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. Imagine the emphasis is on water, after then Devon outbreak, but they don’t dare be so explicit as to raise the issue of our contaminated waters now they have announced the General Election date. Throwing nuclear war in there is to distract from the state of our waterways and food supply chain (i.e our reliance on other countries as we use our farm land for Net Zero bollocks).

The chocolate gets you a pass bring a beaker!

With diaster what you need is company 😃

I guess I could work through the large stack of Jimmy's iced coffee and mocha I buy in bulk because it's cheaper, between that and the Pepsi Max, I will be set, DH will probably find a puddle and use his Lifestraw as he likes things not too easy.

Lets consider the possible emergencies. Massive power outage for instance. You can't tell people to call this number because phones won't work as there won't be any power to operate the phone networks.
Or how about a flood? How are people going to get to a meeting point if they can't leave their homes? Do you think the government should send boats to every house? That would be unworkable, unaffordable, and a ridiculous waste of resources which should be reserved for people in flood zones having medical emergencies for instance.

Proper governing is ensuring the population has the best chance during an emergency, and that means being able to take care of themselves for a few days while further assistance can be organised, or the grid can be re-energised, or flood waters can subside.

I wish I hadn’t seen this thread.

I have extreme anxiety and have been terrified about nuclear war or some other big disaster happening for months now. I’ve actually had to get professional help just to deal with the anxiety of this happening.

The bit that really got to me was a pp mentioning the medication issues if the chemist couldn’t dispense meds, I’d never even considered this before.

I have lots of supplies of food and candles, charged power banks and we have our own water supply from a stream, not sure if that would be any good.

I can’t see any reason to suddenly announce this now unless the government are expecting something to happen. If anyone can reassure me I’d appreciate it, I notice from other comments I’m not the only person who is feeling unsettled by this.

I've got quite a few tins in my cupboards normally anyway. I also have a cupboard full of pasta and rice, a freezer full of food plus 2 camping stoves and gas canisters - came in useful after a major storm put our power out for 4 days.
My immediate thought when hearing this announcement/idea was that there are many people in this country who don't know how they're going to eat today/tomorrow, let alone be stocking up 3 days' supply they're to store just in case!

The UK isn’t even at the stage of having a plan, let alone a booklet!

In a catastrophic event I’m getting in the XC40, typing ‘HOME’ in the cars nav system and heading over to Sweden! 😊

My Nan always had about a weeks worth of tinned foods,tinned milk and some loo rolls in.This was the 60s in London! She got ribbed but when we were snowed in she had the last laugh.I usually have a good few tins in anyway .Maybe I will get some bottled water .

Flood - weather forecast warn us fill bottles at the time move people beforehand

Power out - check on vulnerable around you, blankets, people with wood burners, camping stoves cook for others

If people join together there is more chance of survival it's how we evolved.

Huddled down alone with no compassion i'm alright is not where I want to be.

If you keep empty ( jam) jars fill them with water.

in the current problems locally with water my mothers been doing this, her sister lives rurally in the states and has always kept her glass empties full of water for emergencies.

I will check the bottled water aisle in a bit just out of interest

It goes off you know bottled water.

And more plastic makes natural disasters more likely and extreme not less.

It's madness.

Yeah I don't think I would want to survive a nuclear war anyway.

I'm not a "survive at all costs crawling through a burnt wasteland until my limbs fall off" type, I'm more a "if I can't have my warm house and daily shower, just let me turn to dust now" type.

We used to live rurally and I had a stock in case of fuel shortages or electricity cuts.

We're now in a small town with shops nearby so my stockpile is much smaller. We certainly have enough food to last a week, assuming electricity supply was OK.

If we didn't have electricity then we coukd probably cobble together meals for 2 or 3 days but they would be quite odd ones. We do have a camping stove so could boil water.

I can feel your anxiety from here, 🤗
I don’t honestly think that there’s an impending apocalypse coming, I am 70 and over the years there’s been similar announcements without anything disastrous occurring.
I remember the Cold War, nuclear war preparedness with ridiculous suggestions like moving into the cupboard under the stairs (we didn’t have one!), piling up mattresses at the windows (wtf good would that do?). We can laugh at it all now but it was scary.

I do think it makes sense to have an emergency supply of things but more because of bad weather or power cuts causing problems than anything else. I have batteries, matches, candles, a couple of camping stoves and lights, all things that are useful.
Re medication, I make sure I have a month’s supply in hand; that way I know that if I’m unable to get out then I’m ok for a while. Could you do that too?

