What's in your Lights Out box?

[bellinisurge]

Following on from the discussion on here about whether or not candles are a good idea in a power cut - I think they are a risk if they are your only light source, I've decided to put a Lights Out box together. My assumption is that lights and heat go out in a power cut.

I'm assuming that I can find stuff in the house once I've got the lighting sorted so I don't need to pack my box with food or blankets.

I'm assuming a short lived rolling blackout that we are warned about in advance as well as an unplanned one.

I'm factoring in an unlikely but not impossible scenario of mobile towers going down so no mobile phones but, in this scenario, I'm magically thinking landlines might still be up.

1. Torches including head torches and milk bottle lanterns.
2. List of where useful stuff is - like hurricane lamps, garden solar lights, camping stove &windbreaker, whistle kettle, big umbrella if cooking outside, location of precooked food and hot water in flasks if we have advanced warning
3. Battery pack and cables for phones
4. Candles (yes, I will use them) including tea lights
5. Matches
6. Lighters
7. Radios (wind-up/solar charged one + battery powered one)
8. First aid kit
9. AAA and AA batteries

10. Duck tape because I'm a prepper (probably a comfort thing) 11. Hooks for the solar powered fairy lights to set up indoors (currently in garden getting the sun) 12. Hot water bottles (if not already in use) 13. Lifestraw (see 10 ) 14. Old fashioned rotary dial landline phone - also got one for my in-laws so we can talk to each other.

If you are not a prepper, I would suggest you just get your torches together with batteries and maybe a phone charger and cable. Have a torch outside the box in a place everyone knows about.

I've put some kids fluorescent stars on the box so it will show up easier with a torch when anyone goes looking for it.

That's a PITA, we are area S and even at level 1, as well as an early morning one, we are out over both lunch and dinner times on Saturday and Sunday lunch time.

Better get a camping stove, I guess!

A list of phone numbers! In a long power cut, my mobile ran out of charge and even though I had a landline I couldn’t call anyone as I could no longer remember their numbers. Too long just calling on my mobile!

I'm S as well, the times are a right pain aren't they!

Or a loaf of bread.

@TwigTheWonderKid

Dinner at 6 Sat
Dinner at 7 Sun

is that really so bad?

Either eat cold food or cook before hand and keep it hot.

If you get a food thermos you can cook up a load of sausages and have hot dogs, or a big batch of soup, or a casserole.

During the lockdowns when entertainment was a trip to the park we would have a thermos of sausages and a thermos of hot chocolate and take them for a winter picnic to the park. Would keep hot for a good 4 hrs and sitting on a bright but cold lunchtime eating hot dogs on the park was actually really nice.

I think I might have a go at making a Wonderbag. Has anyone else made one? Or used one?

We’ve got a battery powered lantern and torch that live on a shelf above the tv, mostly so we know where they are when we go camping but they’ll be easy to find in a power cut. Also a battery powered lantern by my bed. Plenty of candles round the house anyway and lighters and matches live in a cupboard in the kitchen. Gas stove can be lit by a lighter if the power is gone and we have a camping stove in the cupboard too. I have a phone power bank that I keep charged for emergencies. If the heating goes we own plenty of blankets and jumpers anyway that will be easy to find. I’m good at feeling my way around the house anyway because I have adhd and tend to forget that it makes life a lot easier if you turn the lights on when it gets dark… Also grew up in the countryside where power cuts through the winter were to be expected and tend to choose to go without electric when we go camping so we know we can cope without just fine.

What’s the safest way to heat up food with no outside space? I’m in U. Fortunately I don’t work weekends so should have time to sort something prior but, lone parent, 3DDs, one disabled, I’m disabled, so I might not be able to.

I’m in a cottage, but all the outside space belongs to the business next door.

You could use a camping stove but as I said upthread, the easiest option would be to prepare for the outage and cook food in advance then keep it hot. They're planning for 3 Hr outages so if your slot is over dinner time, just make food mid afternoon and put it in a thermos or insulated bag to keep it warm.

The DSs have the Thermos king food flasks for school and they keep food really hot for hours. Argos currently have bigger ones on special offer here

I’m out of the house from 7:30am till 5:30pm Mon-Fri, luckily it seems that mine are mostly at weekends. Saturdays are spent dashing from one activity to another. I’m sure they’ll survive on hot dogs/soup in a Thermos if they really want something warm.

The doom monger in me is looking at the longer blackouts with slight panic.

Northern Ireland shares its grid with ROI so no blackouts for them.

For context I believe the details in the plan that people are referring to have been in place for almost 20 years. They exist as an agreed contingency.....

This is helpful. I don't plan to buy anything new but we have lots of things in various cupboards that I will gather up so we know where to find them. Buying some dried noodles and soup today - we will eat them in any case but with the camping stove and gas BBQ we will be able to have hot food. Regretting the stupid induction hob which I never liked anyway!

Yes NOI and Republic of IE share an all-island grid. This does NOT mean there won't be power cuts, just that we are less reliant on UK supplies. But the promised interconnector to France is still not built so the only non-island source we have a the moment is the east-west IC to the UK.

We are less reliant on fossil fuels than UK. But if the wind doesn't blow, we will have problems as that is roughly 45-60% of our capacity a lot of the time. We have decommissioned the 2 remaining power plants that were fuelled by our own peat for environmental reasons (green minister for energy). And we have no bulk gas storage capacity really - we need to recommission the Kinsale gas fields infrastructure to get that which will take time. So our base load plants are mostly dependent on imported gas (there may still be a small amount coming shore in Mayo).

So it is far less likely than the UK generally that Ulster would see power cuts.

But I still have everything prepped (in the Republic) with plenty of wood for our stove and I have always kept my 1 ring gas stove, spare gas canisters, and my torches/lanterns at home all winter while the rest of my camping gear is in storage.

As we've had plenty of outrages for different reasons over the years.

@WeAreAllDead
What’s the safest way to heat up food with no outside space?

For indoor use the safest thing is alcohol gel. Its used in catering, usually with stainless steel chafing dishes to keep already hot food hot. You can buy packs of 12 cans of ebay for under £15, they burn for 2-3 hours each and are reusable, you use a holder and close the lid to exclude the air to put them out.

Oh, alcohol gel! I forgot about my fondue set. Will dig it out and make sure to keep some cheese to hand - fondue by candle light in a blackout sounds a great plan!