THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

[Deleted User]

If only everyone had choice over where they could live. Many folks will count themselves very lucky to have a roof of any kind over their heads in anything from a bedsit in a basement to the top floor of a tower block. Relatively few of us have the luxury of actually being able to choose where we live and what we live in. Anything has to be better than life on the streets or sofa surfing with friends and family or even living in a car!!!

GreyQueen

Cappella wrote: »

Just switched the news on GQ and am shocked by the reports. How dreadful for those poor people. Apparently the fire alarms didnt work properly according to a guy who lived on the 7th floor?

I heard that same interview on Radio 4. There seems to be a question as to whether the block had a central fire alarm system and whether it sounded, and an issue of individual flats having their own fire alarms and if they sounded. In our block, if one individual flat's alarm sounds, it's audible over a large area and people pop out of their doors like cuckoos out of clocks, to check it's nothing worse than burned toast.

My landlord has several tower blocks , although none as tall as this one in London. I imagine that a number of local authorities will be watching today's news anxiously and waiting for the proper reports to see what went wrong and what, if anything, could have been done to prevent or mitigate the situation. I have heard that the fire brigade here have told them that they believe it is only a matter of time before there is a major loss of life in a tower block fire.

It's been some years since Shoebox Towers had a fire. No one died or was even injured, but a number of people lost their flats and the building needed major repairs. SG lived here then, it was before my time, and she's told me what it was like to have to evacate about 1 am with the fire brigade running around the landings pounding on doors yelling at people to get out. I also heard the other side of it from the (then) housing officer.

Folks, in an evac, you will have a just a handful of seconds to run and you will be in what you stand up in and have grabbed your loved ones and possibly your pets and that will be it. There will be no time to pack your BOB, which is why mine is beside my bed at all times, with a second version in the lottie shed and a back-up at the parental home, and back-up meds at my workplace locker.

Those poor people in that tower will have lost everything. Those who have escaped without injury will be considering themselves blessed this morning, once the shock has started to wear off, but they are still in community centres and churches in their nightwear. And I don't even want to think about the probable loss of life and the dreadful injuries.

Which reminds me of a shortcoming in my own BOB which I intend to rectify in the next couple of days; no footwear. I have what else I need to ensure that I can be decently clad but, if I can't grab some kind of footwear in passsing - and panic may preclude this - I need to have something in the bag itself.

I'm a big woman with big feet and a sturdy pair of footwear would fill the BOB. I shall look for something lightweight, like plimsolls, which will see me able to walk until I can source something sturdier (there is a pair of DMs in the lottie shed but I wouldn't fancy the 1.25 mile barefoot walk to get to them).

ivyleaf

Plimsolls sound an excellent idea GQ. I know we're all very glad you live on the ground floor.
Those poor, poor people

mardatha

I'm just up and haven't seen the news yet. I used to have nightmares when I lived on the 7th floor of a tower block, nobody seemed to care about possible fire but me. We had evacuatre once in the middle of the miners strike down a pitch black central stairwell, and I had a newborn and a toddler. That was in the days before I knew about BOBs and such like. Off to see Sky News now .

jk0

I wonder if they will be reviewing the 'shelter in place' strategy for fires in high rises now? I have always thought it was daft. Anyone sheltering in the top half of that block will be toast.

(BTW, I bet it doesn't collapse like Building 7.)

Karmacat

I'm just seeing online reports and a few twitter videos it looks absolutely terrible and I've also seen, on The Guardian's live thread, a letter written by residents to the council or somebody like it, saying the fire hazard was unacceptable, and giving reasons. It sounds like a case of using the lowest common denominator fittings to make the maximum profit

GreyQueen wrote: »

Which reminds me of a shortcoming in my own BOB which I intend to rectify in the next couple of days; no footwear. I have what else I need to ensure that I can be decently clad but, if I can't grab some kind of footwear in passsing - and panic may preclude this - I need to have something in the bag itself.

I have a very old, very thin pair of trainers in my BOB, which is planned exactly for the situation of a house fire. Even thin ones take up a lot of space, but the thought of being outside in the middle of the night with nothing but my nightie ... that makes it worthwhile

I feel so sorry for those people

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Karmacat

Popped on here first to report a couple of other preps. I went to the British Museum yesterday, meeting up with my sister at the London terminus our trains use, and while I was waiting for her, I saw a headline on the electronic noticeboard: "shots fired at railway station" - just the kind of headline you don't want to see! It was the Munich thing, turns out it wasn't terror-related, but we did get out as fast as we could. And we've agreed to meet somewhere less exposed: we used to meet in the centre of the concourse, now we'll meet in a side exit corridor that has lots of alcoves where one of us can stand without impeding the flow of traffic. And hide, if necessary

Also a slightly ridiculous thing. I slowed down in my dehydrating efforts because I was a bit unsure about the day to day efforts of cleaning the dehydrator god, I'm such a !!!!!! I don't have a washing up bowl, or a plug for the kitchen sink, come to that! I've now realised - I can fill the base of the dehydrator itself with washing up water with a dash of milton fluid added, let all the trays drain for 10 mins, shake them, then dry them thoroughly with a clean teatowel.

I know it sounds mad, but finding a **routine** to do this is really important to me, I'll be able to take much more advantage of the crops in my garden :beer:

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Karmacat

This is my second go at my allotted 50 pages of the previous thread, so I thought I might just as well say *how* I'm summarising, not just for the other summarisers, but for everyone else too:

- I'm noting page numbers, so that other people can find roughly where things are within the thread. But the more I go on, the more I find that in a "reply" post of 3 paragraphs or so, only one sentence is relevant to the topic. So I've copied that sentence and added it to the topic. So page numbers have become a good indicator, but only to within 3 pages or so. My thinking was clarity, and brevity.

- chat has been rigourously excluded, as have names and thanks votes, not going there.

- to make my topics clear, I've started to put headings at the top. Sometimes.

I think it's going to be really difficult, but also really advantageous. There's a lot of practical wisdom in all of this that's a million miles away from a lot of stuff that's out there. But also difficult because a lot of things fit under several categories. And the posts I'm looking at are back in 2012 - cyberattack is much more important now than it was then, for instance, but the evolution of the thread will deal with that in due course, natch.

Thoughts? Objections? Additions?

greenbee

KC - page numbers will depend on the user's settings as there are options as to how many posts per page. You might want to use post numbers instead...

Cappella

Karmacat said

I'm noting page numbers, so that other people can find roughly where things are within the thread. But the more I go on, the more I find that in a "reply" post of 3 paragraphs or so, only one sentence is relevant to the topic. So I've copied that sentence and added it to the topic. So page numbers have become a good indicator, but only to within 3 pages or so. My thinking was clarity, and brevity.

I'm trying to do something similar; it's tricky because there's a LOT of chat. I'm cutting and pasting under different subheadings, will add page numbers but often its just a couple of sentences on a page. Hope that's ok?