What would you keep at home for a few days' emergency supplies?

[Somewhereovertherainbowwewillmeetagain]

Day off today and I’m doing a big clean/declutter of the house… and apparently I’ve decided to prepare for the apocalypse 😂

I’m a hope for the best but plan for the worst type of person, so while I’m sorting the house I thought I’d also get my emergency supplies organised.

So far I’ve got:

12L water
5 tins of soup
2 tins of tuna
16 toilet rolls
1 hand soap
1 shampoo
1 conditioner
1 tin of rice pudding 😂

What am I missing from my list?

I’m going to have a good search around the house first to see what I already have, then buy anything I’m missing.

I’m thinking food, water, toiletries, household stuff etc. Basically things that would be useful if we had a few days without being able to get to the shops.

What would you make sure you had? And what things have you got tucked away that you’d never normally think of? 😆

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst!

That's very true, and I wasn't thinking of that. But in the event that there are issues after a storm - or in a situation where there's some kind of cover in the garden - a barbecue could be useful.

Of course a charcoal one shouldn't be used indoors!

There's probably thousands of other people in your 'south London town' in walking distance to those shops.

Now imagine what they will look like at the beginning of 'the emergency' after everyone has stormed in for a good panic buying session and the emergency is preventing a restock.

Or if there's a cyber attack that knocks out the payment system, electricity, water, traffic lights, distribution systems etc

'I'll just go to the shops as normal' is not a contingency plan.

It’s okay :) the person I was originally replying to mentioned pasta in relation to living rurally and being snowed in. And they mentioned it being cooked by older children if mum was sick etc. So it was that I was replying to

@mondaytosunday I do have a good supply my kitchen cupboards thats for normal day to day use. I'm keeping my emergency stock separate. I've found two big torches and a head torch. Only have three plasters will put first aid kit on my to buy list.

DH and I were discussing this earlier. We are lucky in that we have a large self contained motorhome parked on the drive which has plenty of gas and solar panels and would be pretty comfortable for a couple of weeks. I read somewhere that ideally emergency food should be just extra stuff you generally eat, so that's pretty easy to do. Our biggest issue is water as we are on a well and no power means no running water. Fortunately we have a river behind the house and DH reckons we can boil and filter it as drinking water if needed. He used to live in Africa so routinely did this. Because we are rural we have lots of torches and emergency lights as we often get power cuts. One additional challenge would be catering for the arrival of all of our adult children who I would expect to head here just as they did in the pandemic

@elastamum you could buy some water purification tablets for the river water. I've been surprised today how much stuff we already have in the house to use if needed like candles, torches, power banks. I even found a manual tin opener. I've booked a slot with Tesco to deliver the extra water, tins and other bits. Will add a few extra bits in with each week's shop to keep things topped up going forward. Dh bought a radio today from Amazon it looks really good and will come in handy when out doing the garden.

I wouldn't recommend water purification tablets for drinking river water. You need to boil it for at least 30 minutes before you would consider it safe enough to drink. Fortunately we know that the quality of ours is probably ok, unless there has been a storm when the drains overflow into it.

Using a charcoal barbecue indoors will kill you. (Just a heads up) also if others see the smoke if using outside, they might realise you have food

Some interesting links regarding drinking water and toilet flushing and hand washing if anyone is interested. I was surprised to learn that you can't flush toilets.

Water and sanitation - scripts for broadcast media - GOV.UK https://share.google/elim2IA3Qooogkten

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/blogs/article/expert-advice-water-purification

Wow! That's the first time I've seen that! Looks like a supply of plastic bags may be useful. Yuck!

I'm surprised they're telling people to drink 2 litres of fluid a day in times of critical water shortage. Many people don't drink that much day to day and function quite normally, so you'd have thought they'd reduce it to 1 to 1.5 litres a day to make it last longer and reassure the 'must drink 3 litres a day or else I'll expire' crowd that they'll be fine.

But having read the advice for day 2 I see that they then tell people to move on to soft drinks and low alcohol beer. I was worried as we don't have any bottled water but we've a few cans of alcohol free Cruzcampo, so I now have to redesignate that as my prepper stash.

But we have to be grown ups about this sort of possibility, and things like bagging poo for disposal. It's already second nature for anyone who has a dog.

Bin bags.

In lots of emergency situations there's a strong chance that refuse collections may be disrupted temporarily. Bin bags also serve a lot of other useful purposes.

I personally would also add gaffer tape to the list.

They are always on my festival survival list.

@DuckCootLoon yuck indeed. In my naivety I honestly thought that I would be able to use the water from my garden water butt's to flush the toilet.

@Bjorkdidit it doesn't have to be 2l of water any fluid will be fine including juice, soup, the juice from tinned fruit things like that anything that's going to keep you hydrated.

@RedToothBrush I didn't think about bin collection days. It's strange to try and think outside normal life all the things that we do or happen without much thought. It's a sobering thought for sure. Thank you will get some bin bags to pop in my box. What sort of things would you use tape for?

Nothing says emergency like conditioner

Gaffer tape for fixing any shit you might need to fix on the fly.

Eg - If your windows are broken say in a storm, how are you going to make things water tight quickly? It's not ideal but it might make a difference in the short term. If you are flooded, bin bags over your shoes and gaffer tapped (Glastonbury veteran here) . Tent pole broken - gaffer tape. In fact anything broken - gaffer tape. Remember you can't necessarily get a replacement for something so you may need to make do and mend.

Gaffer tape is my go to for running all sorts of events as a bodge it tool.

It's a case of trying to get the right balance in terms of emergency and storage. Good to have enough in if you can't get to shops, but thinking about if you've got no power or water. I don't love tinned veg, but will eat them. Ideally they'd be heated, but can be eaten from can as precooked, so ideal if no water and power - could happen if say flood water gets into facilities. Some tinned pulses are handy.

Worth keeping fuel in the car, if you can't getbhold of a loved one, you can drive and check.

@RedToothBrush Thanks Red so many situations to take into consideration.

@Iliketulips your right balance is key as its all a bit how long is a piece of string. Where would you draw the line? I can see how people fall into being deep prepers.

Batteries , torch , charged power banks , water , first aid kit , medication camping stove and gas , tinned meais

Because all the lists and gov advice seem to be written by men...

Sufficient disposable period products (something you might not consider if you usually use period pants or moon cups - but you won't want to waste water washing those.)

Contraception (the apocalypse might be boring. But being pregnant in a post apocalyptic world would be terrifying )

I got into this a bit when I bought my first campervan. Could live in that for a bit and charge stuff up, but my pièce de résistance is my Anker portable power bank. It can run off solar panels. Could keep the house going for a few days. I also keep spare dog food in the van.

... forgot Primula. My mum has taken tubes on holiday for ever and swears by it 'just in case'. Can double up as butter / spread if need be.

Gas oven and hob?

We had no power for a week one Christmas. While everyone was BBQing their Turkey, ours was in the oven.

As an aside I survived a week in Hong Kong pretty much just on rice, picked ginger and chilli sauce. I have tons of rice. Need to buy pickled ginger really.

I am making sure my wine is well
stocked! If it all goes Pete Tong I just want to chill with a good bottle of white.

A generator + fuel
Wood burning stove + year's worth of logs
Gas hob + spare gas bottle
Chest freezer full of meals + basics
Massive larder cupboard of food
Batteries, torches, power packs, candles
Jigsaws, board games, books
Wine

Standard stuff when you live in rural Scotland

But will you be able to chill your wine 😎