Why are people posting about stockpiling with no specifics?

[MsAmerica]

I've seen it mentioned, but without a single direct quote or link. Yet the OPs seem to want others to explain it....?

It's just sensible to be prepared, thousands of households have suffered power cuts in the last few days because of storms, for example. Water supplies sometimes get cut off. It doesn't mean that there is impending doom, just that people aren't as prepared as they used to be. I was surprised that so many people apparently needed to buy a torch or a battery radio, because they are something we've always had in, but it's obviously something we need to think about.

It's just being ready and sensible advice. Given the weather we have had recently and the cyber attacks.
You don't have to be wealthy to make sure you have a couple of tins of extra food in. You could buy an extra tin of something a week without breaking the bank. Baked beans cost 40p and you can get tinned fish for less than a pound.
The advice just suggests people have enough in for three days most people have that amount of food in anyway. Just but stuff you would normally eat and replenish it if you use it. It isn't a huge thing to do

@TheCabbageMerchant my SIL literally buys food for on the day. I doubt she’s got a lot in.

When I lived alone, and lived pretty much in the town centre I had to walk through to get home from work, I would do this. Just stop at the grocers/ butchers or smaller supermarket and pick up whatever I fancied for dinner that night. Or maybe I was going out, or getting a take away, or couldn't be bothered so was just going to have crackers or cereal or whatever.

Even then though, I think I would have had 3 days worth in. Maybe not the drinks/ water, but always the aforementioned crackers/ cereal, a couple of fish fingers in the freezer (as in ice box within the fridge), a stash of nuts or chocolate. I don't think I'd have starved, although I'd have eaten some odd combinations.

Stockpiling? It's three days worth
Cue the bams buying more like three years worth.
Cos Jimmy on FB confirmed
Something big must be coming
Oh my heid🤯🤯

Ukraine and Trumps little war in the ME could cause problems. International hackers could shut down our electronic infrastructure.

Just to prepare for that.

Exactly

Prepare for what, we are so well protected a hack would do nothing other causes an inconvenience.

I was away for the weekend so was clearing out my weekend bag. While I was at it, I got a plastic bag and put in a phone charger, some HRT patches, paracetamol, some antiseptic cream and a toothbrush and stuck it back in the bag, so that's the start of my ' prepping'! Once the demand goes down I'll get some matches and candles.

I don't think that its completely stupid. I've just had a quick look, the recommended amount of drinking water to store is 3L per person per day. Thats just for drinking water.

For comfort, (cooking, cleaning and flushing toilets, etc) its around 10L per person per day.

So for a family of 4, youd need to store a minimum of 36L just for drinking, and up to 120L for comfort. And extra for any pets.

What i think is daft is that the advice is to store food, but not to store any form of camping stoves, etc, so that you could have hot food, instead of cold beans or soup from a tin.

@2boyzNosleep if it's indoor space it has to be a specific type for safety reasons and given the stupidity of some people that's a very real danger.

My kid eats exclusively perishable food, and beans. Everything else is dairy based, has cheese in it somehow somewhere, or is bread (toast).

My freezer is always stocked, but once defrosted - game over, he’s not eating. He’s actually not anyway because the only thing that he eats without an oven or microwave being involved, is beans.

He’d also have taken himself out into the apocalypse anyway, the very second the WiFi went off.

I have nowhere to keep various quantities of water and I’m not buying stocks of beans that may well have gone off by the time the mystery event arrives.

I’m not buying stocks of beans that may well have gone off by the time the mystery event arrives.

This is silly. If you usually eat 4 tins of beans a week, then buy 8 tins for your stores. Next week buy your usual four tins and use 4 from your stores. Same again the next week. The idea of having stocks is you rotate it so it doesn’t go out of date. You don’t just put it away and leave it!

I also don’t regularly spend £4 a week on beans I may or may not need. I appreciate cheaper beans are available, but unfortunately the child won’t eat them.

If there was some sort of concrete information around the whole thing, I’d potentially be more concerned.

But right now it feels that I’m being asked to prepare for something that may happen, or may not, and it could be any one of many things.

I have absolutely no idea where 3 days came from, how we know this event will be 3 days, and what that event will even be. What happens on day 4 when we’ve ran out of the pre advised cupboard stocks? Foraging?

I don’t drink even a litre of water on any good day. So that would be excessive for me!

I'm impressed to find out so many people don't normally have 3 days worth of non fridge foods in. I mean, the selection might be unusual, but I think most people have something that would suffice. For me, that's miscellaneous cans, peanuts, crisps, fruit, cheese. Eat up the fridge stuff in first 24 hrs, etc.

Water was the only one I needed to plan for, I'll try to rotate thru filling plastic bottles I already have.

Clearly it could be a variety of things. But the reality is that we are facing increased likelihood of emergencies that might disrupt power, water, supply of food etc. None of them are guaranteed to last 3 days or less. In all likelihood they will last for longer - potentially much longer.

The government is trying to get us to take some responsibility for looking after ourselves since they will not be able to do it - even if the will to do it was there, they simply don't have the food etc stockpiled to supply the country. Nether do we even have the warehouses to do so. The closest thing we have is the supermarkets warehouses but they only have enough to last three days before they would be empty. Because of all this, the government needs us to use our own homes as the warehouses.

