To be really scared by this messaging from the government?

[sookiestjames77]

As someone who really struggled during the pandemic this has really scared me. I have done a big order of hygiene basics to arrive tomorrow (12 x packs of wet wipes etc) and will be heading out for a stock up shop tomorrow to fill up on tins etc.

I’m considering ordering 12 of those water refills for water coolers and a pump that fits in the top, but I don’t know if that’s overkill. I alone drink 4-5 litres of water a day, plus cooking water!

I am really scared. How is everyone else dealing with this?

I agree checking anonymous posters posting history is fucking weird and sinister. Hence the need for frequent name changes.

Disagree. Some credulous people get very involved with threads and take everything the OP says at face value. In those cases it's helpful if another poster says as early as possible something along the lines of 'You're posting about difficulties between your 14 year-old son and your husband but last week you said you were bringing up twin daughters aged 2 as a single parent. Which is it?'

BBQ, I assume. Our neighbours cook lots of stuff on their enormous all singing all dancing BBQ all year round. They'd be fine if we lost power!

I agree with you. It's also helpful if someone can let posters know that the OP has started the same thread about whether they will get over their ex every single day for a fortnight so probably best not to waste ages typing out 5 paragraphs of advice. That doesn't even require a search, I just recognise the name!

This poster hasn’t started any other threads.

Sookie St James is a character from Gilmore Girls.

are you a manual labourer working on the equator?

I'm not talking about this OP, clearly. The post I quoted said that on "some" threads people get very invested and gives an example of when posting history can be helpful, and then I agreed and gave another example where sometimes you can just recognise the OP.

Apologies for my confusion

Sorry not read the whole post through. Ive got a few cans of beans in. You drink 4-5 litres of water a day? Wtf

Apparently that means the op is healthy. Hmm.

Ours was last year. A house in our street was being used as an illegal cannabis grow and because they'd done a poor job of tapping into the mains electricity the whole street went bang. We were without electricity for four days whilst they isolated the house and repaired the system. They also had to cut off the gas for a couple of days. The worst thing was no hot water for two days and the cats had to eat off paper plates which they were not happy about. We already had lots of fancy candles so at least the house smelt nice. I now keep a couple of boxes of ordinary candles just in case.

Why do we need to have documents like passports and birth certificates ready? This feels little beginning of covid lockdowns again

You don't have to. Nobody is going to come round and check. It's just that if you did have an emergency and couldn't get access to your house for some time, especially if the house might have sustained serious damage in the mean time from fire or flood or explosion (e.g. gas issue), you'd probably be very grateful to have your key paperwork to hand to prove your identity and assist with insurance and benefits claims and other bureaucracy. You probably already keep things like this in a sensible place all together. Maybe think about locating that sensible place in your bedroom so you could just pick up a folder or bag on the way out in an emergency. That's all that's being advised, surely?

You have a serious lack of imagination… not to mention an appreciation of what it is like to live in a war zone!

Of course they don’t know exactly what the emergency will be…. It could be weather, it could be war (unlikely), it could be a host of other things. Anyway, you seem determined to get yourself into a lather about this regardless of what any writes or posts.

I’m guessing you’re someone who routinely catastrophises? I’d work on addressing the root cause of your tendency towards anxiety, rather than focus on the object of that anxiety…

If you've never had a power cut, flood or been snowed in ever maybe you dont need to do anything and can ignore and take comfort in that?

There could be a cyber attack that takes the grid, but its not incredible likely. We will at some point have another global pandemic but no one knows when. Maybe never in your lifetime. My neighbours had no candels or torches when they moved in. Many power cuts later, they do now. One Christmas we had no electricity for a week. No one died as far as im aware. But some had a more comfortable time than others. I do think its a small cheap low layout as insurance and do have frequent power cuts. Its a free choice. Maybe a sensible one if you was in Cornwall this week and lost power in the storm.

Absolutely. Just have it in one place to beable to grab it.
We got ours in fire and waterproof box. Not because we are crazy prepped people for nukes, but the cost... Multiple nationalities. Just naturalisation certs would set us back nearly £1000 and lots of headache if we also lost IDs.... I think it would be about 3k+ total to replace all docs and IDs from all 3 countries and LOTs of headache. Totally worth the under £100 investment.
It's 12kg heavy box though so it better survives if anything happens because I am not sure we would manage to carry it out safely🙈

This shows where the power cuts are across the country today as a result of the storm

oh FFS they are being upfront. Read the government web page on it
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/households-encouraged-to-take-small-simple-steps-to-stay-prepared-in-an-emergency

"The advice is the first stage of a three-year campaign to help households across the UK feel better prepared for events such as severe weather, which can occasionally affect services including power, water, phones and the internet.
The campaign focuses on straightforward things people can do in advance, including signing up to the Priority Services Register - a service that helps gas, water, and electricity companies identify customers that may need extra support in an emergency - and keep a small supply of non-perishable food and bottled water at home.
With storms last winter and the wildfires this summer showing how severe weather events can cause disruption to our everyday lives and impact the services we rely on, from phone signal to water and the internet, launching the campaign brings the UK into line with European peers who all run similar campaigns already.
The government has worked with other countries to learn from their experience and best practice. For example, the advice to be prepared for three days of disruption that is at the heart of the UK campaign is also used by France, Ireland and The Netherlands. "

THIS

We had huge fires in local fields this summer, during the heat wave. I live next to a wheat field. I had a bag packed with essential documents, like the passport and insurance docs, and a change of clothes. I had a sack of dog food in the boot of the car and the dog leads and harnesses near the door.

Being prepared reduced any anxiety I was feeling. Still very pleased once the harvest was done.....

I now have food supplies for a week or so, a large camping container of water (from the tap not bought) sitting in the garage. I've got a camping water filter anyway - so in a real emergency could use the water butt water.

The only "extra" thing I had to do was dig out the old water container from the camping gear and fill it up.

because those are the things that are a faff to replace and cost money to replace...so basically anything that meets those two criteria. I'd add also anything that you have online (my insurances are online) at least have a paper note of the policy details and contact numbers in case you need them and can't access the internet

It's amazing that some people are resistant to the idea of being prepared for an emergency. I'm very pleased that the government is doing this. One of the things that was a nasty shock when Covid struck was the realisation that governments had known for decades that another pandemic would strike at some point, had at one point been so well prepared that we were held up as an example to other countries, and then let it all slide. Of course the infrastructure needs to be as robust as possible. Of course we need to make sure we produce as much as possible of our own food and energy and the things we can't produce should be coming from other stable democracies we're on good terms with. But nobody can prevent every disaster and down at the level of individual households we should be prepared for the horror of not being able to buy a pint of milk in the middle of the night from Deliveroo, not being able to have two showers a day and so on.

How successful do you believe this government is in bearing down on the COL crisis, and addressing food and energy security?

Well, I gather they would like to re-nationalise the water industry, which is a step in the right direction. Where there is no possibility of competition private ownership doesn't seem like a great idea for an absolutely essential service.

Defo not healthy to drink 5 litres of water a day! 😬

.