Crisis What Crisis? Is my friend over doing the stockpiling and am I too? Continuation thread (2)

[RedToothBrush]

Continuation of the AIBU to think my friend is overdoing emergency stockpiling thread for discussion about the government advice to stockpile for an imminent emergency and what the heck that emergency might actually be.

I'm moving it over to chat from AIBU as it makes a bit more sense to be there at this point.

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5576816-aibu-to-think-my-friend-is-overdoing-emergency-stockpiling?page=1

Spoiler: it's more of a perfect storm of lots of factors coming together to potentially form one great clusterfuck from economic woes, global energy shortages (mainly diesel), potential food shortages, war and madmen to crazy weather patterns rather than a clear identifiable singular thread.

This is a practical thread and a bit of a handhold thread to make sense of events and how they may affect you. This is not an end of the world thread.

We are however going through a period where various governments throughout Europe think there is an elevated risk of some kind of problem due to global instability and we should start to get our heads around the possibility of needing to be ready for anything.

Remember an emergency can range from a temporary unexpected event to a much longer crisis but the underlying principles generally stay the same.

So this is for everything from tips and considerations about what might be a good idea to do /save minimise potential risks to just straight old political bollocks talk about how things are developing.

This is the official government information and advice, if you want further details on what the actual recommendations are:
https://prepare.campaign.gov.uk/get-prepared-for-emergencies/

This does actually explicitly say to write a personalised plan for your household which everyone knows and understands and to talk about the issues you may face to help you be able mobilise for any situation which might arise. Which is exactly what this thread is ultimately for.

Thanks for the new thread RTB!

I seem to have been accidentally drawn in to posting again. Probably temporarily.

I'm not too concerned about El Niño for the UK compared to any other year. We should all be prepped anyway for the disruption of severe storms. It isn't uncommon for villages or even larger areas to suffer prolonged powercuts after a big windstorm in any year.

My biggest concern weatherwise is actually periods of cold anticylonic gloom, when its grey, cold and little wind over Europe for renewable energy generation.

My perhaps incorrect thoughts are that they are using El Niño as a non scary hook on to which to hang the very necessary 'get ready' message.

We are taking it seriously at home. Not in a 'we need a years lifetime supply of loo rolls', but in a 'we should probably be self sufficient for a couple of weeks or so without power or deliverable water and food' sort of way.

If you have a garden, perhaps you might appreciate a waterbutt. Not just for any rather possible drought next summer, but also for flushing your loo if water supply gets disrupted.

Place marking.

I’m in one of those Euro countries and we’ve had these recommendations in place for about 2 years now I think.

I basically took it as the government saying that if the SHTF they can’t promise to be able to get things under control for at least the first few days so to have enough to look after ourselves until then.

Obviously I hope never to need my supplies but it’s reassuring to know that the basics are taken care of.

I’ve got a nice little supply of cat food in as well - and this thread has made me realise that I should get some extra water in for my cats.

Thank you for setting up a new thread @RedToothBrush - I've really been enjoying reading yours & @GentleSheep contributions in the other threads.

It's been so interesting to see a range of people's responses to what is pretty sensible advice from the government!

Particularly from the el nino event angle - everyone was shocked about how hot the weather got so hot in the summer this year - so surely we should be prepared for what it would mean if the pendulum swung the other way(!).

I have a toddler who has breathing difficulties when he's poorly so making sure he would be warm / fed / watered if services were disrupted is just so important - plus another little one on the way in December! So it's been a relief to get sorted this month. Managed to get everything off my "be prepared" shopping list - didn't fancy attempting to do with a newborn!

Thanks for the new thread!

@Pollyanna123456 Thank you 😊 Am not convinced the El Niño had anything to do with our recent hot summer, I'd say that's more in the realms of global warming generally. The El Niño wasn't fully established at that point, it's only now coming to its maximum (around December). It will have very strong effects in many countries, either bringing drought or floods but its effect on the UK could be more in the realm of knock-on effects on food prices and availability (not good when there could be problems from the Iran war on fuel and fertiliser adding to this).

We'll just have to see how this all plays out, being prepared is the best thing one can do although you can't realistically cover all situations. I am mainly prepping for power failures and water shortage, and praying that doesn't actually happen and I just have a pantry full of food that will be cheaper than if I'd bought it next year!

