Preparedness for when

bluebag

RAS wrote: »

My thoughts as well CTC; good time for them to get this news out there after Millibrand's speech. Try to frighten him off.

However, both gas storage levels and spare generatign capacity have been allowed to decline since privatisation. That's nothing to do with global energy prices and everythign to do with just in time practices.

Everything seems to be done 'just in time' these days, from supermarket stocks to power generation. It really wouldn't take much to make it all tangle up.

Might be maximum profit but I do thinlk the risk factors have been underestimated.

I think the power companies would love blackouts this year, just to put egg on Ed's face.
I think if it gets close to that they are not going to knock themselves out to prevent it.

GreyQueen

Evening all.

Was listening to Radio 4's PM programme just now and they were doing a feature at 5.33 about the prospect of powercuts, if anyone wants to check it out.

The thing about powercuts is that they don't come with a time frame so you don't know if it's going to be 10 mins, 10 hours, 24 hours or whatever.

Here in the city centre, it's seldom off for long. At my Nan's on the edge of a village, if a storm takes down overhead power cables, it can be 24 hours. Your utility company may have a duty to pay compensation for a certain time without supply, so keep notes and check afterwards.

Here in Shoebox Towers we're right by a leccy substation and there is another one only about 50 m up the road. Tiddly little things but all over the place. Ours blew a fuse and took down SuperGran's side but mine was OK. Because of how cabling is done in urban areas, you can easily be living opposite from, or a few doors away, from homes that have lost power and been unaffected, and vice versa.

Earlier this year, most of the city and some of the hinterland suddenly ran dry. One pump down. Quickly mended, but easy to see that if there was a prolonged outage, back up resources like gennies would eventually run out of fuel. Better pray it doesn't happen because it would be a public health nightmare.

Tink, definately think about lights, especially at this time of year as the natural daylight is dwindling fast. A head torch would enable you do do chores like food prep/ dishwashing.

Due to how my tower block is built, each flat is linked to a central boiler house, with industrial gas boilers. The gas boilers have electrical controllers so if the leccy is off, the heat goes off, and gas engineers have to attend to re-set the controllers before they'll work again. And that's after every outage, even one lasting seconds.

I wouldn't take too much harm with the heat off as the flat is miniscule and very well-insulated and never gets really cold. My gas stove has a battery ignition and even if it didn't, I have plenty of matches. I'd aim to leave the freezer shut (it's a tabletop model and good for 17 hours without power, and would limit the opening of the fridge to preserve it's coolness.

If the gas is off, I move to the camping stove on butane, and if we're looking at prolonged outages, the rest of the herd will prolly be running to the supermarche and I'll be heading to the outdoorsy shop for more butane (have 8 atm).

Of course, we'll have to reconvene one the leccy is back to compare notes on how we did and what we could have done better.........:)

westlothianlass

HI all
Having a think about things we could eat up here, fish would be high up the list (maybe home smoked) lots of tatties and green stuff, kale in particular.
Would definately be a challenge though, I suppose thick soup/stew would be a regular on the menu.

I popped into Ic*land after work and fray B pies are still £1, 2 tins of spam for £2 and Princes tins of chicken in white sauce, chilli and steak mix(not all in the same tin:D) were 2 for £2 so not too bad if anyone needs a few extra tins.

The weather hasn't been too bad over the last few days but not convinced it will last, gloves hat and buff are all in my bag ready for action. Though it does mean I have to carry a rucksack to work rather than a dainty handbag like some of my colleagues:rotfl:.

Sending hugs to anyone that would like one.
WLL x

mardatha

If power goes off then everything goes off. Traffic lights, cash machines, shop tills, automatic doors, burglar alarms (oh how they go off! ) - and the worst thing for us is that you tend to forget and switch things on before you realise...so that if it comes back on in the middle of the night, radios, tvs, lights, microwaves and toasters all spring into action and you get heart failure!

alfsmum

mardatha wrote: »

That's really interesting RAS. I think maybe Scotland needs to be separate though as we don't grow much wheat, mainly oats. And we could probably support less cows/more sheep up here as that's the only thing that can thrive on hill farms.

Challenge - I wonder if we could, on here, devise a good plain basic survivors menu plan for a week - the good cooks and planners amongst us could surely do that? I don't mean eating from your stash either - I mean long term over a year sort of thing..

I think we already do it really, this is what we eat -
Breakfast is porridge, with salt and cream.
Dinner is HM soup, with lentils barley and assorted veg.
Supper is an oatcake or sandwich, on cheese or jam.
So that leaves just one meal- Tea- to find meat & pudding for.

If we were stronger/fitter/better organised we could grow a lot more veg here as we;ve got a biggish garden. Now, post-Kelp, I feel ready and more able to do that. I think it's all about cutting out garbage and frills, and going to a wartime style diet.

MAR, your menu looks pretty good to me already. Fairly similar to what we have and easy to tweak for veggie/non-veggie.

B : porridge 365 days a year

L: HM soup or salad if too hot for soup

T: varies, pasta or rice dish, veggies, meat for the carnivores, variation on a roast dinner. Soup if not had at lunchtime. Stir fry, cottage pie, jacket potatoes,something on toast. HM curry. Depends what's in season/on allotment etc.

S : oat cakes, rice cakes, crisp bread with something.

Desserts or snacks usually fruit, fresh if poss, sometimes frozen, tinned with plain yoghourt.

Dh and I don't eat crisps, biscuits etc. HM cake sometime. Would be happy to have porridge twice a day if needed, love it so much:)

Tink_04

I think the energy companys will use it as a scare and maybe let it happen for a bit to prove a point! Think im going to go out and re stock some items and look into getting some essential things in. Im not too worried about the baby as have warm fleece item's for him and DD and have snow suit's etc. Going to get somw more ready made milk and sterilising liquid for bottles. Will have to get candles as dont use them, we have a torch. Will have to think of meals too.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

what the problem will be now, there will be a run on candles, batteries etc, because its been on the news etc...so make sure you don't pay over the odds, as I am sure there will be some shops putting their prices up...

metherer

I'm interested to know what would happen work wise if we had rolling power cuts. I work in an office, so entirely computer based. I'm the only one from my team that lives in the same town as the office, and also the only one that doesn't drive.

We do have a backup site, but I'd rely on work providing transport. Also, if the cuts were country wide, there is no guarantee that the timings would be different there.

Ultimately, I guess my worry is would I get paid? If I could only work 3 hours a day, for example, I'd be attached to another object on an inclined plane wrapped helically around an axis, as Leonard Hofstadter would say!

cornishchick

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

what the problem will be now, there will be a run on candles, batteries etc, because its been on the news etc...so make sure you don't pay over the odds, as I am sure there will be some shops putting their prices up...

True, but us prepers don't have to worry..

And my friends laughed at me for prepping.... :cool:

westcoastscot

Metherer I wonder about this too. In the 70's lots of people went onto a 3 day week for various reasons, and were only paid for those hours. It was really tough! I know people in this recession whose hours were cut and they fell below what you have to work to get tax credits and they lost those too. It's something we need to prep for I expect - don't suppose they'll pay us if we don't work, although you may be safe?