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

Interesting thread. Shall definitely be laying in a few extra bags of cat food as don't fancy being eaten in my sleep.

Joking aside, my Dad's in hospital at the moment, and it got me thinking - how do institutions like this prepare? If TSHTF tomorrow, and I couldn't get to him, are places like hospitals well prepared ? Is there a place to look up that info?

That's my thoughts too. Even before Covid, we've always had plenty of "supplies" in the house, not just food and drink, but also for other contingencies, too, such as a box of candles (plain white ones, not fancy decorative ones!), a battery radio, a pulse tone telephone, torches, a full range of batteries and light bulbs, multipacks of loo rolls and spares of toiletries and even a gas camp stove! Our kitchen cupboards have more than one of everything, we have a second "overflow" freezer in our utility room, always some frozen bread and milk in the freezer. It's just "normal" to us to replace what we use and buy in bulk when things are on offer in the supermarkets. We have a shopping list in the kitchen that we write on when we open the last of something or notice there's only 1 or 2 left of something we use a lot like a tin of a favourite soup or packets of biscuits, or canned drinks, etc. Same with our cars, we never let either car get less than half full of petrol.

I'd be pretty confident we could easily last 72 hours without really noticing, and probably up to week still eating/drinking our normal daily patterns. After a week, it would probably start getting a bit boring and difficult as we'd be having to eat/drink what was left rather than what we actually fancied. I don't think we'd start struggling until probably two weeks, but even then, there'd still be things we could cobble together.

I think, in my case, it's because I was brought up in the 70s with the power cuts, going to bed with a candle, not being able to have a cooked meal if you got the timing wrong, etc.

It served us well when our entire city's power went down in Storm Desmond a few years ago. Four days without electricity, and then another 4/5 days with power provided by road side diesel generators which kept running out of fuel or breaking down. So disrupted power for over a week. We were listening to the local radio on our battery powered radio, phoning family on our pulse phone, cooking on the gas camping stove, walking around the house with candles in jam jars. Lots of people really struggled, especially as it was weekend when it happened and the local authority didn't get their arse in gear with things like organising hot food catering vans on random street corners and distributing bottled water until the Tuesday! Shops were closed, petrol stations were closed, no public transport etc - it's frightening just how quickly "normal" life can be taken away from you and how slow it is for the authorities to swing (sloth) into action as there's really no urgency.

Obviously, also worked wonders at the start of Covid, as we already had our "stock pile" and didn't need to join in the madness of everyone emptying the shelves. We just sat out that mad week as we didn't need to go shopping, and waited until the stocks were replenished in the shops before we stocked up again a couple of weeks later.

Yeah but you'd be the happiest person in a y disaster. Maybe reconsider?

I have a generator.

My personal experience is that hospitals aren't well prepared. Their drugs will mostly be on a "just in time" basis from the pharmaceutical wholesalers/suppliers. My OH has takes a couple of regular monthly chemotherapy drugs and the hospital pharmacy don't have any in stock - they always have to order them in next day. Maybe they have a "reserve" supply for use in the wards only, I don't know. He also has a Zometa infusion every month (to put calcium into the bones), and once or twice a year, he's sat settled in the day treatment room, all lined up, only for the nurse to come out of the storage cupboard to say they've run out of it and book him in for another day! I've also been for an ECG to be turned away because they've run out of those sticky things that stick on your chest to which they connect the wires! We also can't forget the unusable out of date PPE that should have been the contingency stocks for the pandemic. My neighbour works in a GP practice and she's often offering me "out of date" stuff like plastic gloves as she says however many times they're told, the staff don't rotate the stock room and just put new stock at the front of the shelves, leaving the stuff at the back to go out of date, which causes shortages as they've not got as much stock as they think they have, so more prone to run out.

Same with food, they're just the same as everywhere else, running on a "just in time" basis as the catering is usually contracted out. My MIL was in over New Year (she died just after), and had spent 48 hours on a trolley in A&E. She wasn't fed or watered at all in A&E, A&E was like a war zone, and the vending machines were all empty, so we had to take stuff in for her to eat and drink. When she finally got to a ward, there was nothing from the "kitchens" and no hot drinks - the ward volunteers were handing out bottles of water, bars of chocolate and pre packed sandwiches. Apparently the kitchens hadn't had their deliveries of food to cook "due to New Year" - no shit, who'd have thought New Year would have happened - it's not as if it happens every year is it??

So, no, I'd have no confidence at all that hospitals would be properly prepared.

We'd defrost and use the freezer contents first which would last a few days. We'd not touch the packets/tins etc until after all the perishables had been eaten. Easily manage 72 hours from the fridge/freezer alone.

But OH also has an old diesel generator in the garage and some diesel, so he'd probably get that started which would probably provide power for a few days - I don't know how long it would run on a couple of tins of diesel.

But we're also looking into buying a solar powered/rechargeable power pack, but not yet done all the research as to what it could power - it may or may not be capable of keeping a fridge/freezer working.

