepper food as it takes little to cook. I reckon after 3 days of eating it though, my family and I will pray for death 🙏😂

I have always rather mocked my husband for being a wannabe prepper, but now I see that maybe he is onto something. We have our own private water supply but also keep a few 5l things of water in the garage in case of long power cuts (the borehole pump runs off the mains electric). Husband has a little stock of ratpacks, tins, matches, gas for the camping stoves, candles, and probably other useful things. We have hens for eggs, sheep for lamb, and grow vegetables, but I draw the line at eating the horses and dogs! We get loo roll in boxes of 48 so depending where we are with deliveries it would be a while before we would need to wipe our bottoms with leaves. I might start my own prepping, which includes chocolate and gin rather than the boring rations DH has in his stash….

3 days sounds about right for localised issues such as flooding or sewage in the water.

But let's face it, if you can't access any national emergency services for more than 3 days - Do you still want to be alive?

Because that would be a nuclear bomb and radiation, or a super volcano exploding and dust shutting out sunlight for 3 years and all vegetation dying or a general mass extinction event.

And then neighbours would turn on neighbours to get food and survive. Or reisgn themselves to die.

And the likely groups to dominate scarce resources are military-trained or estate yobs - people who are able to control with violence and fear.

You could travel to a remote location - but what food and shelter opportunities would you have?

If you want to survive, make sure you have a valued trained skill, that makes you an asset and not a surplus to requirements when food is rationed. Make sure you have no health issues or medication requirements. And make sure you know the nearest likely groups with fire power who will value you as an asset.

Sounds like most of us are too busy to shop daily and are well-stocked with all the delights of the tinned or frozen variety. Well done everyone, the advice clearly comes from someone out of touch or looking for a soft landing on the board of Iceland Foods...

What kind of disaster gets fixed in 3 days anyway?

The prepare campaign has been around for absolutely years. I remember it from primary school - 20 years ago!
Lots of tin hat wearers will have a field day with this one

With the recent water episode in Devon there were many people that couldn't get to the water points for one reason or another meaning others had to fetch their water for them or they would have been without, if they had already got a stash of water in it would have been better for them

It’s project fear! Ridiculous tactics to encourage people to vote for them as the ‘safe’ party.

Wasn't all they had to do was boil the water?

(appalling though that was)

😂I went through my tin cupboard last week - 3 days? With the cupboard and the (2) freezers we could probably do 3 months!😁

A similar thing happened here last november. The treatment works got contaminated when a nearby river overflowed and the water supply was cut off competely with no warning. Bottled water collection points were set up but were overwhelmed and kept running out. Water was supposed to be delivered to certain residents on their vulnerable register but it was very hit and miss. Apologies for repeating what I have said before on this thread. I had a little stashed and got some delivered from Amazon and shared it and had full water butts to flush and wash with. Its fine saying "just boil the water" but that assumes that there is some to boil!

There were people on the TV saying they couldn't get water, I think they didn't trust it being boiled so others were getting it for them.

Our water was once cut off for three days due to a burst water main. It was really really hard and made me think about how much we take for granted. Bottles water was given out but no showers, not being able to flush the toilet etc was horrendous.
Likewise the heating going off for one day in the depth of winter . We had no other source of heating and it was absolutely bone chillingly cold quite quickly.

I thought about this. I’m sure Rishi hinted the GE would be in the autumn now after this Prepare thing he’s bought it forward to ASAP basically. He’s always said he wouldn’t be a war prime minister. Almost like he knows something’s coming

You can buy a cheapy Chinese made generator that will be enough to keep your freezer/fridge running. Please don’t think you need to run it 24/7. Just for a couple of hours each day as long as no one keeps opening and shutting doors.

I have been ranting about this for ages - it honestly makes me think this country is being run by quarterwits! We still have our landline (for now) - along with a lovely old working phone dating from the 1970s! I will be so sorry to see it go, as the old copper landlines are ripped out. Getting rid of this incredible analogue network is ridiculously short-sighted.

Surely you don't think the UK is the only place where they are getting rid of their analogue networks?

Don't worry, they are just scaremongering to win the election. Convenient they are saying all this now right?

Scaremongering and conspiracy theories aside, doesn't it just make sense to aim to be able to cope without assistance in the event of an emergency?

This would mean that the services that are available, and lets face it they are overstretched in normal times, would be able to concentrate limited resources on the most vulnerable.

Asking the able bodied, and financially secure, to be prepared to look after themselves for a few days if something goes wrong, doesn't seem too outrageous to me.

not only are we not the only, we are not the first. Japan, The Netherlands, Germany and Sweden are ahead of us.....NOBA other countries also have declining use of the landline network.

@Nellieinthebarn of course it does. Some people just like to avoid responsibility. Because after having been told to prepare a bit you can’t later just blame everything on the government.

And I suspect that is a scary thought for many. For those people it is easier to turn a blind eye completely, joke about it, or call people who neither are panicking nor over buying loo rolls but are making sure they can provide for their family for a week or two in case something happens that they are nuts.

This absolutely and if the able bodied and financially secure can do a bit of sharing as well then so much the better. If you think about it, its not the preppers who cause runs on supermarkets and empty shelves because our stash is already bought and stored.

Exactly @godmum56. We routinely have stocks of essentials in because we buy in bulk to save money.

Which means we could avoid the shops during the worst of the beginning of COVID and just get fresh essentials at quiet times at the beginning of COVID when most other people were losing their minds over the lack of bog roll and flour.

It doesn't take up that much space and is far cheaper in the long run so to me it seems insane to buy one tin of beans a week if you're one of the majority who are able to instead of a 4 pack each month for example.