Thank you for the new thread @RedToothBrush , and good to see @OhYouBadBadKitten back in the Mumsnet neighbourhood as she is the weather whisperer as far as I'm concerned.
I need to get off my arse and ramp up the prepping. I've got food under control. We've got a massive water butt and I'm storing drinking water and we've got foil blankets and some bits and pieces but I've yet to bite the bullet on a wind up radio and a camping stove partly because I'm chronically bad at making decisions and equally chronically bad at spending money.
And DH and I are having a mini-crisis over a garden sail at the moment which diverts attention, but I digress...
Great that these threads are going to keep going. @OhYouBadBadKitten please stay! Just here for us! You don't have to get sucked into the whole of Mumsnet! 🌪 If that's the issue.

Of course I understand if you don't want to. 😂

Florida seems to have its first hurricane-free September in 30 years. Weird. Not sure if this has anything to do with El Niño.. Apparently there are warnings that a Super El Niño will impact from November and onwards instead.
.

Thank you for the new thread @RedToothBrush.

It's apparently to do with El Nino. The Pacific gets hit harder instead.

Barcelona experienced last night what was dubbed a mini hurricane and has extensive flooding from rainfall. This is more likely in El Nino years but I have got to be honest, I'm put off going to Spain in October in future because the extent of flooding in the last few years has been huge. It's notably worse.

Re weather in the UK I noted that South East Water is putting in an application to extend restrictions over water usage from 9th Oct. This will mean that people who had exemptions from a hosepipe ban will no longer have them.
https://www.southeastwater.co.uk/about/updates/news/south-east-water-announces-change-to-current-hosepipe/

To be doing this in October is pretty stunning.

I know I was reflecting on how bad the weather had been in France for lack of rain but the UK has been hit very hard too. I think it's been our worst harvest in decades.

The Met Office did their latest El Nino forecast for the UK this week:

Dr Will Lang, chief forecaster at the Met Office, said it was a “subtle shift in the odds” that El Niño would cause havoc in the coming weeks, rather than a certainty

He said: “We are going in with a heightened potential for wet weather, heightened potential for potentially stormy conditions, and that leads through to a heightened potential for flooding.”

Grahame Madge, a Met Office climate spokesman, said: “The El Niño event is still developing in the tropical Pacific and already it has surpassed the magnitude of previous events including the one in 2015/16

“Globally, an El Niño event has several impacts, including altering rainfall patterns and increasing global temperature overall.

“There are known teleconnections between El Niño and the UK autumn and winter period. For example, there is a tendency towards a stormier start to autumn and winter and similarly there is a trend towards colder spells at the end of winter.”

So still no firm idea of what will happen but it's looking more likely we will have rough weather. The long range forecast currently looks like there isn't too likely to be storms before the end of the month at this stage (but this is the UK so don't bet on that).

The noise I was reading last right was that there's now a fear that the El Nino effect won't disappear in the summer as normal because everything will still be too warm. So that's another thing to keep an eye on for developments.

OhYouBadBadKitten probably has a better incite on the above than me though.

@RedToothBrush thanks for this and pulling all the info together.
This will be a bedrock of our winter intel I'm sure
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@OhYouBadBadKitten hello and thank you for your as usual wondeeful input. 😍.

I've done some basics this am and gathered all our torches so at least I know where to put my hands on them in the dark .

I'm also going to gather and check our thermal wear. I need more vests and socks and will get dh some socks
We are nearly there on water ,at least 2 l each for three days.
I'm perssuding a very reluctant DH to check our sleeping bags (loft) and find our camping stove and gas cannisters.

The last two bigger items for me is a battery radio and hot water bottles.

Yes I'm another who thinks they are using the weather excuse to make us prepare without causing a panic.

That frightens me more because whatever we are actually preparing for must be pretty scary and likely to induce panic. Thus the secrecy.

Thanks for the new thread RedToothBrush.

I haven't really been using the heating much so far as it's still been pretty mild. A real chill in the air this morning as well as damp ground and cloud cover. Not terribly cold, just colder than it has been. House temp was 16 degrees which does not sound terrible but had me turning on the central heating this morning.

I'm sitting here now with the house heating up, drinking hot tea and thinking how utterly miserable it would be if there was no central heating and no kettle to boil. Add to that no working lamps and the inability to have a hot shower/bath and yes it is quite depressing.

Funny how it does not have to get that cold to start having that 'chilly damp' feeling that seeps into your bones.

