Preparedness for when

missrlr · 22 October 2012 at 2:10PM

Well I failed today, was going to buy 2x2l bottles of MrT cheapo water for the car, but they only had sparkling.
So I bought 4 tins of beans, 2 packs of can be steamed puddings, 4 cans of assorted fruit and 4 packs of custard, some broccoli from seduced items section (I love broccoli so will munch tonight) and a roll of wrapping paper (the reason I went to MrT in the first place)
Not very MSE but quite Preparedness I think.

Note to self, leave in car and bring in when DH is at work otherwise he will make funny noises, aside from broccoli as I can eat that tonight.

I think I am verging on the obsessive about this now ....

2tonsils · 22 October 2012 at 2:31PM

I will have a go.....Scenario....

Suddenly the lights start flickering then go out altogether. When you ask the next door neighbour if her electric she says that is off as well. You get in the old car to pick up the children from school and the radio says a solar flare has damaged the National grid and they have no way of knowing when it will be repaired. Your husband is at work and went there on his motorcycle.....what do you do ? It is the end of October....

VJsmum · 22 October 2012 at 2:47PM

I am lucky as I still would have a gas hob. I would obviously go and get kids (one of mine is half a mile and could walk, the other is 8 miles and 2 train rides away. Trains won't run so would text and tell her to start walking but I am on my way, if text works that is..)

I have candles, matches and wind up torches in a box in the dining room and everyone knows where they are (and spare batteries). I would be able to cook on the gas hob so pasta out of the store with tomatoes, herbs and garlic maybe. If the gas goes off then I would cook on our el cheapo barbecue in the garden. We would read, play board games or uno till bed.

Longer term I guess the freezer would start to defrost so I would salvage anything from that and cook on the gas or use a makeshift haybox. We have our caravan over the road so there will be enough gas in there for a week or two. DS would miss his x box, DD her ipod once the battery went. I have stores of pasta, tomatoes, baked beans, tuna, soup, cereals, powdered milk and some long life milk. Water (but possibly not enough - especially long term), juice - and wine

:D

I wonder at what point we would all be ready to kill each other?

Edit - i'd get this blessed marking done though :-)

shegar · 22 October 2012 at 2:51PM

missrlr wrote: »

Well I failed today, was going to buy 2x2l bottles of MrT cheapo water for the car, but they only had sparkling.
So I bought 4 tins of beans, 2 packs of can be steamed puddings, 4 cans of assorted fruit and 4 packs of custard, some broccoli from seduced items section (I love broccoli so will munch tonight) and a roll of wrapping paper (the reason I went to MrT in the first place)
Not very MSE but quite Preparedness I think.

Note to self, leave in car and bring in when DH is at work otherwise he will make funny noises, aside from broccoli as I can eat that tonight.

I think I am verging on the obsessive about this now ....

I had to laugh when I read you post.....:D "seduced item section"....:T:T:D:D...............................Luv it.....

mardatha · 22 October 2012 at 3:06PM

OOh tonsils ta. Well my kids are all big and can get on with it LOL they been told often enough about prepping.
Hubby is retired but often out on his motorcycle so.. ok well he can get on with it as well

... he'd have to make his way either back home here or go to one of the kids to stay. They live 20-25 miles away in 3 diff directions.
I would cope womanfully, just me and the cat. Calor gas cooker, coal fire, loads of candles.
AND GET SOME BLOODY PEACE AS WELL! :rotfl::rotfl:

superskintmouse · 22 October 2012 at 3:50PM

Ive just spent the last hour looking at campervans! i figured it would be handy for cooking and escaping in following a zombie attack! ha ha ha not very ms tho!:rotfl:

maryb · 22 October 2012 at 5:03PM

Let me add to that scenario. They get the Grid up again very patchily after a couple of days but there has been chaos and the supply chains are all disrupted. Plus the pumping stations didn't cope very well so the water supply is a bit iffy. Sewage seems to be working for now but one of your neighbours at the bottom of the hill has something naaaasty looking in her downstairs loo pan. The Government is very nervous about civil unrest (only 9 meals away from anarchy) so decides to dust off the Y2k plans and tries to bring in rationing. But in order to queue up and get their rations people are having to take time off work which is causing other sorts of chaos so there are still lots of delays cancellations and shortages. It's not so bad you need to grab your bug out bag but it looks like this could drag on for most of the winter. And you feel yourself coming down with a temperature and aches and pains but you've got to get your rations somehow.