It’s easy for me to say all this, I absolutely understand where you’re coming from x

We were totally cut off by flooding last year.

A couple of years back Storm Arwen blocked every road with falling trees.

We were lucky with power but other parts of the county were off five days.

I think we've all become so used to being able to get things easily that this probably isn't a bad idea.

We usually get more in over winter as weather events more likely but the Devon water outbreak is a reminder it can be all times of year.

If you have a garden, a water butt is useful for toilet flushing. No point wasting drinking quality water on this.

Some people would die twice if they were found dead with skid marks in their pants 🤣. The whole toilet roll thing always makes me laugh. Im old enough to remember using newspaper on a Sunday when we ran out and all the shops were closed. Granted we’d have to use A4 printer paper these days!

There's always been a risk of 'something' happening and the country has always had plans in place to deal with it as best we can. Emergency planning for fire, flood, gas leaks, planes crashing on populated areas, leaks from chemical or nuclear sites etc etc are all planned for and many people make a whole career out of preparing to deal with it.

Do you think it would be preferable if everyone stuck their heads in the sand and their fingers in their ears and pretended that nothing bad would ever happen?

It's all covered in the national risk register (this is the current edition, it was first published in 2008 according to wikipedia, but the reality is that the country has had plans in place to deal with these things for decades, it really is nothing new or an indication that it's only just being talked about because the government is expecting that something will happen soon.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1175834/2023_NATIONAL_RISK_REGISTER_NRR.pdf

Chapter 3 on page 21 covers what individuals can do to help themselves as best they can.

Making sure you have supplies at home doesn't mean you don't also help each other. Indeed you'll be a lot more helpful to the vulnerable around you if you have your own supplies so you can share as needed.

As we had here two summers ago, when a mains burst, has anyone suddenly had no water supply, for two/three days, a limited supply of bottled water, (4x2litres), realised just how much is required to boil the kettle for a pot of tea, cook a pan of pasta, rice, potatoes, noodles,
used a bowl for face washes, half pint mug of water for cleaning teeth,
ekeing it out,
realised they don’t have enough water to last another day, amazed at how much water they use per day without realising, pleased they had a half filled bucket of soapy water so they can at least flush the toilet once.
Water we take for granted, now it seems as though we shouldn’t/cannot.

For unspecified emergencies, its all very well saying stockpile pasta, rice,
without mentioning essential water - should the electricity fail so will the
water supply, it is electrically pumped -
tinned most things, are thirst making, as are nuts, crisps, chocolate, anything
salty, sugary, spicy,
frozen food will spoil after three days,
bottled water degrades, there is a use by date stamped,
storing in a shed or garage is better than a warm kitchen,
water filter jugs essential, torches rather than candles,
the fire service cannot put out domestic fires with no water available.

Rural dwellers with open fires, vegetable garden, chickens, springs, wells, resourcefulness will always fare better than hermetically sealed supermarket reliant townies, for whom a total rethink is essential if we are to follow these directives, limited space, funds, options allowing.

@Minimili this is much more about the ability to refill supermarkets or access the roads to them.

In the beast from the east we were weeks before stock returned to normal.

The timing for now is probably because it's spring/summer. If they do this in October and there's panic buying it's more likely to affect things for real.

If bottled water sells out it will all be replaced in a couple of days and it's unlikely anyone will have used it.

For anything more major this is unlikely to make much difference anyway but it will help you if your power is out and you can't access a shop.

Loo roll is the one thing I have a lot of. Just counted them, it's 42 rolls and it's just me in the house.

Covid has a lot to answer for when you couldn't get them very easily.😁

I was just about to type out something similar. It doesn't have to be one or the other. I had stuff in pre covid ( as per my thread above) and was also out working in the community- and sharing some of my supplies while I was at it.

Most countries already have this in place and have disaster planning pages on their government website.

Even my mum’s generation are more prepared than younger generations because they were post-war children and then lived in an era when there were regular power cuts etc. We are used to relying on the internet and power for everything.

I've always tried to be well stocked up we started keeping extra tins and dried goods at the beginning of Brexit when we thought there would be shortages (which there were of some things), it came in useful for Covid and bad weather so we're still doing it. Stock control and keeping check on use by dates is important.

If the water goes off, flushing all that stockpiled paper is going to be fun.