I've been eating things from my very full freezer and not touching my cupboard stock. In the back of my mind if the power goes off I don't want to have lots of food getting ruined thus chomping our way through the frozen fish, meats, vegs, chips.

The emergency dog food that I bought for the dog has been a surprising hit. He is not fond of dog food but I let him try a couple of pouches and to my surprise he has eaten them and licked the bowl clean. I'll need to stock up on more of them then. Of course that is his q to decide he no longer likes them.

Isn't this fun. Waiting to see which domino falls first.

Last but not least if the power goes out we won't have our 'comfort thread' which has taken on a life of it's own.

https://edconway.substack.com/p/the-diesel-weapon

Lengthy but invaluable article by SkyNews Ed Conway who seems to be the only journalist who gets the diesel issue fully.

It is worth the read.

Interestingly I didn't realise he had written a book called the Material World which seems highly relevant now.

And if Europe is unable to get American diesel, it is, as you can already divine, in big, big trouble. As I say, a profound shortage would represent civilisational disruption across the continent, which is fed thanks to trucks and trains many of which depend on diesel.

Donald Trump is well aware of this. So his threat to cut off exports is, in a sense, a hybrid of what Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have done with trade policy in recent years. And yes, clearly I’m saying that to be a bit provocative but, then again, the more you think about the analogy, the more it holds. Putin has, for years, used Russia’s energy policy to try to affect politics elsewhere. Xi has used Chinese dominance in particular export sectors to win trade wars - consider his decision last year to impose controls on exports of rare earths, something which forced Trump to relent on some of the steepest tariffs on China. Trump is merely doing to Europe what has already been done to him: using his most potent economic lever to try to get his way.

We now find ourselves politically between NetZero being an unmitigated political disaster because of our failure to recognise our dependency on fossil fuels and national security implications and accusations that acknowledging this was far right climate change denialism of some kind and now a growing real world impact of this failure to see the dual threat and act accordingly.

It's frustrating as hell.

I do think that Burnham's tweet yesterday about energy strategy shows a recognition of this.

However we now find ourselves in an economic situation where we are highly unlikely to be able to realistically finance such a high infrastructure change any time soon.

That's our paradox and something of a circle we can't now square.

It's now the main political driver for the next decade or so. We just haven't realised this yet. The last ten years was Brexit. This is the new political arc around which everything centres. Weirdly this is why Burnham's comments about the potential to rejoin the EU are somewhat off kilter and not quite hitting the mark. It's the way the argument will go btw.

And this applies to every politician in every party in Europe. The above article really highlights how we've been way behind where we should have been in recognising this risk and the absolute lack of due diligence by multiple governments on this matter.

Everyone needs to really grasp this very quickly.

Let's hope Burnham gets on with drilling permits then.
Incredible how an ideology has been allowed to permeate matters so crucial to our lives .

Last but not least if the power goes out we won't have our 'comfort thread' which has taken on a life of it's own.

One thing I've thought about is preservation of knowledge and information in a crisis situation.

There's an argument here to either get a note book and start writing useful shit down if you see it, or printing off useful shit and putting it in a file or buying books with useful information in.

You won't be able to Google or watch a video on YouTube on how to do x, y or z. There won't be tictok life hacks at your fingertips.

It's a wild thought to go old skool on this point but I do think it's one worth making and considering.

I think there was a comment on the last thread about how in previous generations women had this type of knowledge and skill are we are generations that lack these which make us particularly vulnerable.

I personally feel in a better position than most as DH is a scout leader and teaches some of these life skills to kids.

I bought him a scout book for badges from the 1910s I think it was, which he promptly turned his nose up at as not being useful to him, but it's quite eye opening in terms of what they were learning back then and why it had value to society at the time.

The government guidance at the top of the thread also talks about having an actual written plan for a household, which again I think is interesting.

So yeah, I think this is an important thought experiment for people to at least consider in terms of what happens if the lights go out in any situation.

I think we grasp the idea of cash quite well on this, but our dependency on the internet for information is another area some people may wish to explore.

Another simple example is you might not be able to make contact with family members in another part of the country for example, so do you have a strategy for this? A couple of my friends have kids at university, so I think this one sticks in my mind acutely. I have actually had a conversation with a close friend whose daughter has just gone to London with this in mind.

