THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

I remember the day of the hurricane very well. I was living in Scotland and that day, co-incidentally, was the one and only time that Kid Bruv came up to visit me. He left in the morning to come up from the midlands, where he was living at the time, to southern Scotland.

He was in transit (and incommunicado, I had no phone) until he appeared on my doorstep at midnight. I was so relieved to see him that I almost forgave him for stealing my Isle of Man TT souvenir tee-shirt!:rotfl:

I can remember events from the early seventies onwards very well and the leccy seemed to be off as much as it was on, there were various shenanigans like the three-day week and shortages and panic-buying. Still recall the woman in the supermarket with her trolley piled high with just kilo bags of sugar.

Youths and young adults now haven't had the experiences we older ones have had and aren't going to cope well with erratic supplies, since they're seemingly running on a just-in-time system personal re-supply system and card payments.

Another thing I observe is that most people are accumstomed to being in nigh-constant contact with their friends/ partners/ families. This almost minute-by-minute sharing of every tiny experience and every thought which crosses you mind, every meal or cappuccino, every random nodule of infotainment, is actually pretty bizarre.

I do wonder how the constantly-connecteds will fare when their smartphone batteries are dead or the networks are down, and how they'll cope emotionally when left to their own internal mental resources. I suspect some people may be left distressed and discombobulated.

maryb

Yes I agree. DH is not fanciful but the rumours that first morning were horrific. And there would be similar wild rumours if something similar happened again, which nobody would be able to establish the truth about. If you are used to checking the web on your phone to find out what's happening, it will probably induce mild panic if you can't.

Witless

A slight heads up to fellow preppers.

I needed a can of lighter gas today as I took the 'store' one to replace the 'in use but now empty one'.

In all the shops I tried - who all sold refillable lighters (cigarette & barbecue)- no one stocked it, including the 'needle to an anchor' shop.

All said they had problems sourcing it, more than one thought it was in the process of being gradually withdrawn on safety grounds (apparently in some circles it's the 'new' glue as far as sniffing goes).

I eventually got some in a small local garage who had some in the storeroom rather than on display. Rather than take a chance on future supplies I bought 4.

They still have a couple and I was tempted but any more than 5 (4 store, 1 in use) seemed slightly excessive as a can lasts 3 - 4 years and I can't even remember buying the last one - but the price sticker (remember those?) was from a shop long since gone.

Anyway - a point to consider for those who keep a couple of lighters in their stash (windproof / turbo flame and/or the long reach ones are extremely useful*) - not much point in having refillable lighters if there's nothing to refill them with.


* not just for 'lighting' - heatshrink for emergency repairs etc; it's even possible to do a (albeit limited) bit of soldering with a turbo flame.

Witless

GreyQueen wrote: »

I do wonder how the constantly-connecteds will fare when their smartphone batteries are dead or the networks are down, and how they'll cope emotionally when left to their own internal mental resources. I suspect some people may be left distressed and discombobulated.

My sympathy for them would be very limited.

Anyone who uses a mobile, smart phone or satnav on any sort of regular basis and doesn't have a powerbank (or several) deserves to be out of contact.

My small powerbank does about a 75% charge for my mobile (in fairness, a 'full' charge last between 6 - 7 days), the larger does about 4 full charges and a partial and the big one does about 7 full charges.

I'm always within reach of at least one of them (as I type I can reach 2 - the medium one is in my backpack (where it lives permanently) downstairs.

Networks may be down but without a charged device you won't know.

herbily

Cheapskate wrote: »

Our local rag's website has posted a link to the council's emergency plan - they have NEVER had such an animal before - are they expecting an emergency?! :eek::rotfl:

A xo

All councils are supposed to have one - in theory you can look them up: https://www.gov.uk/local-planning-emergency-major-incident


All kinds of things, such as snow, count as an emergency - I wouldn't get too alarmed just yet...

GreyQueen

Networks may well be crashed by a flurry of telecom activity when something serious goes on. I believe this happened in London during 7/7.

There is also the aspect that TPTB might take networks down to avoid them being used by terrorists, or to keep word of activities they would rather keep hush-hush from escaping into the public domain.

I have vague recollections that in the 1980s there were riots in several different places which were somehow not reported in either local or national media. Presumably deliberately not reported, rather than an accident of newshounds all looking the other way at the same time.

ETA; Our council has one. People will contact the local authority when there is a crisis. Heck, they call us when there are power cuts or if the water pressure goes off, and we don't provide or control those utilities.

Local authority call centres like my own won't be able to handle hundreds or thousands or extra calls in a crisis - there aren't enough bods answering phones. The most likely scenario will be a recorded message on the front end of the phone lines, giving some very basic information.

As herbily says, many things which used to be called seasonally-predictable weather are now classified as subjects for emergency planning. We were on heatwave alert only a little while ago in my region.

Si_Clist

GreyQueen wrote: »

Networks may well be crashed by a flurry of telecom activity when something serious goes on. I believe this happened in London during 7/7.

There is also the aspect that TPTB might take networks down to avoid them being used by terrorists, or to keep word of activities they would rather keep hush-hush from escaping into the public domain.

We're rather hoping that in those eventualities, the landline and our old no-battery-required wired telephone will do the biz. No big deal if it doesn't though, 'cos if the SHTF bigtime, presumably we'll learn what little TPTB want us to know from the BBC emergency broadcasts, which I understand will be on both FM and DAB.

GreyQueen

I have a landline with a hardwired phone, too. But I regard the BBC as the mouthpiece of the Establishment in many respects, so I wouldn't count on them being the ones to tell us what's really going on in a crisis. I think we'd get the official version, which may or may not contain the most useful information.

News tends to be olds - tells you what has happened after the event. The real truth behind the events may be decades away, if it ever surfaces.

Si_Clist

GreyQueen wrote: »

But I regard the BBC as the mouthpiece of the Establishment in many respects ...

Quite. BBC = British Biased Corporation :cool:

GreyQueen

I was recalling a time when my local authority employer was running some stuff for another local authority who were experiencing a naturally-caused crisis. We were using some of our computer and telephony resources, out-of-hours, to do various things for them.

Had we been handling their calls in real time (we weren't) we would have been hampered as individuals by not having the minutiae of knowledge of another area that we do of our own. Folks are sometimes very surprised at what we do know about their neighbourhoods from RL experience, rather than looking at maps. Which is why you don't want to be talking to India for some things.;)

Behind the scenes, local authorities will support each other in a crisis but there will be limits on how many resources there are to share, and some catastrophes will run over regional boundaries, and run everyone up to their limits and beyond.

A good thing to consider, in event of a crisis, is how not to become a casualty yourself and how not to inconvenience others. One badly-parked car can block a street, for instance, and that could be a crisis for someone else if emergency services cannot get through.

Also, try not to make contact with the local powers over minor matters, to free up resources for serious calls to come through.

Perhaps groups of family members and friends could set up old-fashioned telephone trees to get the word out that people are safe, just stuck or incommunicado where they are presently?