Preparedness for when

lillibet_dripping

GreyQueen wrote: »

Be not ashamed, it is merely a military acronym which has wandered into the preppersphere. Stands for OPerational SECurity.

OPSEC means keeping your plans close. Such as not having three dozen cans of beans and a pallet of bottled water delivered at once, or running your mouth about what you have stashed at home, or having preps visible. Buy stuff for cash.

Loose lips sink ships and Keep mum, she's not so dumb were wartime exhortations for encouraging secrecy.

Loving your DD's comment. Just have a word and make sure she won't be bragging about her Prepper Mum to her classmates and other pals.

That was exactly my reply to her:rotfl:

Thanks for clearing up OPSEC- I'm taking care of my OPSEC without even knowing it:D

[Deleted User]

I only watched the first few minutes but couldn't understand why the lights were out in London but the guy in the train still had his lights on and was travelling along looking at the blackness outside. My preps are always stored upstairs as is my equipment and I've always been extremely careful to not let anyone know how much of a stash we have in. I think that is only common sense as no matter how nice and well behaved my aquaintance is in times of ease and plenty I'm certain the savage is only just under the skin in ALL of us when there are big problems and I'd not risk losing any of it by being careless and saying we'd be OK in a similar situation. Perhaps that is being very selfish but I really think that a little selfishness may well be a contributing factor to surviving anything as big as a grid faliure. As for the smell of food cooking and alerting hungry folks to the fact that you have edibles, I've just looked and lots of what we have is a boil hot water and add jobbie like cuppasoups, mugshots, instant porridge and lots can be eaten cold or just warmed through as it's tinned so If we use the stove upstairs no one will be any the wiser and we may be a little safer.

sophlowe45

GreyQueen if you have broadband at home and a laptop or tablet you can watch Blackout online.

[Deleted User]

nuatha wrote: »

Though you are relying on your phone mast still receiving power. If memory serves, you don't have a landline, for those that do a laptop running XP could use a USB ADSL modem (such as the Thompson Stingray) with a BT line - exchanges have backup generators and fairly substantial battery backups.

Just de-lurking, having asked someone who knows and he says
"while it may be true but switches would either crash due to the volume of traffic as everybody tries to use them at the same time (think New Year's eve on a grand scale) and also the switches will be reserved solely for emergency services, major government and the military. All unnecessary power usage will be switched off to reserve the life of the back-up power which would mean dead lines for the average household.
A wind-up / solar powered radio is the best way of receiving information."
And I asked about mobile internet
"All the masts would crash in seconds. The only thing to do would be wait until everything calms down but then who would be using the internet while Armageddon is taking place?
Also, the internet sites and their switches would fail unless they had some sort of disaster recovery system in place and the chances of them having one are slim.
All in all, communications will be on a broadcast system rather than unicast and multicast"

Hope that helps someone!

Also watched Blackout - can't believe any prepper committed enough to have a blog would be so naive as to barbeque outside and talk about his preps in such a loud voice. Schoolboy error!:)

pineapple

I found BLACKOUT quite scary - in that it was mostly filmed from an ordinary persons perspective and not in the epic film mode of something like The Day after Tomorrow. While it might have given a few scroats some ideas, hopefully it gave a few others more encouragement to prep. I'm glad it covered the fact that the absence of electricity would affect just about everything. I'll swear some people think that all it would involve is sitting around the camp fire/candle light singing kum bayya (or however you spell it)!
The bit about the smell of cooking wafting across the neighbourhood wouldn't apply to me as it a slightly cut off self contained little community - though we would have to watch out for strangers. :eek:
There was a mention of people being admitted to hopital with carbon monoxide poisoning. A constant low level - ie not enough to set off your alarm is also not good. In my case it was the simple matter of an ash pan with a few hot embers cooling on the hearth. Something to be aware of with any indoor appliance.

jk0

pineapple wrote: »

In my case it was the simple matter of an ash pan with a few hot embers cooling on the hearth. Something to be aware of with any indoor appliance.

Struth. I'd never thought about ash pans.

What are people supposed to do with them?

RAS

pineapple wrote: »

There was a mention of people being admitted to hopital with carbon monoxide poisoning. A constant low level - ie not enough to set off your alarm is also not good. In my case it was the simple matter of an ash pan with a few hot embers cooling on the hearth. Something to be aware of with any indoor appliance.

This is why using barbeques indoors (or in tents) has killed so many people.

A fire that is burning well produces CO2 which is the gas expires by plants. A smouldering fire or embers combust incompletely giving off CO which is dangerous (attaches to the haemoglobin in your blood instead of oxygen).

Riddle the fire and encourage complete combustion and remove smouldering embers from the house.

happydays89

jk0 wrote: »

Struth. I'd never thought about ash pans.

What are people supposed to do with them?

We have a large metal bin with a lid outside and tip the hot embers straight in.

thriftwizard

Wood ash can go on the garden beds when cool; it contains lots of plant nutrients. Coal ash/cinders on the paths, where you don't want things growing - poisonous to most plants.

lobbyludd

An additional angle to prepping, apart from the individual preparedness angle, is to help build resiliance in your community: the less people are wandering around starving, the less civil unrest and the safer it is to have a barbeque outside Having watched blackout, and just been through the latest organisation wide disaster exercise for my organisation it might be a good idea to remember this is fiction (not a popular view I know!, and certain things make a better story than reality). It might also be an idea to follow the links from this website to the local plans in your area, disaster/civil contingency etc, understand what is planned to be in place and perhaps get involved at local or volunteer level to help it work better?

https://www.gov.uk/how-volunteers-can-help-in-emergencies#useful-documents-for-the-voluntary-sector
http://www.disasteraction.org.uk/
https://www.gov.uk/browse/citizenship/government/emergencies-preparation-response-and-recovery


I have also located the emergency planning documents of my local health board, local authority, police and fire service and got contact names and detaisl in case I need them.

There is a vast array of knowledge on this thread of an individual kind, (and yes I do have 50litres of potable water, despite the fact that I know my water board are legally required to distribute 10litres of water per person per day in the event of an emergency disruption of the mains supply - so I am not a blind faith in TPTB type) but understanding and helping with the wider societal resiliance, although possibly not as immediately gratifying as a new gadget might actually be more helpful?