How are you coping with the snow?

Whether you’re out building snowmen or huddling around a radiator, now is a good time to reflect on how prepared you are for these type of events. If you can’t get your car out, then consider how much food you have stored. How long can you stay at home without getting hungry? There are a range of things that we can and should be preparing for. luckily the Government has taken a lot of the hard thinking out of it by preparing the National Risk Register which shows how likely and how severe events can be. They have a great section on the Considerations for Families in a range of emergency situations. Even more interestingly, there are  Community Risk Registers  developed for every area of the UK – use Google to find your closest one. Ours is GM Resilience for Greater Manchester, and I’m hoping that the website isn’t an indication of how prepared Manchester is – half the links don’t work and the latest Community Risk Register is 2006/7!  

Actually I’m wrong – the link says 2006-7 but when you download the register (here) it is from Sept 2008. It has quite a comprehensive list of events, all ranked with their likelihood and severity.  The one that particularly stood out for me looked at fuel shortages, and has a 5% chance of happening within 5 years :

Significant or perceived constraint on the supply of fuel. E.g. industrial action by contract drivers for fuel.

• Filling stations, depending on their locations, would start to run dry between 24 – 48 hours.
• Panic buying would exacerbate the situation.
• Replenishment of sites would take between 3 – 10 days dependant on the location.

They have also rated the chances of  a loss of water for three days (0.5% chance) or for a week (0.5%); loss of power across the whole region for a day (0.5%), or for three days – causing civil unrest! (0.05%)

I think it’s interesting to look at these from a personal preparedness point-of-view, and also to view them with peak-oil-tinted-spectacles. What happens when these things start to become regular, or prolonged occurrences? What happens when they all start to converge and occur at once? If they are planning for Civil Unrest as a result of losing water for three days, what do they think will happen if we all have no fuel, power or water for a week?

 

Containers for storing food

There are a heap of problems to watch out for if you’re planning a large store of food:

– making sure that it doesn’t get eaten by a whole range of pesky critters
– keeping it dry
– keeping it safe from everyday accidents (getting knocked off the shelf, shelves collapsing, earthquake – that sort of thing)
– knowing what’s where
– making best use of storage space

This post over at powerswitch has some great ideas on storage and a link to this great site selling commercial storage containers these come in white food-grade (pricier), or cheaper blue. These stack, come with click-on lids, are designed for a tough life so shouldn’t break and spill all your valuable produce, and are probably pest- and waterproof if you get the ones with no holes.

Here’s how Adam uses his:

I use a simple colour code to remind me of the contents
White=food, drink, water.
Red=pre-pack parrafin, candles, oil lamps, oil cooker, and related spares.
Brown (ventilated)= clothes and blankets etc.
Blue=Tools, electrical and mechanical spares and supplies.

Another thing to add to my shopping list!