Yes it feels nuts, but if we do have a problem, this might be an area that's particularly important too. It's not just about the physical side of stockpiling for an emergency incident. Knowledge and information, and swift action stemming from that knowledge and information, have always been a crucial thing in terms of making the difference in a crisis.

Very interesting article red and many people have been bleeting on about this for years.
It's really obvious !
It's a transition
Trump was telling merkel I think in his last term to stop using Russian energy.
They /we just keeping rolling on with light weight nonsense really parading as higher minded political ideals whilst all this very real hard core need is as he says " withering away " in the back ground.
Until it rears up and punches us in the face and like naughty children who have been found out but can't admit it...we point fingers at trump the bad man.

i must say it still continues to be dry in the south east
the forecast keeps pushing back the actual day it will rain next week
i am in fact wondering whether to water my pots which doesnt seem right in october

Interesting post on diesel below. Here to follow the geopolitical updates.

Happy to see a new thread thank you Red.

I might spend some time looking for some old books. I’m a sucker for weird things so nothing would be off kilter for me to have some herbal remedy or off grid medical type books.

Someone on a Facebook group posted up a Ai made peppers guide I’ve not read it but funny to use Ai for such a thing I think. But if it’s useful it’s useful.

So a bit of science and explanation re the El Niño and other factors contributing to our future weather. Tried to make it clear!

Why no Atlantic hurricanes this season: the intense El Niño's warming effect creates a lot of wind shear across the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic regions and this suppresses hurricane formation in the Atlantic, which is why we've not seen any this year (yet the Pacific has had a lot of strong storms). The strong wind shear rips any storms apart before they can organise into hurricanes. Good for central and eastern regions of the US!

We've got another regular phenomenon going on as well, the North Atlantic Sea Surface temperature tripole or NAT and it's pretty important for our weather in the UK. You know those sea surface temperature maps with a very strong orange colour developing over the mid/east Pacific i.e. the El Niño? Well you can also get patterns of warm and cool areas in the North Atlantic ocean. There are 3 regions involved, the Northern Subpolar region (so-called Northern 'pole'), the Central Pole and the Southern Pole. Three regions is why it's called a 'tripole'. At the moment it's neither one thing or the other with warm/cool areas so too early to say how that will pan out but it's something to watch.

The NAT is driven by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) which is an atmospheric system (as opposed to the ocean currents). The NAO describes changes in the strength of two recurring pressure patterns in the atmosphere over the North Atlantic: a low near Iceland, and a high near the Azores Islands. You'll maybe have heard a weather presenter talk of the 'blocking Azores High' - yep that's one part of it. In a positive NAO the pressure difference between these two areas is large (this links to a cold across southern Europe and warm across northern Europe and eastern US) whereas in a negative NAO there's a small pressure difference and this is linked to warm conditions in S. Europe and cold conditions in the north and eastern US.

More on the NAO here if you are interested, with pictures!

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-variability-north-atlantic-oscillation

So we've got to take into account not only what El Niño is doing but also whether the NAO is positive or negative and the state of the NAT, because they all interact and affect the Jet Stream, the high level winds that push systems around the globe.

Where is a good site to view the sea surface temperatures/anomalies?

https://csi.climatecentral.org/ocean?lat=47.51720&lng=348.31055&mapType=sst-anomalies&firstDate=2026-09-24

If the NAT shifts into a negative phase (looks possible) then combined with the strong El Niño, this would weaken the westerly winds and slow down storms approaching the UK, so storms would spend longer over the UK with more rain and wind. Later on into winter then the El Niño can affect the polar vortex and that's why some forecasters are predicting a very cold mid-late winter.

Hope this helps a bit, there are so many variables and it's impossible to know which will dominate.

@GentleSheep thank you !
Interesting about possible slower storms .

Interesting point about online access. It occurs to me that most of my recipes are kept electronically since i decluttered most of my cookbook collection that i didn't have space for. There are lots i don't need but I'd need to check quantities in some (or find my friend down the road or my elderly aunt). I think I've still got Delia so hopefully I'll be fine 🤷‍♀️

I've done a deal with a near neighbour who had a similar concern about the challenges we might face. She has a logburner and plenty of wood. We have a campervan with charging ability (assuming some sunshine!).

Extra post, it's really warm today in the south west, we're sitting in the garden and I needed sun cream! 4th October.... A friend lives in Spain where they have had the significant flooding, the videos are scary.