You do you but personally I'm putting away a supply that would keep my family going in an emergency (for longer than 3 days). It might be relatively short term in duration - in which case case we won't need to leave the house - or it could be longer eg lack of supply or rationing - in which case we will have extra to supplement whatever is actually available.

It seems strange advising people to make a 3 day store for something that is likely to be longer than 3 days.

I don’t actually have the luxury of being able to prepare anything apart from tins of beans, and baby wipes. That’s it. Everything else would be in the one freezer we have, or slowly going off, and I unfortunately can’t make him not autistic because there’s a weather event.

I do think it’s insane for the government to suggest people use their houses as warehouses, when they live in normal family homes and not warehouses, and in the middle of a cost of living crisis - many people can’t actually afford to buy food to store for later.

I can, and may well become a tins of beans gatherer, but honestly that’s the extent of the prep I can do. He would sooner starve to death than eat basically anything else I could safely store for longer than 3 days.

Why do you need comfort. What emergency exactly are we talking about?

So let's say you live near a river and it floods. You are evacuated to a community centre or sports stadium. How much water could you physically carry. You will almost certainly be asked to leave your pets as as you can imagine dogs and cats in a sports stadium in large numbers will cause an issue. Reality is you'll need a small bottle of water and some warm clothes and possibly a blanket or sleeping bag.

Next scenario, war. Large scale drone attack on regional power stations cuts the power off to a major city. You'll need food and water for 24 hours before emergency plans kick in. You are not going to starve but if your diabetic and need insulin then medical centres that have generators will have emergency supplies of common medicine. In such an event washing and comfort won't be a priority. Worst case scenario you might be evacuated which again means you will have restrictions on what you can bring.

What I'm trying to say is it's hard to plan for the unknown as every emergency creates different challenges. If you live in a very remote community then having a generator makes sense but for most of us living near cities a kettle full of water would be enough.

Scenario - hybrid attack on energy infrastructure (this is one of the more likely things to occur) causing a widespread loss of power that takes days to fix. People will be staying in their homes, with no power and no running water - that water supply will come in extremely useful then.

Scenario - fuck up by water company causing loss of running water or contaminated water (this is something that already happens), people who didn't stock up on water panic buy all that's left in the shops. That water supply is useful again.

Scenario - water rationing because the reservoirs have run dry, another reason to want a ready water supply at home.

The three days is for the period between an event happening and contingency arrangements being in place.

The three days is the immediate aftermath, so between the event itself and any contingency arrangements being in place.

You seem to be quite obstructive/oppositional about this. Of course the advice is non-specific, it's for unforeseen events!

But you are at liberty to ignore all sensible advice.

I would put money on the fact that this is a soft launch. Once they think people have adapted to the messaging and moved on from screeching "why should I? This isn't my responsibility!" to thinking "actually the world is pretty fucked up at the moment with complete lunatics in power in the US and Russia - its sensible to anticipate disruption", I think the messaging will change to 7 days/2 weeks.

Lots of other countries tell their populations to be prepared for longer periods. We will follow.

I think anyone who thinks there are emergency plans in place which will enable the feeding of large areas of the country hasn't educated themselves. We have no back up food supply and the food in supermarkets/supermarket warehouses would last the country 3 days in total, our water situation is precarious due to the weather we had over the summer, we no longer keep gas reserves, our country is dependent on pipelines and cables in the sea and the Russians (and Americans for that matter) - have cable cutter subs, most of us have already lost analogue communication line (analogue land lines) and in eight weeks' time the last areas are switched off so everyone in the entire country will be reliant on digital lines which can very easily be targeted and switched off by hackers (stupidest decision ever).

Frankly, if there is serious disruption it will be hard for everyone to adapt to eating differently. If you're actually in the unfortunately position of having a family member with a medical condition that means they can only eat certain things then thats even more of a reason to be well stocked so you can ride out the worst of any (hopefully short term) disruption.

Im not sure about that. My town had an issue with the water pumping situation for 4 days a year or so ago due to an rxtra silty river. fairly quickly there were drop off points to pick up drinking water, which was rationed per car, but the comfort was a big issue.

Noone could flush toilets so schools and businesses closed, and by day 4 peoole really wanted to shower. and preparing food without being able to wash surfaces easily was depending on how much water you'd managed to pick up. Luckily it wasnt far to a town using a different pumping station so people were travelling for food and water and showers, but a bigger scale issue would have stopped that.

Where are they evacuating people to exactly in your scenarios?

In most emergency situations - lack of oil supply meaning goods can't be transported, loss of power, loss of water, loss of internet meaning nothing can operate and supply chains are affected, extreme weather, pandemic, massive inflation due to world disruption meaning food costs spiral, war.. people will largely be expected to remain at home and make do.

Yes if your village floods to the extent that its dangerous to stay put then you might be advised to sleep in a nearby sports hall on a temporary basis and if it is an isolated emergency you won't be expected to take your own water (particularly since they would have taps). But that is a situation which is very limited in scope.