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What would you do in the first hours of a nationwide power cut? A handy tips thread.

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BorgQueen · 01/10/2026 17:19

  1. Before ANYTHING else : Fill 3 x 120l lidded storage boxes with water. Plus every bottle, pan and vase.
  2. Go and collect my Grandson from school if he was there. I could walk it in 30 mins if need be, DD would likely have to abandon her car and walk home, taking 3 hours+ . Her partner works 30 miles away in Manchester so god knows what he’d do, steal a bike if he had any sense and cycle home using the many canal paths.
  3. Walk into my village and buy cat litter, bin bags, a garden incinerator, steel buckets, batteries, lighters and whatever else looked useful plus calorie dense food and whatever medical supplies I could find while they would still take cash.
  4. Go to the garden centre down the road and buy a gas bbq/ gas and lots of solar lights, along with one of those camping trollies with cash before everyone realised what was coming.
  5. Go to the caravan/camping sales place by the garden centre and buy a camping shower, lots of gas bottles and look to see which caravan would be easiest to steal if it came to having to leave/hide, one that could be wheeled out by cutting the chain link fence and taken to a well hidden place. Thankfully DH has a tow bar on his van.
  6. Make sure we could black out all the windows at night to stop light escaping.
  7. Get DH to make large wooden barriers with decking joists to prevent the front and back doors being battered in. His power tool batteries are always fully charged.
  8. Park his van across the big front window and my car so it blocked access to the garage.
  9. Scope out a local vending supplies warehouse, unless you knew what and where it was, people wouldn’t even think about it, they’d be too busy robbing cash converters.

HebeMumsnet · Yesterday 09:08

Thanks for all the nominations. We've moved this thread to Classics now to preserve it for posterity (or for the apocalypse).

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