3 Hour Blackouts

[pyjamafashionista]

If they happen, they are saying they'll be planned between 4-7pm. Surely this is the most ridiculous time, when most people will still be at work/ travelling home/making tea etc.
Any genius thoughts to get through a 3 hour blackout besides blankets and 🕯
I feel really sad for vulnerable people on their own if it happens 😪

I'm so late to this. But if we have a blackout. No electricity is that right? How do we heat and eat? I have a two year old and a tiny baby. How do I heat my house if my boiler isn't on? How do I make a bottle or wash the bottles with no hot water? How do I wash clothes? Will food in the fridge stay fresh? How do I cook food in the dark? Am I being really thick here? Is sleep deprivation stopping me understanding?

I recommend getting some of the solar garden lights from Home Bargains, B & M, the Range, or other discount shops while anywhere still has them. They charge up in the windowsill. We're using solar lanterns for the bathroom atm to not disturb the baby with the big light but will set them up in the living room if/when all this shit goes down. We also have solar fairy lights I bought in the summer because they never bloody sell them at Christmas.

I'm going with it might not happen, or it might so I'm not worrying about it. But I am preparing so that if it does happen, or I get a random power cut then it'll be fine
Same reason as I have bottled water in the house as a leftover from when we couldn't drink our tap water for weeks

It's only 3 hours, it will be fine for most people.

You don't have heating unless you have an open fire. You won't have any energy no lights, WiFi, tv, heating, nothing. They'll be planned so you will be able to get ready, hear your tea, make bottles etc, we don't know if it's defo happening yet though but might be worth thinking about it x

I'm not over concerned and will just plan around, but I totally understand why it would be a completely different case for others with specific needs.

No it's not definitely happening. This plan has been in place since 2019. There is always a plan for blackouts just in case.

I'm starting to prep for this. Will have a meal in the slow cooker all day, will hopefully still be warm for when we eat at 6pm. I have bought some good quality camping lights and have a supply of batteries. I have also invested in a couple of thermos flasks for hot drinks. Devices will be charged and films/tv programs will be downloaded onto iPad. Not sure about heating though, and how I will work from home until 5pm with no Wi-Fi.

You don’t. If they are planned three hour blackouts you make the babies bottles up in advance and plan meals around the blackout. Lots of warm clothes and make some hot water bottles before the power goes off. Food in fridge fine for a few hours and probably longer too.
unplanned blackouts - wait for power to hopefully come back on without too much time off. I would buy some cartons of ready made milk in just in case.

I wonder how families with technology dependant members will cope? Feed pumps have battery back up but profiling beds don't and nor do the air mattresses used to prevent sores. Having looked after children who are dependant on oxygen concentrators and home ventilators to survive I am scared for what this could mean for them.

According to this 2 of the blackouts are in the night and 1 during the day. I mean unless your life is dependant on electricity … we should all be able to put up with 3h without electricity

Get ready how though? We are currently using oil filled heaters to keep costs down to not have heating on. They won't be able to be used. Bottles should be thrown after an hour. According to nhs website. DH works from home so does he just not get paid for those hours he can't work? What food keeps warm for three hours with no electricity? I just don't get it.

It's a fucking shit show. I had my first bay at the height of covid where everyone told me we were all going to die. Now my second baby has to to survive another chuffing crisis and be brought up in some Dickensian era.

Yep, it's a fantasy world. My kids would be alone in the dark for 2 hours until I get home from work. Great .

I’ve started to prepare for the blackouts but I’ve just had a realisation. No electricity means that the fridge/freezer will be switched off during the 3hrs. Will things in the freezer still be okay or will they need to be thrown out? A bit of a dumb question but I didn’t think about that at all

It's only for 3 hours so you have to plan round it.
I was a very young child during the 1970s power cuts. We had a camping stove and my parents made our tea on it on those nights.
We had loads of candles and torches and they got a calor gas heater.
We were lucky we had a real fire, which many people did then. Everyone went to bed quite early too.

It's worth remembering that these kinds of plans are always ready to go - the government has people who go through every conceivable disaster that might hit the country, and make plans (in theory at least).

So there are plans in place for nationwide power shortages, terrorist attacks, alien invasions etc. Generally we don't see these plans unless we go looking for them, but obviously from time to time they get put on Twitter or something - it doesn't mean they think it's about to happen.

It seems like there is more of a risk of power cuts this year than in previous years, but the plans being public doesn't mean they're expecting it to happen.

Stuff in the freezer will be fine for 3 hours as long as you don’t open the door.

I hadn’t thought about the freezer!

@User963 they don't make premade formula for the one he is one. I guess worst case I would have to buy as close as I can and hope to god it doesn't make him poorly?? He's on. Specialised formula.

They'll be fine for three hours. Best to open them as little as possible while the power is out to keep them cooler.

The only people who will remember the "planned" power cuts of the 70s well are those of us who are 60 and over now. The younger end at the time were teenagers in a teen bubble and the older end people born Victorian/Edwardian, who had coped with worse and didn't have many expectations/were used to privations. There wasn't the tech to think about, either.

It was in many ways a different world and I think if this happens, for a lot of people it will get really old, really quickly.

Just keep the doors shut.

I'm more bothered about the hardwired smoke alarms. No power means that ruddy awful beeping. I'll end up cutting them down in pure petulance.

You boil the water and keep it in a flask so it's hot then mix it when you need it

Thank you to those that quoted me so quickly! Seems it’ll be fine as long as I keep the door shut which I will do. And things in the fridge will be okay too?

No one can say with absolute certainty whether it will be necessary yet, so keep an eye on legitimate news sources.

Thinking about how you would plan is a good idea, it's generally a good idea to have a plan for a power cut as they could just happen at any time if a power line goes down or some kind of fault affects the grid.

With these potential planned outages you'd have advanced notice so could actually properly prepare.

General preparedness - have candles/torches somewhere you can get to them easily in the dark. Get a power bank and keep it charged so if you need to you can top up your phone without mains electricity. Have some food in the cupboard that you can eat cold. Think about places you could go to like friends/family.

Planned outage preparedness. They are 3 Hr outages so you're unlikely to freeze or starve. In advance of the outage you can:

• charge devices, download movies/tv to tablets/phones/laptops
• cook food and decant it into a food thermos or casserole dish wrapped in towels and kept somewhere like the microwave or a thermal picnic bag to keep it warm.
• boil water and keep it in a thermos. It will stay hot a good 4-5 hours, then it will still be warm for another couple of hours.
• set up torches/lanterns to keep one room decently lit
• get games/crafts set up for kids
• plan to visit someone or a restaurant/cafe/shopping centre in a different power zone where they will have electricity.
• Baby bottles can be made up using the boiled water you prepare in a thermos, or make up the bottle before the cut and keep it in a thermal bottle cover, it will remain warm for several hours.
• if you have a gas hob make sure you have a lighter or matches then you can still cook, you won't be able to use the electric ignition or the main oven but you will be able to light the hob and grill.