Moving from Prepare to Implement.

[Frnc]

I see the National Risk Register now posts the threat to the supply of drinking water due to
infrastructure failure or a cyber attack as CRITICAL.

THREE DAYS WITHOUT WATER CAN BE FATAL.

So make plans now to collect, store and purify rainwater. Waterbutts filled from downspouts,
spread out tarpaulins, kids paddling pool. Thin bleach (no perfume), oasis tablets, Milton.
Berkey filter or homemade version, or even the bits and pieces for a sand filter (TEOTWAWKI).

Yes, it's in the top 3 risks, along with pandemic and terrorist attack in a public place. Been meaning to buy a tarp for years. I have about 60 litres, Sawyer and Lifestraw, and plenty of Oasis. Also a couple of empty containers I can fill.

[Yorkshire Andy]

I see the National Risk Register now posts the threat to the supply of drinking water due to
infrastructure failure or a cyber attack as CRITICAL.

THREE DAYS WITHOUT WATER CAN BE FATAL.

So make plans now to collect, store and purify rainwater. Waterbutts filled from downspouts,
spread out tarpaulins, kids paddling pool. Thin bleach (no perfume), oasis tablets, Milton.
Berkey filter or homemade version, or even the bits and pieces for a sand filter (TEOTWAWKI).

Yes, it's in the top 3 risks, along with pandemic and terrorist attack in a public place. Been meaning to buy a tarp for years. I have about 60 litres, Sawyer and Lifestraw, and plenty of Oasis. Also a couple of empty containers I can fill.

Problem is the past month a tarp would have been about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike

Find local water sources .... Also find how to get water out of your home system we lost water for 2 weeks the other year the pipes still had water in them as the Yorkshire water men could prove they could take samples with their standpipes as they were lower than most houses lowest point (tap) I took advantage of their testing 25l barrel In hand please sir can you fill this up. Here's a cold can of pop and a KitKat sort of arrangement

So think outside the box pull the washer out and use that valve and see if you can still get water especially in a flat area like this most kitchen taps are about the same height so there's usually a bit left that you can get out

[Arzosah]

I think there is a second route that some people might follow. Its' essentially the "pecked to death by ducks" scenario. One failure is an annoyance, 2 are a pain, but if enough come along at once, some people are going to think "thats it, I've had enough, I can no longer depend on <pick whatever services or infrastructure you want> and I need to now take things into my own hands".

I went to meet up with a retired friend yesterday who has absolutely no connection with prepping, and we had this very conversation - that there's so many "ducks", the situation has tipped over. She escaped from London a few years ago and has managed to get her money out of Docklands, just this year. I think she's a lot safer in the ordinary SE England town where she lives now, but she certainly is thinking about what to do, in terms of the world out there. And if she is, other people are.

That will be a very personal tipping point, as everyones situation is different. What I am wondering though if that personal trigger point has been given the same amount of thought as might have been given to general prepping.

If it was another pandemic, I know what I'd do: stock up (more), self isolate, practice skills (eg water purification) and not be shy this time about encouraging my extended family to do the same. But what would I regard as the tipping point? You know what, we probably need to think about what our tipping point is for each of the items in the National Risk Register - and then see if there are any commonalities between the areas. A cyberattack on the water companies might be different from a cyberattack on the railways, or all the banks.

Has everybody considered what that "red line" is that, once crossed, you think "enough is enough". I've personally started thinking about this, and realised that I didn't actually know. I'm prepping, in case SHTF, but I hadn't actually worked out, for me, what the Sh*t would look like, what the fan actually was, in real terms, and how much sh*t needed to hit it before I decided to duck. It was quite sobering (so I had a beer).

I like the beer thing and I realise I already went on about this in my previous paragraph, so I won't say it in. Might need to join you in more beer, I don't have any!

[Arzosah]

I see the National Risk Register now posts the threat to the supply of drinking water due to
infrastructure failure or a cyber attack as CRITICAL.

THREE DAYS WITHOUT WATER CAN BE FATAL.

So make plans now to collect, store and purify rainwater. Waterbutts filled from downspouts,
spread out tarpaulins, kids paddling pool. Thin bleach (no perfume), oasis tablets, Milton.
Berkey filter or homemade version, or even the bits and pieces for a sand filter (TEOTWAWKI).

Yes, it's in the top 3 risks, along with pandemic and terrorist attack in a public place. Been meaning to buy a tarp for years. I have about 60 litres, Sawyer and Lifestraw, and plenty of Oasis. Also a couple of empty containers I can fill.

