The idea is that in a longer outage you’re fucked anyway

but if you have “toilet paper” for 3 tot 10 days that will put less strain and panic in the system

it’s not saying it’s coming or coming soon but having “toilet paper” for a couple of days is good

Fuel protest blockades that caused some amount of supply chain shock have happened at least 4 times since 2000, then there’s been random riots in cities that in some cases materialized out of nowhere (though widely suspected to be a Russian social media op), then covid, and now there’s the super El Nino threatening to cause droughts and global food shortages. So there’s that.

Mostly prepping to go without food, electricity, travelling or communications because of sabotage of vital infrastructure (in Europe and UK is happening on a weekly basis) and climate catastrophes which are regular in the UK since 2020(ish) and increasing. There are also potential lockdowns because of pandemics (e.g. measles from US). Also Brexit Britain is now inoperative in terms of food safety, really, since it relies on mainland Europe food imports to survive. If something fails or there’s a mega-storm, supermarkets will be empty for days like they were in 2018 or 2020.

This writeup here goes into it in some depth. Wish I had the full non-paywalled version, but hopefully that’s enough.

Go back and read the news from after some recent natural diasters - winter storms, hurricanes, landslides. People can be suddenly cut off from supplies and even with an immediate response it could be a week or more until basic food and water is avaiable to everyone. Most stores in cities need daily or at least a couple times a week of deliveries to keep shelves stocked. Rural areas aren’t any better. None of them are set up to have every customer show up in the same 24 hour period to restock. Having a bunch of stuff on hand that doesn’t need refridgeration and can be eaten as is, not cooked, is very important.

Notice the world is rearming with alarming haste? The post WWII calm, the rules based order, just died, due to Russia’s military agression of conquest, China’s weaponization of trade and America’s unmittigated use of both.

The predictable world marked by moderation in good things and bad, is gone now. When the hits come, you can expect the bullies to take your lunch money. Partnerships with other countries are just one election away from turning on you or changing allegiances. You can’t even count on geopolitical analysis of rational behaviour and self interest. This being exemplified by Russia and the USs self immolation.

The governments around the world understand the risks, and expect more discontinuity of services. Pandemics, freezer hackings, war, AI, planetary boundaries and climate change and more all mean that our previous quests of efficiency and profitability instead of resilience and sustainability as a goal, make everything hyper fragile.

When the government says stock up to last a while during disruptions, its because they know they aren’t capable of shielding everyone from everything. They are warning you “we’ll take care of the big stuff, but for the small stuff you’re on your own.”

Russia is a threat to Europe again. You may have left the EU but you’ve not physically moved anywhere. They probably won’t bomb UK directly but they can and will try to sabotage things. You’re a member of NATO still.

Extreme weather and storms will be more common with climate change.

Critical infrastructure is all connected. One vulnerability could take banks offline for a few days for example.

Everybody else here captured the uncertainty in the world, but even without specifics you can still do a tabletop exercise without jumping all the way into a rabbit hole and see what you’d need to have to spend three days without being able to buy supplies. Most of those kind of lists just end up being things you’d need anyway: water, food, any prescriptions, some local currency if credit card machines are down, etc. Decide how much you think some event is likely and how much budget you have and react accordingly, or don’t. Take it as an opportunity to change out the batteries in any smoke dectectors or battery powered radios, maybe top off any power bricks you have for charging phones.

If you decide to stock up on something there are a lot of resources out there already on what makes sense. If you decide not to stock up on anything then be aware that people might not be willing to share if something does happen; you had the same opportunity to prep and the same information that everyone else did.

Most of my knowledge of UK preparedness is either from WWII documentaries or dubious sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgwaOEg0Uqo

Anything.

Could be an unfortunate freak accident that disables the electricity grid.

Could be that all trees around your home all fall down and block the roads so you can’t get to the store.

Could be that you break your leg and can’t go to the store to get food or water for 10 days.

Could be flooding, could be drought, could be wildfires, could be a reversal of earths magnetic field or a solar storm that destroys all electronics and throws us back to the stone age.

3-10 days is the realm of “something could happen that meaningfully disrupts the general supply chain”. and also still reasonable to expect of people. Like, they’re not going to ask you to stock up 6 months worth of water and food in a 50m² apartment. That’s not going to happen. Too expensive, don’t have the room. And they’re also not going to ask you to stock one (1) cookie for an emergency in case you get hungry tomorrow afternoon.

And also, if the problem is so huge that the government, military and NGO people can’t fix it in 10 days, that’s a pretty damn big problem and it could be that stocking up from 1 month doesn’t help much more than 10 days, because they can only solve it in 5 years.

3-10 days also buys time to figure out evacuation without having to think about literally the next meal.

Bovinejonyono is a grifter dumbass

That being said, my nearby gas station just ran out of fuel, which is weeeird.

I’ll take sailing around Africa for $100.

Just preppers being too twitchy as usual. The U.S. military ordered bases to prepare to be without power and now they all think it’s the apocalypse.