Britain unprepared for severe blackouts

[Andrew Gabriel]

[Brian Gaff]

Definition of secret? I'm sure I heard this being discussed on the radio a while back, unless this is yet another report. Lets face it, Britain is never prepared for anything, it just muddles through generally!

Brian

[harryagain]

Well I'm prepared. Good pile of firewood. Petrol generator+petrol. Candle/torches/lanterns. Food in freezer. Reading material.

[dennis]

But we all know where it is and you have no way of stopping some of us getting it if things get really bad.

Not me though I know where one of the secret stores of emergency stuff is and would go there first. Quarter of a million ebola kits there ATM.

[Martin Brown]

It was last discussed in the context of solar storms taking down distribution infrastructure (more of threat to the US than to us since they have very long cable runs and are much closer to the magnetic north pole with already flakey transformers). Lead time for making big power transformers is long and so persistent outages inevitable. Another Carrington event would cause a lot of trouble with GPS offline.

Panic buying in the modern JIT stock culture will see supermarket shelves empty overnight and stay empty for the duration.

The point they failed to make properly is that most modern build housing has little or no alternative means of heating if electricity goes off in mid winter. Most significant fuel dumps I think have their own reserve generating capacity but commercial garages will not.

It is always worth having one classic line powered phone.

Having lived in an earthquake zone I also still have a high capacity water container enough for a week or so (and a well next door).

[Nightjar]

Pancor Jackhammer

[Chris French]

Yes, but the article referred to by the OP was exactly about that though.

What might happen if the SW of England lost power for a couple of weeks (ok an unlikely eventuality, but not impossible), and it was really more about looking at the resilience of things, how good is the planning for the various eventualities etc.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I don't think that area would manage to continue running even if all the power stations were up. The grid is probably not designed for islanding, with an island independantly capable of matching input power to demand (even supposing it could in theory supply the demand load). It might keep going for some minutes, until the frequency drifts far enough that all the micro generation trips off, followed by the the main power stations tripping off.

[Johny B Good]

Not quite! You left the pump action shotgun and crate of ammo off your manifest.

[Nightjar]

I prefer this one:

[damduck-egg]

Enough bog rolls for the duration are useful as well, not everyone has access to a load of dock leaves.

G.Harman

[Nightjar]

On 08/01/2015 14:35, [e-mail] wrote: ...

My mother was great stockpiler. When she died, I inherited enough bog rolls for the next 18 months, along with cupboards full of tinned food and most other household supplies in quantity. A mere two weeks without being able to bring in supplies wouldn't have bothered her.

[Andrew Gabriel]

In days of old, when knights were bold, and paper wasn't invented, you wiped your arse on a tuft of grass, and walked away contented.

(and hundreds of variations;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That's the problem with a Kindle too.

[dennis]

You can buy fully auto shotguns. But not in the UK where pump action ones are also illegal AFAIK.

[Nightjar]

Pump action shotguns are perfectly legal in the UK, as are semi-automatic shotguns. However, to be held on a shotgun certificate, the magazine must not hold more than two cartridges, giving a maximum of three shots without reloading.

[polygonum]

Nothing to drink? Or is the petrol dual-function?

[Vir Campestris]

My father used to have an automatic shotgun. I'm pretty sure it was legal.

Mind, it was useless. Three shots, and if you hadn't hit the rabbit with the 2nd shot you weren't going to hit it with the 3rd. A double barrel was just as good.

Andy

[Huge]

It was. Dennis is as wrong about this as about everything else he posts.

[Nightjar]

I suspect you will find it was a semi-automatic; you needed to pull the trigger for each shot, rather than hold it down until the magazine emptied.

The three shot limit was introduced in 1988. It cost me a few quid to have my semi-automatic restricted and re-proofed when that happened.