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 😪

It might be worth experimenting with improvised slow cookers, if you have bean bags, hay or a couple of spare duvets.

Basically get everything in a pot and get it to the boil, then you need to insulate it to keep it warm.

The traditional way was with a hay box. Now there are those expensive bean bag things, but a bean bag would work as well.

Strangely enough a cool box can work well.

As for it being the time you are travelling from work, well if you are driving you can cook on your car engine.

If you have money to spare (yes I know no one has at the moment) you can get microwaves and other appliances that draw power from your car cigarette lighter.

Yep I'm with you . The bottles are difficult. Do you have an outside space where you could set up a little camping stove?

In which case I would make them up in advance and put in fridge. They keep 24 hours in there. I think people are saying that the temp of fridge should stay ok for 3 hours if you keep the door shut.

Heat up a pan of water on the camping stove and rest the bottle in it to warm up.

OR You can also get electric bottle warmers that you charge up in the microwave and then release the heat later clicking a little button. I appreciate this is all more expense at the worst time.

Another option is to try to get baby to take it cold/room temp. Mine wouldn't have been impressed with that though!

Bottles will be just fine with cooled boiled water. Sealed and kept in the fridge. When the fridge goes off it will still be fine for a couple of hours. Make the water up before the black out and leave it to cool. Tip powder in and shake

You are not advised to do this - the water that goes into the powder is meant to be at 70 deg to kill bacteria in the milk powder itself.

You're also not meant to use bottled water as it's not sterile and can have too much salt.

We had a power cut in the office a few years ago and we ended up going home as we just couldn't do any work. Without computers and the internet there was just nothing we could do. We tidied up the stationery cupboard out of desperation!

Since most of MN sits in a tee shirt at 16C and isn't going to have their heating on above two hours a day, if at all and sits in coats, Oodies etc. if they are cold at lower temperatures that part will be fine for most on here as it is only three hours at a time. That plan is a contingency plan for all events, it has been said many time that the cuts will be 4pm-7pm so that will be much more likely than the plan.

As an older person, I have experienced blackouts on occassions in the past, most unexpected, and I admit, not very often.
Food in the fridge should be OK for a few hours, but open fridge door as little as possible.
I have a couple of battery packs, which I will keep charged. This should be sufficient to stop my phone from running down.
My laptop (which I usually have plugged in), has an internal battery which lasts for about 3 hours, but obviously there would be no wifi, unless I use my phone as a hotspot. (Here I assume the mobile phone will still be OK).
TVs will not work, and obviously any other electrical devices.
Those who have gas hobs, or gas fires, will still work, but care should be advised without electrical lights. (Gas to the home is rarely cut off, as this is dangerous, but on occassion the pressure may be lowered).
However, gas central heating will not work, because the pump is electric.
Obviously, this is just emergency planning, but what happened in the past was the unexpected loss of electricity, and the worse thing of all was the sudden loss of light, hence the term 'blackout'.
My advice is to keep a torch handy. Obviously, my smart phone has a torch, but my phone could be nearby but unseen, so I now keep a torch in a specific place so I always know where it is.

The rolling part means you get a different schedule over time.

The charts people are posting are only a snapshot. An individual property will lose power on a Saturday morning then a Tuesday afternoon then overnight on Friday or something, so over time everyone is equally affected. Then if it carries on you'll lose power on different days.

I don't know why people are worrying about fridges and freezers, they'll be absolutely fine for a few hours without power, especially in snapshot unheated house in winter.

If there’s no heating, there’s no hot water, so no hand washing/hygiene precautions, so we’ll all be off with bugs/Covid anyway @KatherineofGaunt and won’t need to worry about keeping our pupils warm/engaged!

Guess what block i am in? B. Yeahhh

It's soap and rubbing that cleans hands.

Temperature doesn't come into it, as the water would have to be uncomfortably hot to have a cleaning affect, we only wash in warm water because its nicer.

I wish I was B. My nick seems to get cut off four times in three days, over the weekend the one below me only twice...

As someone who lives somewhere where we have unplanned power cuts a couple of times a week I am bemused by this thread.

Freezer - don't open it and things will be good for up to 4 days.
A useful trick is put a cup of water in the freezer, when the water is frozen put a coin on top. If the power goes off, too can see where the coin is and that tells you how much the water defrosted.

Fridge - a few hours it will be fine

Power banks - keep them charged

Make sure you know which way your light switches work, so you can turn them off so you don't go to bed in the dark and wake up to lights on.

What do all these dramatic MNers do in the event of a normal power cut?

Most phone charges last for far longer than three hours. People have candles in their homes and can make a sandwich FFS

Those like PP needing to keep medical equipment running absolutely fair enough but really how much prep do the rest of us need

It will be inconvenient, I wont be able to work.
I can still use my gas cooker, so heating up water and food will be fine.

As someone who lives somewhere where we have unplanned power cuts a couple of times a week I am bemused by this thread.

I agree!

I honestly don’t get the panic over a power cut.

These were very common growing up in Cornwall and now they happen less regularly in my area but they still happen and the last one was out for almost 12 hours.

Just get a battery powered torch.
If it’s day time then go for a walk, read, tidy, do a jigsaw puzzle etc.
If it’s nighttime and you can’t ready by torch light then go to bed early.
You may have to eat cereal or a sandwich for dinner but it’s fine.

Remember if this was implemented it would be widespread so businesses and society as a whole would have to adjust, it wouldn’t be just you. (Some regulated businesses legally have to have these sorts of emergency resilience plans already).

So for people worried about working from home, for example, it’s highly likely your workplace would implement some sort of strategy/policy to reduce disruption.

Also consider either something like a portable wifi hotspot/phone tether combined with laptop battery; identifying a coffee shop in a different area that won’t be blacked out at the same time; or making an agreement with a friend/family/colleague in a different area to go round each other’s houses during the blackout times. I’m actually certain that some sort of business will crop up offering flexible working space in various locations aimed at people in a blackout area.

Again, everyone with vulnerable family members should make sure they are signed up to the priority services register.

I work from home in the evenings. But I have aPC with special software and firewalls. We aren’t allowed laptops, so no way can I decamp somewhere else to work.

Thursdays 5pm til 11pm, 2 outages one after the other. Seems a bit unfair!

We get power from Norway. The recent bad weather has vastly increased the level in the reservoirs that supply their hydroelectric power. I keep a rechargeable torch powered up, we have candles and a wind up radio. We cook electric but have cereal. We wont starve and we dont panic. Might have to go to bed when it's cold. Hospitals have emergency generators, if a powercut would be a disaster for you there are small ones available.

It's only three hours at a time, not three days.

How does this work for people who work from home in the evenings? I video call my clients in the evenings and make most of my money then. I'm really worried I will lose my business! There will be no WiFi and my devices only have a battery life for a short period of time.

If you guys get bored you can always stand outside and clap

If the blackout is at tea time, I’ll anticipate it and put something in the slow cooker in the morning. It will stay warm for some time after the electric has gone off.
Ill have the heating on to warm the house before too.
I can boil water on the hob.

This is scaremongering at its finest. Do you not think this would be all over the news if it was true?

My prepping consists of buying some matches for the gas hob and checking where our torches and batteries are.. If I didn't have a gas hob I would buy a camping stove.