To stockpile 72 hours of supplies

[seriouslessness]

..in case of disaster or attack. A new preparedness strategy inspired by Nordic countries and Germany, who already do this.

Is this something you already do, or will do?

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/26/stockpile-supplies-72-hours-disasters-attack-eu-tells-citizens

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/emergency-disinfection-drinking-water

ratios for water to bleach

Apologies but has anyone mentioned what we have to protect us?
Do we have the dome?
I know we have nuke on the subs but if something came at us what have we got to protect us.
Do we have many tanks etc

We have a MAD response which is pretty dark. You nuke us, doesn't matter if you get us, we'll nuke you back. So a country has to be pretty bonkers to attack like that but hey, it's a pretty bonkers world

I think these days they know we are not just cannon fodder. Yet. War is still the play things of the rich and stupid; but not in Europe, so much at least.
It does not make it right. Nowhere. But we are probably ok
So I think be prepared but also do the bloody obvious
vote
have an opinion
keep educating children

Can I just add.
If anyones lives near Faversham No you cannot come into my house to pump up the water from the well under my house
unless we can do swapsies 🙂

Yes
Look for this symbol

How does one obtain water from a well or spring identified on a map?

Just go along with a bucket or hose and tank?

Presumably there will be landowners or jobsworths who get pissy with you

We have a spring near us
You can fill up your bottles from it as its accessible to all. It’s very popular with walkers

Some, like our well, are on private land though.

To an extent, this ‘72 hour back up’ idea is a concept to sharpen minds as much as shore up supplies. It makes us think about our security, our relative comfort.

I could probably manage for 3 months or more. I've got 2 freezers full of meat and vegetables. A large stock of tins and dried goods and loads of washing powder, fabric softener, loo rolls etc. I've also got 4 dozen of bottles of water and long life milk. My DS says I could feed the street. He's teases me but I noticed during COVID he was very glad I could give him a couple of boxes of paracetamol, hand wash liquid and loo rolls. I let him take some for one of his mates too who couldn't get any paracetamol or loo rolls. I buy in bulk with 48 rolls in each pack and always have 4 packs.

Why do I seem to be the only person nervous by this post

We have a wind up radio for getting the news in the event of no power. Not knowing what was going on or if anyone was out there would be really rough.

Your 2 freezers full won't be much use if there is no energy to power them!

My message wasn't actually aimed at you, more those posters who are in panic mode that the world is going to disintegrate at any moment and think this is some kind of advance warning! 😀

New Zealand.

Many of the posts here give out a sense of "I'm too cool to be bothered by this", or "it's going to be a nuclear disaster or a zombie apocalypse so no point with three days of supplies", or just plain sneering at others taking the advice seriously. The notification from our government is mostly focused on cyber attacks and natural disasters. All they want is citizens to be self sufficient for at least three days until they can get things working again, so that their resources can be focused on fixing the problems and not rescuing citizens. This also means having cash at hand, in case the banking systems get knocked out, or shop payment systems don't work. And a battery operated radio to have access to news updates and notices if the electricity is gone. It's just common sense in an era where we rely on technology for everything, and weather patterns are increasingly unpredictable.

I’m showing DH this thread, he keeps complaining that I’m buying too many tins of chopped tomatoes, they’ve been on a really good offer !!

Under the bed?

There are always cocky people who say “oh I’d rather just die”.

The reality is you wouldn’t. There is no way that anyone would rather die than stay at home with supplies for a week. I mean for goodness sake we’ve actually been here already with Covid. Did people walk out and deliberately infect themselves in the early days when we didn’t know what was going on because that was better than staying at home, no of course they didn’t.

You’d feel a bit of knob sat up on your cloud in heaven having killed yourself and your whole family by day four due to not bothering to take some easy prepping steps when on day five the country managed to get back to normal.

For the vast majority of people this is an easy thing to do. We are so vulnerable at the moment. Our defence system relies on the Americans and they are as likely to spit on us as help us at the moment and that isn’t likely to change in a hurry. We are also a small but loud country which gets involved when bad things happen so we are a prime target. We are dealing with cyber attacks against our infrastructure every single day. Banking systems and utilities are particularly vulnerable.

Buy some bloody loo roll and beans and get some water butts set up.

I worked in an unstable country for years.
We kept three weeks of bottled water and food, so if there were issues you wouldn’t have to go out.
Never let meds run low.
Always refueled the car when half the tank was empty.
Kept cash and documents in a grab bag (smart travel folder in a safe place so it was easy to pack for trips).
Kept charging bricks and a solar charger.

I don’t do all of this today back in Europe, but do keep a few crates of water, don‘t let essentials run low, keep documents in a travel folder and have some cash in a safe place.

I will go back to keeping the car topped up as with cyber attacks there is a risk of disruption.

I do grow as much as possible. DC loves picking berries and it cuts food miles and plastic packaging. Plus they aren’t loaded with pesticides.

Keep in mind the following things are prepping without being seen as a lunatic who is prepping:

solar phone charger - just common sense at this time of year and always handy to have in your bag/car anyway

solar garden lights. In the spring summer and autumn these will charge all day for free and can then be brought inside in the evenings for light

candles - loads of candles just makes you look like any other middle aged woman

matches - see candles above

waterbutts - save the planet and reduce your water bills so why wouldn’t you?

drinking water - keep in mind this means fluid and so includes juices, soft drinks, milk, alcohol - you don’t need a mountain of bottled water.

radio - solar radio can just live on your kitchen window ledge. They cost less than a tenner

food - if we all planted a few things in amongst the flowers in our gardens we would cut our food bills and help save the planet - it’s a win win. Even a sunny bedroom window sill can be used to grow things. A week long stash of food doesn’t take up much space and if you buy sensibly it will last for a very long time. Jams, pasta sauces pasta cous cous and rice plus anything tinned will basically last a good couple of years. a bottle of oil and some flour also lasts ages. Bags of soya mince are really cheap and are a meat substitute that will last years. Sugar and honey will literally outlive you.

cash - put it in your knicker drawer and forget about it and then it’s a nice surprise when you find it in five years when rummaging for some tights without holes in the toe

There are loads more. Just be sensible and realistic about the state of the world

But if it's not all out nuclear what else do we have? If putin which I don't believe he would BTW stated firing missiles what do we have

Highly unlikely (although probably more likely now than ever in our lifetimes) that anyone is firing off the nukes. They don’t need to. They sit safely in their own countries and fuck with our power water banking, security, transportation etc via cyber attacks.

We do the same right back

This is a very sensible approach.

If everyone did a basic level of sensible prepping it would cut the panic buying when there are issues. This is a reason why everyone should be encouraged to have supplies.

it isn’t luck at all but astute household management