What do you do, first?

[Scythe13]

Pop, the lights go off, it's dark anyway, you don't know what's going on. Turns out that your phone is able to turn on, but you can't get any reception.

It looks like there is a financial collapse that caused the power outage. Everything with batteries works fine. However....what do you do first?

I've been getting into comms a lot recently, learning as much as I can, and annoying the hell out of LS with my daily bombardment of questions. So I'm close to thinking along the lines of check comms and see what's going on elsewhere.

With that in mind, I'm also quite into the idea of popping round to the neighbours and seeing how they are and what's going on with them. There's always the option to barricade the road with my car, but some people may be trying to leave the area or move in.

But the problem is, it could just be a power-cut during a financial collapse. Therefore it could be perfectly 'innocent' and not the final straw that broke it.

Do you check batteries first? Get torches up and working? Check on neighbours? Get weapons? Try comms? or what?

Ideas, and explanations please.

It's cool to say you'll do something, but why would you do it is more important!

p.s. we are not including popping champagne or something similar to celebrate TEOTWAWKI. Survival related answers only.

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The more I think on this, the more ideas come to mind.

Fill the bath, hoping the taps are still working? Fill buckets for as much as possible? But out and wait for the madness to subside?

[Midnitemo]

secure the house , gather the essentials to hand , fill the bath , turn on the battery radio , await developments.

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secure the house, obvious but probably not that crucial just yet , gather the essential's ...its dark you need weapons snacks bug out gear warm clothing boots on in efect you're in qrf mode , fill the bath or water bob hopefully have one by then...in readiness for an extended stay....tune in for news...nice to know what's befallen you.

[Lightspeed]

OK so this is at night so...

1. get torch and ensure all houshold is safe and that all cooking and heating systems are secured.
2. Check fuse box to ensure outage isn't just a tripped fuse
3. Check landscape to see if usual ligts are still illuminated. Frequently power to our entire village gets tripped, while neighbouring village on facing hillside 7km away remains unaffected.
4, Turn on battery powered radio and listen for local broadcast radio.
5. If no local broadcast radio ( bad sign) only then would I start to monitor Shortwave

[Mortblanc]

Go to bed,

then get up tomorrow and go pay the electric bill!

[Scythe13]

(11 September 2013, 04:02)Mortblanc Wrote: Go to bed,

then get up tomorrow and go pay the electric bill!

Haha, very good. Maybe you should have set up a direct debit.

[bigpaul]

go to bed and see whats going on in the morning in daylight.

[Scythe13]

This might really screw with people's perceptions, but going to bed could be the thing that gets you screwed over.

Let's say that it is a HUGE power out, like in the Blackout program. The local scroats realise what's going on and start going a bit nuts in the area. Okay MB lives in a quiet area, but BP you live on the side of a council estate, and as you say don't have many friends in the area. Going to bed is the kind of thing that will leave you vulnerable. Your alarm may not be working, and your security lights in your garden or front of house are not going to work either.

Going to bed seems to be a dangerous thing to do.

[bigpaul]

have it your own way Scythe, I KNOW the people on my estate( i'm at the very BACK of my estate by the way) and they are NOT going to go mental in the first 24 hours or even 48, most people are going to say, OK it a power CUT, go to bed and sort it out in the morning when we can see what we are doing! I don't live in an inner city or in a suburb I live in a small COUNTRY town...well, not even IN it I live way out on the outskirts, almost on the parish boundary.

[Scythe13]

(11 September 2013, 09:01)bigpaul Wrote: have it your own way Scythe, I KNOW the people on my estate( i'm at the very BACK of my estate by the way) and they are NOT going to go mental in the first 24 hours or even 48, most people are going to say, OK it a power CUT, go to bed and sort it out in the morning when we can see what we are doing! I don't live in an inner city or in a suburb I live in a small COUNTRY town...well, not even IN it I live way out on the outskirts, almost on the parish boundary.

Fair does mate.

I'd be having mini-naps and trying to guard where I lived. Also, would be making sure everything was ready to get up and go when I needed to.

[Steve]

Light some candles. Turn on the radio. Have a game of scrabble with Mrs. Get the portable gas cooker out if we haven't eaten.

If power is still out the next day I'll pull the main fuse and rig up a light to tell me if the power is back on, I'm assuming major power problems and don't want spikes wrecking my LED lights, boiler etc.

I'll run the generator for an hour to keep the freezers cold and charge all batteries. Probably check TV while the gen is running. I have 120 litres of petrol, but it won't last forever so gen time is controlled.

Hopefully the mobile network will be running, so I'll contact the family to remind them not to leave it too late if they want to visit. If the mobile network is down I'll be monitoring the ham frequencies at the arranged times for comms from them.

Build a generator "cage" in the barn, dry built from concrete blocks, it will deaden the noise the genny makes. We're remote, but sound carries a long way when all the radios and TVs are off at night.

Plumb the 1200 litre LPG tank into the small gas cooker, that will keep us cooking for a while.

Keep calm and carry on.