Problem is the past month a tarp would have been about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike

Find local water sources .... Also find how to get water out of your home system we lost water for 2 weeks the other year the pipes still had water in them as the Yorkshire water men could prove they could take samples with their standpipes as they were lower than most houses lowest point (tap) I took advantage of their testing 25l barrel In hand please sir can you fill this up. Here's a cold can of pop and a KitKat sort of arrangement

So think outside the box pull the washer out and use that valve and see if you can still get water especially in a flat area like this most kitchen taps are about the same height so there's usually a bit left that you can get out

I think this series of posts says a lot: for each big category (like "water") if it's a huge emergency, we'll need several actions. Thinking of what it was like for people in SE England, 20,000 or so of them, when the water was off for up to 2 weeks! Again and again.

For water:
1. How to use less.
2. How to use it more efficiently.
3. What will the water companies supply?
4. What can you buy?
5. Where else can you get it from?
6. How can you re-use what you use?
I imagine most of us are already doing something for most of these, but perhaps not all the time, or not coherently. And the simplistic answer of "the water companies deliver in 2l bottles" - well, what about toilet flushes, for example?

And if you write your own answers to those questions, and then ask the same sort of questions about electricity, that's when, as I said up-post, you can look to see if there's any commonalities between your prospective actions in the different areas. Those would be your go-tos, and thats when considering the total emergency would work to your advantage.

I really hope this never happens.

[GeraldTheBonzai]

But what would I regard as the tipping point? You know what, we probably need to think about what our tipping point is for each of the items in the National Risk Register - and then see if there are any commonalities between the areas. A cyberattack on the water companies might be different from a cyberattack on the railways, or all the banks.

Actually, that's a bl**dy good idea!. The national risk register rate threats as probability against impact. However, the impact is from the national perspective. If you accept the probability, for the sake of argument, you could scale the impact from your perspective. For instance, the grid going down would have a high national impact, but I reckon most of us could get by without power for a while, so the impact would be less....

Might have a play with that. Already made an AI model for prepping - see if it can chew on the risk register and generate a bespoke personalised one...

[jennyjj01]

Problem is the past month a tarp would have been about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike

I was thinking exactly this, today as I surveyed my lawns. As dry as shredded wheat!

I have 200L of gutter fed water butts, about enough to water the lawns once or twice. But for the last month, I've chosen not to water the lawns even from that. I used a few watering cans full for seedlings and left the lawns to suffer. It's a two edged sword, as the lawn weeds have suffered too and the lawns didn't need cutting every three darned days.

I tried to find a website to tell me when it last rained in my area, but drew a blank.

It's a bu66er when you can't even rely on it to rain in England

Remember that if we experience a nuclear or biological attack event, rainwater may be dreadfully radioactive or toxic. How could we cope with that? The only thing I can think of is to draw barely potable water from stash and then non-replenishing stores such as the central heating, or car radiators (Yes, I know toxic)

[GillyBee]

And these things all interlink. Eg. No power means no water at the top of hills as the pumps wont run.

[Yorkshire Andy]

And these things all interlink. Eg. No power means no water at the top of hills as the pumps wont run.

Too right not just power most sites are remotely controlled by the interweb.. no interweb.. men need to go turn valves on and off manually ... How do they receive their works orders ... Via tablets and mobiles which rely on the interweb


Not just clean water how does the waste side get processed.. sewage farms need power for pumps and such no power there will be a big build up of poo possibly causing overflowing a contamination of previously "safer" water sources

Bet they still find a way of reading the water meters and sort out billing

[Frnc]

Yes we need to translate the biggest risks into the most important preps. I might run it back through GPT.

https://prepare.campaign.gov.uk/
Government advice on individual preparedness

But as well as actual preps, we need to use the risks themselves, as specific indicators to look out for.

Water is obviously one of our most fundamental preps. Doesn't matter what the cause is, if there's no water coming out of the taps, you have to rely on what you have stored.

Don't waste it flushing the loo, unless you need to. Don't have a flipping bath. It's for drinking! You can survive on a litre a day, just about. I would use a bit for cooking pasta, but only if the power was off as well and my freezer food was useless. You can't have a shower. Hydrate a coin towel, and wipe yourself down. Uses minimal water.

Make sure you have a decent amount, eg 60 litres, and that it is swapped out every 6 months. I re-sterilise, and put Oasis in for good measure, when I swap it out. Keep it in the dark. A bin bag will do. Swap it out after a heatwave, and at the end of summer. Admittedly I've not done it three times in the last three months, so it is now priority.

[Frnc]

Check out your local Resilience Forum, and download their Risk Register. Cheshire seem to have abandoned the matrix method, and simply have ten categories - flooding, severe weather, pandemic, industrial incident, malicious attack, loss of service, cyber threats, animal diseases, transport incidents, and environmental. There are 10 buttons, one for each, to click and read.

https://www.cheshireresilience.org.uk/key-risks/

The download is similar, ten risks. They just use slightly different titles and order, but it's basically the same I think.
https://www.cheshireresilience.org.uk/d ... rfrisk.pdf