When you're rural, you tend not to rely on everything being available 24-7, especially if you're prone to being snowed in because the council don't grit the roads so even an inch or two of snow sometimes means you're not travelling anywhere!

@badbadbunny

So sorry to hear about your MIL.

I suspect you are right, and was just hoping that my current unease is just due to the stress of DF having stage 3 AKI and although supposed to be on slow fluids balanced out be cause heart issues, and digestive and lung issues, discovered yesterday that he got taken off his drip yesterday morning and due to a misunderstanding it wasn't reinstated until bedtime. He might see a nutritionist but there's no sense of urgency even though he's had no solid food since last Friday, and has dropped four stone over the last year. The weary cynic in me thinks they're hoping he'll die quietly (also his fear) as he looks emaciated.

So I probably shouldn't have started reading this thread, as now I'm sort of transferring into an apocalyptic mindset and wondering how the hell, in 2025, we're considering how to survive a myriad of dystopian scenarios. Not so bothered about myself, but the vulnerable in general.

If all else fails, I'll make sure I've got a litre of vodka to hand.

I've often said the end of the world won't be fire and brimstone, it'll be collective nervous breakdown.

Ah well, another day, another overpriced bacon bap in the hospital cafe, and fingers crossed eh?

caringcarer ,
Whilst you are congratulating yourself and donating prudently stored goods
to able bodied men, there are two major holes in your statement -

1). 2 freezers of food will not last long when the electricity supply is lost
the water supply will cease (pump driven)
that you will be the only house on the street washing clothes
and flushing toilets is a scenario which needs mentally adjusting

2). People will know where to come for supplies

@MistressoftheDarkSide

Sorry to hear of your DF. We had similar with FIL many years ago who was languishing in hospital, unable to keep food or drink down, which turned out to be a bowel blockage that took them several weeks to diagnose and treat. He was getting weaker by the day as he wasn't digesting anything at all - he'd be sick shortly after eating/drinking anything. After a couple of weeks, they decided to have some "liquid food" made up which they'd inject into his stomach and then somehow syringe out again, but even after they made that decision to do it, it was a week they started doing it! No sense of urgency at all.

@badbadbunny

Thank you, and once again, so sorry x

What I'm finding hard is advocating for Dad because doctors and HCPs can be a bit blasé, I assume because they see these things all the time, and obviously don't need over anxious relatives bugging them.

Am trying to keep calm and carry on, but my faith in everything has been seriously eroded in the last couple of years, and am currently in a constant loop of geriatric roulette.

So if the world could just keep it's shit together for a few weeks I'd be mightily grateful.

Apologies to the OP for the thread derail, but as a bit of an over thinker, the ripples from the original premise could be quite disturbing.

Slightly off topic but I have wondered even since Covid how PPE goes out of date. Food and drink I can understand but aprons, masks etc?

Material degradation. The UK government's storehouses had been neglected for years, so even our out-of-date PPE was lost, mouldy, damp and/or dirty.

I wonder how many people have added 'candles' to their online order already this week 😄

I have, plus an extra box of teabags

The other thing that is good to have is power cut light bulbs. They charge whilst being used and then if the power goes out due to a power cut they have a little button on the side that you press and they work (until the battery runs out but its a good number of hours). We get power cuts a lot due to where we live and all of lamps have emergency bulbs. If we have a prolonged power cut we use one at a time.

They are available on amazon/ebay and are about a tenner each.

We've got those too. As well as a generator and portable gas camping stove with spare gas bombs.

I am very sorry about your dad. My dad is in palliative care and my mum is also sadly very ill. It’s heartbreaking to go through.

We have a couple of those, they are really great. Especially during winter.

I was put off keeping lots of water in in plastic bottles at first, thinking the only way to keep it in date would be for us to keep drinking and replacing those bottles all the time as they got close to their dates, and I didn't want all the microplastics. Then I realised we could just use up water that's getting out of date in other ways than by drinking, so now we have some cheap 4x2 litre packs from supermarkets as our water for 72h. Very cheap and I'll be fine drinking them in an emergency, regardless of the microplastics, but used in other ways when it's not an emergency and I just need to use up out of date bottles.

I'd never heard of these - what a good idea! Adding to Amazon basket!

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for this thread @seriouslessness

Will be getting back in the habit of having having a full tank of fuel in the car. You use the fuel anyway so topping up when half empty isn’t a big deal.

That sounds like a nightmare.

The other thing to do is to buy food grade jerry cans and then just store water from the tap and change it every 12 months. If you change it in the summer you can use the water to water plant pots in the garden.

If there was a water issue one of the first things to do is to fill your bath and then use this water gradually for washing and cleaning teeth, scooping it out with a jug.

Printing this off to put on the fridge.
Buying A little an often

Im looking forward to looking up the solar radios available.

Thanks Marsaline !

Thank you for the information. I assumed it would be in a storage cupboard somewhere within the hospital. Bit silly really given the quantities that would be needed in an emergency situation.

Probably like primula cheese spread. It dosent need to be in the fridge.