Prepping for red weather warnings

[SnugglyJumpersMakeItBetter]

Or even amber, if you're being sensible! I thought I was prepared for Storm Goretti (although I didn't know it was a red warning, I thought it was just your ordinary Cornish winter squall) but I have learnt from experience! I thought I'd share my mistakes so you guys can learn from them too!

Things I did right:

Charging LED lanterns
Charging power banks for phones
Charging phones
Charging laptop
Mini torches ready
Kettle full and freshly boiled
Knew where candles and matches were
Hot water bottles filled and in beds
Had puppy pads for dog who couldn't be safely let out
Filled 2 bowls of water for flushing loos. Half filled bath and put bowl ready beside it.
Filled largest lidded tureen with fresh water suitable for drinking/teeth brushing etc
Filled 2 bottles of water for dog
Filled cheapo plastic water dispenser with hot water and placed next to sink ready for handwashing, on cork mat so wouldn't cool as fast as on metal draining board
Parked in carport rather than driveway

Things I did wrong:

Didn't bother looking for 3rd power bank
Forgot about third LED lantern stored in car
Didn't charge tablet and old MP3 players too. I hate the silence, or worse, the sound of the storm raging! I need to drown it out with some benign prattle. In the same vein, I should have downloaded audiobooks to tablet and charged speaker.
Didn't fill thermos flasks with boiling water
Didn't set up cool box with food for the next 24 hours so wouldn't have to open fridge/freezer!
Forgot to stock up on bottled water!!
Didn't have MORE batteries/candles/matches - it's never enough.
Didn't have enough newspaper for dog to relieve herself on - she didn't trust the puppy pads so had to hide them under the newspaper, which we nearly ran out of!
Didn't draw all blinds - could have reduced the risk of flying glass from shattered windows.
Let car run low on fuel! I was nearly in the red today and the first 2 petrol stations were closed! If I'd have had to drive someone to hospital or something that could have been bad!
Had a crappy first aid kit! I really need to get a proper one set up
Didn't have enough lanterns. I think I'll buy at least 2 more. They're cheap enough for the peace of mind they give you. It makes all the difference being able to see properly.
Didn't do all the laundry I could have in the hours leading up to the red weather warning kicking in. It's stressful thinking you might run out of pants!
Had no kitchen roll
Didn't fully fill bath, only half! Half might do for an amber warning but I'll fully fill it next time it's red.

I'm sure there are other things I'm kicking myself about, I'm just too tired to remember them now! Do you guys have any suggestions? We had about 10 minutes of the lights flickering before they went out for good - what would you have run around doing in those 10 minutes specifically?

Ours last about 3 days on battery if they're left on constantly

towards the end of that three day period they are not as bright

Correction: Amazon is stocking the Auraglow PIR light I pictured.

ooh that’s brilliant.

Some of us are rural. We have overhead powerlines in a low density hamlet. We are last on the list to get power back on. It just makes sense to the town up abd runming to help more households then work around to us.

On a hill, two miles walk to the nearest shop. It doesn't take much to get cut off with no power. Honestly having some extra candels and long life milk etc hurts no one. If I was posting that I has no power fir the with day and no water as its pumped in and a severly disabled child I'd be accused of being a idiot. So on the basis you can't win, I think this is helpful. It you live in Westminster, Manchester or Edinburgh city centre, maybe not so much. It's ten miles to my nearest supermarket.

Thankyou both for the links to the pir lights. Thinking these may be useful for my elderly parents

I know storms are short warning, but I wonder if some prep could be to make sure there isn't a freezer full of food to ruin? Mine is very full right now and no back up power.

Our freezers are normally ok for 48 hours, if you don't open the door. I think this lot is going to have to go though, and it was choc-a-bloc with special treats you only get in the supermarkets around Christmas! I know worse things happen at sea, but it is annoying, and expensive.

Still no power at home. I went back today to chuck the stuff from the fridges I wouldn't want to come back to, and sweep up some more bits of slate. There are fragments absolutely everywhere. Think I'll be clearing up til doomsday! V grateful to my friend for letting me crash at hers anyway, as the house is like an icebox now.

That really is annoying. The kids didn't fully close our freezer once. Everything had to be binned as some raw meat defrosted onto Everything below. Maybe that's another thing to consider as prep. Meat at bottom of freezer.

I always keep some water purification tables in the house, in case of an unsafe supply.

One perk of being a vegetarian!

It's a good idea to have some wrapped lollies in the freezer. Don't open the freezer until after the power had been on for a few hours so as not to let warm air in before it's had a chance to cool fully, but when you do open it you can check the state of the lollies to see how badly they melted. You can't tell with ice cubes as they refreeze in the same shape of course, and cartons of ice-cream it's hard to tell how defrosted they became. Lollies loose their shape.

Good idea! But with 4 kids I fear that's wishful thinking 😅 also the boys absolutely favorite hobby is opening the fridge, looking in, closing it, then immediately reopening it, like there's a magic restocking portal that changes the content each time you open the door.

Good idea! But with 4 kids I fear that's wishful thinking 😅 also the boys absolutely favorite hobby is opening the fridge, looking in, closing it, then immediately reopening it, like there's a magic restocking portal that changes the content each time you open the door.

I've got one of those as well. Can't wait til they are paying their own electricity bill!

Fruit cake keeps ages. Good treat! There's always a few who come on and ridicule us. Wasn't us queuing at the supermarket during covid to get paper thin shit quality bog roll.

Things I did right:
Charged lanterns and phones and power banks.
Had snack food in. Had butter and jam out of the fridge.
Filled flasks, wrapped and stored in blankets to slow heat loss.
Made coffee in insulated cups.
Made dd's tea and put in food flask.
Have portable radio.
Have petrol in car over 3/4 tank.
Have alternative means of cooking but only outside.
Have lots of alternatives to water. (Pop/fruit juice/fizzy water to drink)

Things I did wrong.:

One flask doesn't retain heat and I forgot to replace it.
Lost one lantern. Had to search for others.
Need to charge up rechargeable torches.
Not got head torches for indoors.
Didn't check the charge on the radio. (Solar /wind up/ battery) But can charge by arm power if necessary.

Do not have fridge lock. (Keep the one who knows everything out)

Still do not have a jackery solar power generator to back up freezer.

Did not have enough water to flush loo. Or to cook or wash with.

In the end, we didn't lose power but neighbouring area did. The map was lit up with power cuts. Live in a flat on a hill. We are going to struggle with water if power goes off. Been without water for hours when a big leak happened locally.

For water for the loo, are you near a river or have a pond? When we lost water, someone in the village was offering out his hot tub water for the loo. I get 6 x 2L bottles from Lidl every few months it's all under the stairs. Also don't refill the cistern, pour from.a bucket at height, you will need less for the loo that way.

I wonder if you can get kettle type kettles for the car?

As soon as my kids move into their place I'm going to stare into their fridge every ten minutes when I visit

I'm going to have so much fun, leaving recycling around the place is my bug bear. Or balance their expensive crockery in a Jenga pile...

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zKK9O6lvQV0

Excellent!

Do you have a link to these light bulbs, please?

If you live somewhere with overhead powerlines, you get a lot of powercuts in bad weather.

Six years ago, I had to self-isolate for two weeks with Covid symptoms. I live alone, family miles away, so no one to go shopping for me. Delivery slots were impossible to get. My stockpile saw me to the end of that fortnight.

If I had taken your approach of never prepping for anything, CatOfHate and I would have starved, and it's unlikely that he would have survived that.