Items we apparently need because of El Nino this winter

I suppose some bottled water might be useful as well.

A gas powered generator?? Maybe Aldi will have them in the middle aisle on Thursday.

If the internet is cut off, a plug in, digital radio won’t work, that is why a battery or wind up radio is recommended. Same for the torch when the power is cut.
A lot of people in the sticks do have small generators, usually petrol ones, but I don’t, although I can boil water on the log burner if necessary.

Acrually we do have a chain saw and I know how to use it. But I am not sure what use baby supplies are going to be to us.

A domestic gas-powered generator is orughly upwards of £500, plus gas cylinders.

I think if the power goes off I will just light my log burner and if we run out of fuel, the churchyard is just opposite. I will take my log saw there an cut up some of the trees blown down in the storms

However, I will be burning wood that is not kiln dried and it may be rather polluting.

However, I will be burning wood that is not kiln dried and it may be rather polluting.

Perhaps that's what the N95 masks are for, to mitigate the effect of all those woodburners?

Perhaps the government might enter the 21stC and suggest the use of solar powered lights? I bet lots of people have them as garden lights but they would work indoors and charge up in the daytime if put by a window. Also, what about gas camping lights?

I'm not sure about wind up torches and radios. How effective are they? I bought a windup torch or two when they first came on the market and they were a lot of effort for not much light. But perhaps they've improved.

P>S MOnica that wet wood would knacker your chimney, too, get a good supply of kiln dried in now 😆

readyguidance.com/preparedness/hurricane-kit/

dotpocka 😀 I like the fact they've included a tin opener!

How OTT!
I think that keeping a reasonable level of fuel in one’s petrol tank (if relevant) is useful too. It doesn’t take much for queues to form at petrol stations (and the price to go up)

Solar powered lights won’t work without sun though MaizieD, so they would be useless if it’s stormy. Battery powered LED lights are good, I’ve got a brilliant LED torch.

If the power goes down - the internet goes down and phone/radio /TV masts can also be affected

Also your local water pumping station may stop pumping ...

Having spent 10 hours without water in Storm Anna that hit Sweden just after Christmas last year I needed a lot of these items.

We were lucky and got our power back after 10 hours - some people in the next loal authority didn't get their power back for 3 weeks

When living in a North Yorkshire village 20ish years ago we had a big dumping of snow that wasn’t forecast, we lost power for for 3 days and were housebound.

Fortunately we had two flat topped wood burning stoves and Le Creuset casseroles, we coped fine.

Casdon

Solar powered lights won’t work without sun though MaizieD, so they would be useless if it’s stormy. Battery powered LED lights are good, I’ve got a brilliant LED torch.

You would be surprised, Casdon. I have solar powered lights on sensors to light my big yard at night. The oldest have been up for 3 years now and they give a decent light and have worked all the way through winters apart from on really badly overcast days. Sun is no longer an essential requirement.

MaizieD

P>S MOnica that wet wood would knacker your chimney, too, get a good supply of kiln dried in now 😆

I have a good supply of acceptable wood, I was just thinking about the 'in extremis' situation, when we might be a week without power and have burnt our way through that.

We would then have to go scavaging among fallen trees to get what wood we could find, and that would inevitably be undried.

About 7 years ago we were without gas for a fortnight, so no heating or hot water or cooker, although we did have electricity. We did what Sado did, lit the wood burner and cooked food on the top of it.

They create lists like that to ensure no one accuses them of not having a contingency plan when things do go south. Think they call it ‘preparedness’ 🧐

It's keeping the populace in a state of fear.

There always used to be such contingency plans in the past, notably during the Cold War and the Winter of Discontent.
Then came Covid, of course.

If the water and/or the power goes off, we could be glad we have some way to heat food and bottled water, also the wet wipes and hand sanitiser for minimal hand and body washes. You don't miss the basics until you don't have them, and disasters don't usually give much warning that they are about to arrive.

Astitchintime

They create lists like that to ensure no one accuses them of not having a contingency plan when things do go south. Think they call it ‘preparedness’ 🧐

Who are 'they' and who are 'us', in emergency situations?

I have a lot of camping lanterns, even though the very idea of me camping would reduce anyone who knows me to hysterics.

They are bright, take easily available (AA) batteries (of which iI have many) and you just pull them up to activate them. The ones in the photo are two for a tenner on Amazon. Search for 'camping lanterns'.

In the event of an emergency, gathering them from storage and putting them within reach of everyone in the house would mean we could light ourselves for hours. We could use them to give light to play cards (they are in the emergency box), or just have enough light to get us to the loo without disaster. There are two in all the bedrooms, even the ones that are rarely used.

That's the sort of thing I think everyone could easily keep 'in stock'. Cheap, easy solutions to what could be uncomfortable problems that could arise from being without power for a day or two. They don't have to be bought all at once, but could make life so much easier, and once they are there they won't disintegrate.

Things like hand sanitiser are also cheap and readily available, and potentially useful if you've had to dig about doing dirty jobs before eating or preparing food. Also for washing hands after using the loo.

I've just ordered a couple of camping lamps; of course, that particular model doesn't seem to be for sale now and they are all generally more expensive.

Oh. Well, maybe that's because we who have been ridiculed are now being seen as sensible?

I found the ones I posted on my 'items purchased' list where they were very cheap.

What can I say? I doubt you paid a fortune for them?

A war coming or El Niño?

nanna8

A war coming or El Niño?

It could be either or both.

I’m not looking at aerial attacks, boots on the ground war, I don’t think that will happen, I’m looking at cyber war, how computer controlled systems can be knocked out, it appears with the greatest of ease…

Casdon

Solar powered lights won’t work without sun though MaizieD, so they would be useless if it’s stormy. Battery powered LED lights are good, I’ve got a brilliant LED torch.

Solar power works on light rather than sunshine (although the latter generates more)
I am often pleasantly surprised that my solar panels still seem to be generating on a non-sunny day.

I agree about LED torches though and maybe those stick on LED lights for awkward corners in the house, stairs etc

Doodledog

Oh. Well, maybe that's because we who have been ridiculed are now being seen as sensible?

I found the ones I posted on my 'items purchased' list where they were very cheap.

What can I say? I doubt you paid a fortune for them?

No, we probably have gas powered camping lights and a one for cooking somewhere but they could be so ancient that I thought two new ones would be a good idea and battery ones might be safer as well. They weren't much more expensive. 🙂
We'd never ridicule anyone being sensible, husband was well trained in all this many years ago.

Be Prepared!