Preparedness for when

nuatha

A-MS wrote: »

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!:)

In a large scale blackout, your someone who knows is correct.
Though in such a scenario the likelihood is that any access to the internet is going to be non existent.
In a localised power loss, power lines being down and the like, the access scenarios Bedsit Bob and I mention are the possible methods of access. If Bob's mast is not affected by the outage then he is likely to still be able to access the mobile phone network.
In a power outage affecting half my town, the stingray modem provided internet access for my backup laptop and allowed me to continue working.

I agree that talking loudly about being a prepper isn't a good idea, but running a blog with video footage is of a prepper talking to camera is hardly being discrete.

The term OPSEC seems to have caught on in the prepping world, more important is PERSEC, personal security, attracting any attention that puts you and your family's safety at risk isn't a good idea.

short_bird

jk0 wrote: »

Struth. I'd never thought about ash pans.

What are people supposed to do with them?

Ash can be useful for covering poo when you've dug your latrine. (I think I've remembered that correctly from the Centre for Alternative Technology)

I don't know if any of you have read Stephen King's "The Stand", but there's a chapter when they get the generators back on. The survivors then have to turn it off due to every appliance in every home starting up again and causing a surge.

[Deleted User]

RAS wrote: »

A fire that is burning well produces CO2 which is the gas expires by plants.

CO2 is inspired by plants.

It is animals which expire it.

RAS

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

CO2 is inspired by plants.

It is animals which expire it.

Umm yes - but you understood what I meant.

[Deleted User]

nuatha wrote: »

If Bob's mast is not affected by the outage then he is likely to still be able to access the mobile phone network.

Even if my mast is affected, a more distant one may not be, giving me a low signal (but still usable) connection.

5 bars and HSDPA is nice to have, but one or two bars on just 3, is still usable for posting on forums, and emailing/texting.

[Deleted User]

short_bird wrote: »

Ash can be useful for covering poo when you've dug your latrine.

If it's wood ash, it can be used to make soap.

Valli

RAS wrote: »

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.

I don't think you have quite the correct image here. Carbon monoxide is given off by a fire burning where there is a limited supply of oxygen; this reduces the number of oxygen atoms to which the carbon can attach so the fire produces CO instead of CO2.
Fires burning in well-ventilated spaces give off CO2. Fires burning in poorly-ventilated spaces (or, indeed gas appliances burning in poorly-ventilated spaces) give off CO.

ALIBOBSY

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

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.

I thought this guy was on a plane not a train, hence was above a darkened London? Obviously a plane has its own power, just like the cars. Plus at one point they said the electric trains were off, but some diesels were working-I assume they would have lights inside?

Ali x

Cheapskate

We watched Blackout, too, and, while he understood it was fictional, the things I've mentioned previously to DH clicked last night - maybe seeing things in action made sense to him. Our preps are pitiful compared to most of you, but now DH understands that I'm not just a tin hatter, he won't be silly about me doing more! :rotfl:

We live on the edge of a large town, semi rural in places, with a few hill farms (cows, sheep) and hundreds of allotments across the whole town. There's a fair bit of woodland, too, with brambles, wild garlic and other forageable (sp?) foods available. We have a number of rivers and several large streams within walking distance, some with fish in. What worries me is the large number of people who have no skills of any sort - even amongst my acquaintance - can't cook even following recipes, have never grown anything, would certainly not be able to make or kill anything remotely useful, etc. :eek: It's more than possible that they'd raid at least homes, if not allotments and farms, but once those resources were used/destroyed we'd all be worse off, and also have these people wondering why TPTB weren't giving them handouts once more! :rotfl:

Today, I've bought (with cash!) a new large torch and 2 small ones, as our old ones are kn@ckered. I've also added a few extra tins to my list each time I shop, mostly when I pay cash and from different stores, along with things like salt, stock cubes, herbs, etc. I'm also going to do the same with seeds for growing foodstuffs, will use next year, then replace more often than I do now, so I'll always have some spare.

A xo

pineapple

jk0 wrote: »

Struth. I'd never thought about ash pans.

What are people supposed to do with them?

I was falling asleep in front of the fire and used to have a headache when it came to get up for the last minute dog walk at night. Mornings I often used to get dizzy moments but used to get better during the working day - ie when out of the house. But my memory was going downhill. I had a carbon monoxide detector which never went off. But when I checked the peak levels in the history it was showing a read out which though lowish - shouldn't have been there.
I became paranoid about the gas cooker and the CH boiler and was on the point of getting them checked when it hit me. I positioned the detector near the ashpan and the alarm actually went off! I stopped the practice and no more read outs.
The thing is my room was reasonably ventilated but a small ashpan with only a few hot embers was enough.
It started when I had the bright (not) idea of getting a second ashpan. So I would remove one ashpan and leave the other cooling - and not lose the heat from it.
Now I have one of those ashcarriers which takes hot ash - it gets placed outside to cool down. You can get them online but I picked up this one for around £20 at The Range
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quality-Manor-Galvanised-Carrier-0569/dp/B002Q0K30Y