Oh and inflation has started to take off in a big way

2tonsils · 22 October 2012 at 5:08PM

I would pad the top of the freezers with some of the insulating foam and newspapers that are in storage 'in case they come in handy for something'. I would also make a makeshift 'haybox' without the hay...for cooking whilst conserving my calor gas. I have a calor gas hob, pressure cooker and three full big bottles of gas..usually that would be enough for about 18 months of cooking.

I would check our water containers in the kitchen and take the lid off the sterna ( rain water tank under the house the size of a swimming pool) . OUr water would not run on the mains without electric as all houses here are on water pumped from wells, so I would be getting it from the tank with a bucket once the containers ran out. We are on mains drainage so that would be okay. Most people here have septic tanks.

I read that in America there would be no mains water and no sewage because of the way their systems work, not sure if that is true but it doesn't sound a very good situation. I think they would be lost without their Air conditioning as well, whereas we are quite hardy...used to being cold in the winter and roasted in the summer.....

My husband would call at any shops that were still selling stuff (its illegal here to stay open without electric or tills working in shops lol) and fill his boxes on the bike with extra goodies...mostly chocolate I hope...we have the essentials stored already and he knows it.

He would then head straight home as we have already discussed this is what we are going to do in an emergency and we will do it as soon as possible by the safest route. It seemed sensible to discuss it and decide what to do as we often lose communications here and we are often on different daily missions on the island. We both know it well enough to drive home in absolute dark/ torrential rain/fog etc.

Meanwhile I would get the fire ready in the living room, close all the shutters and curtains to keep the heat in if it was mid afternoon or later. I would make sure the radio/kobo/ etc are turned off to conserve energy in them for the time being. I would also gather all the batteries in one place as we are going to need them all sooner or later.

I think the main thing I would do is go and see if my elderly neighbours were okay. They are lovely people.

This scenario was inspired by an article I just read on the weather site and Nasa space on the internet. It seems they are worried about three sunspots that are very active which will be earth facing next week. Fortunately for us Europe and the Uk are much less prone to damage from solar flares to the electric grid than America is. They have a different system and despite being warned years ago that it needed updating and making safe from solar flares it is still very vulnerable......

2tonsils · 22 October 2012 at 5:19PM

MaryB we cross posted , sorry about that! I must admit I just giggled to myself...some of the scenario you posted already happens here so I am pretty well used to it by now.......the water supply is always iffy here...the mains in the house does not work if the electric is off.....if it does work it is not for drinking....its for cleaning, showers, whatever, but never drinking. We fill four 15 litre containers from a special mountain spring which is top drinking quality and keep them topped up all the time. We also have bottled water to grab for the gym , trips to the beach etc.

We are on main drainage (one of only four houses in our village with it) the rest are on soak aways or septic tanks that often leak or smell horrendous. If bad weather hits us in the winter we get serious shortages of some imported foods, but I have noticed lately that the stocks are being kept low anyway. Hence my stores of things that would go missing first.

If I thought it was going to come to rationing I would hide my stores of food to stop them being found easily. As for rations, for anything to be done here you have to stand for days in queues in one office or another. I can't help feeling that there would be civil war very quickly and I don't think 'foreigners ' would get their fair share of rations either....people would protect their own first. Sad but true.

maryb · 22 October 2012 at 5:33PM

2tonsils I have to admit I was extrapolating from what I know of the current situation in Greece to see how it might play out here in the UK. It sounds outlandish for the UK but it is currently happening in a European country - as you know only too well.

I suspect the govt plans involve the supermarkets administering the rations. It might (might) be moderately civilised in Waitrose (though the elbows in there on Christmas Eve are pretty sharp) but in a nearby town there is a branch of one of the big ones (fondly called Asbo by the locals) which I don't like going into at the best of times

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Preparedness for when

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