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Britons will be urged to stockpile tinned food, batteries and bottled water under a new campaign launched by the UK government to encourage the public to prepare for emergencies.

Oliver Dowden, deputy prime minister, will on Wednesday unveil a new website designed to help households mitigate potential harm from an array of risks, ranging from flooding and power outages to biosecurity crises such as another pandemic.
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The “Prepare” website launched on Wednesday calls on households to stock up on bottled water. It suggests a minimum supply of about three litres of drinking water per person per day, but recommends 10 litres per person per day — to aid basic cooking and hygiene needs — as a more comfortable level of supplies.

It also urges people to buy and store non-perishable food that “doesn’t need cooking, such as ready-to-eat tinned meat, fruit or vegetables”, as well as a tin opener, plus baby supplies and pet food where relevant.

Battery or wind-up torches and radios, a first aid kit, and wet wipes are among other emergency supplies detailed on the government checklist.

Speaking at the London Defence Conference, Dowden will say “resilience begins at home” and cite polling by the conference showing that only 15 per cent of people have an emergency supply kit in their homes, while more than 40 per cent of people do not have three days’ supplies of non-perishable food and water.

Government officials said the advice would bring Britain in line with nations such as Finland and Japan, which are regarded as leaders in citizen resilience.

  • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    I think that ‘resilience in depth’ is a reasonable idea. The NHS exists, but I still have a first aid kit at home.

    In practice, I think it will be difficult fir a household to store 3 days drinking water.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      6 months ago

      I can store 3 days worth of water but that rather assumes I have only to do it for myself. It for a large firmly would take up more space than most people have access to. You also can’t keep bottled water for very long because the plastic eventually contaminates the water. So your best bet would be to buy a water filter and keep that full and regularly refreshed, but you’re still not going to have enough water for 3 days for four people.