News and information from Europe ๐ช๐บ
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @[email protected]
Preppers once were the unreasonable ones. What else will be seen in a new light?
When Covid happened most of them collectively shook their heads and said "Nah, that's fake."
What else will be seen in a new light?
It's all context. There is a fine line between stupid and genius.
Tnx people for all your suggestions and advice. It helped me isolate my perceived worst case emergency. This would be a flood, as in all other events I'll be dead, or it will be very doable. So if there's a flood, this would likely mean, no water, energy, electricity, communications and probably no help, for days minimum.
For clean water access, apparently a small portable (old school) waterfiltration system would be the best option, in combination with some bottled water.
for days minimum
This will be up to two relevant factors, only the first you know in advance:
It is very unlikely there will not be any help coming.
If you survive a flood you might have gotten wet which will have massive influence on your ability to maintain a desirable body temperature. If the flood comes with bad weather and you have no acces to heating or a place to shelter hypothermia might kill you before contaminated water can. If you can shelter in place and you're safe in your own (or somebody elses) home bottled water and/or a water filter might be a great thing though, just trying to say what you'll need depends entirely on what situation you end up in.
There are definitely many variables, and hypothermia is really an issue. I just wanted to be aware of the most critical situation. Cities with lower elevations near sea and or rivers are more suspectable to flooding due to climate change etc.
Recently, we had a flooding in Spain where the emergency signal came too late. Last year, there was one in South-Brasil where help couldn't be delivered easily, because the roads and airports were inundated.
Other examples according to Mistral AI, fyi:
Flood events where help arrived after 72 hours are often large-scale disasters that overwhelm initial response capabilities. Here are some notable examples:
Hurricane Katrina (2005)
Hurricane Harvey (2017)
Pakistan Floods (2010)
Hurricane Maria (2017)
Midwest Floods (2019)
India Floods (2018)
These examples highlight the challenges and complexities of responding to large-scale flood events, where the initial response is often overwhelmed, and significant help may arrive after the critical 72-hour window.
Thanks for sharing!
Earlier this year the European public was urged to stockpile enough food, water and essentials for 72 hours to cope with a military attack, natural disaster, power cut or major industrial accident.
Honestly, unless you have some sort of serious medical condition, most people should be just fine going 72 hours without food. We've a social convention of eating three meals a day, sure, but your body is quite able of running off stored energy for a long time. I've fasted for a week myself for the hell of it. I remember mentioning that to an aunt once, and she mentioned that she'd done two weeks.
This guy did over a year (though he was pretty heavy to begin with, had plenty of fat reserves).
Barbieri went from 456 pounds (207 kg) to 180 pounds (82 kg), losing 276 pounds (125 kg) and setting a record for the length of a fast.
he consumed only vitamins, electrolytes, an unspecified amount of yeast (a source of all essential amino acids) and zero-calorie beverages such as tea, coffee, and sparkling water, although he occasionally added milk and/or sugar to the beverages, especially during the final weeks of the fast.
Worth mentioning imo, but you are right that most people should be fine fasting for some days if necessary. Although I would bet that almost everyone has a few days of food anyways. Unless you literally have empty shelves and buy groceries every day, most people will have a base stock of shelf stable foods like noodles, canned stuff, sugar, flour and so on.
Imo the limiting factor will be drinkable water most of the time. If something would cut off the supply immediately and for longer durations it would be a serious issue. Especially during warmer months.
Anyone tried water purifying tablets yet, and would you recommend them?
So, I did some research a little while ago, bottled (supermarket) water will stay good for a year, officially . Anything else ( like water filled jerrycan) goes bad after some days and needs a waterfilter and/or water purifying tablets.
You have between 100 and 300L of fresh water in your cumulus and 10L in your toilets. If you have a bath, you can also fill it as soon as alert is raised and have enough water for days. Yes, it's not the perfectly clean tap water, but it's emergency situation. And you have an immune system for this.
Unless you go on treck or on country with suspicious water, don't bother with purifying tablets. You'll have to throw them away and replace every 2 years. They also give some unpleasant taste to water.
Anyone tried water purifying tablets yet, and would you recommend them?
They'll kill bacteria in water, though obviously they can't pull chemicals out of it.
I wouldn't be worried about bottled water going bad after a year
I've kept distilled water for much longer than that
but if you want more capacity in a smaller package than by storing water, you can get a water still, distill water yourself as long as you have some source of water and some sort of sufficient heat (e.g. a fire).
kagis
https://www.amazon.com/Roots-Branches-VKP1208-Little-Distiller/dp/B07WSJ2H8C
If you don't have access to a water source but have sufficient electrical power
which in the past I'd have said probably isn't very likely if the government can't get water to the public in 72 hours, but isn't as crazy as it once might have been, what with people running around with beefy home solar setups and the like
it's possible to run devices that condense water out of the air off the cold side of a heat pump, these sorts of things:
https://www.amazon.com/Solaris-WaterGen-A10-Atmospheric-Generator/dp/B0DL4N1PRG
I'd guess that for most people, the most-practical and cost-effective approach is probably just to estimate how much water one might need and store that much potable water in advance. That takes care of the "have a source of water", "get any energy required to purify it", and "purify it" points all at one go. Doesn't require a lot of expertise, effort, or place constraints on your environment to open a bottle of water.
It's important to note what purification tablets do and don't do. They kill bacteria, some viruses and many parasites. They don't remove chemical pollution, or biological toxins.
You should use them if you want to drink from open water like steams and ponds, but it won't, say, remove factory effluent. It will prevent getting diseases from human or animal waste, which is the main risk.
But it won't make the water taste like it didn't come from a pond.
But it won't make the water taste like it didn't come from a pond.
They do make water filters that will pull larger stuff out.
I understand that the American Sawyer and the Swiss LifeStraw make popular small, portable devices.