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First... you only stock things with long expiry date.
Second... once you have stocked, you do FIFO. You use one, you buy one. You put the new one in the back of the stock and get the first one to continue life.
You can stock at least the half of the usual things. Only fresh things, some vegetables (that don't tolerate freezing well) and some other stuff can't be stocked.
But you might still survive some weeks in an emergency without problems.
Energetic, wate security is more difficult.
M.D.V. 
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Yes, I see water as major problem under a long term crisis.
It comes at two levels: Drinking water and other uses. If you've got enough storage space, you can keep drining water in sealed bottles, bought at the grocery store - they usually have a shelf life of many months. Of course you can fill up a large canister of tap water, but even though it is usually fine for drinking today, it isn't guaranteed to be bacteria free. Six months later you may want to boil it before drinking it. Bottled water is easily circulated in a FIFO manner, but few of us do that with tap water canisters, so you should have a routine refreshing that water every x months.
There is a second essential use of water: Even if water is closed off for as little as six hours (e.g. when they dig in the streets to do work on the pipes, or a pipe is broken): You can flush your toilet only once! The authorities always provide drinking water from a large movable container, but you can't run out to get a bucket of flushing water.
My (coming) solution to the problem: I will be digging a lot in my garden this summer, remodeling my house, and put a five cubic meter rainwater cistern into the ground. This is for several reasons: During a draught, 5000 liters of water for my vegetable garden will be substantial. During heavy rain showers, it helps prevent flooding. And, for emergency situations, I can pump up a bucket of water for the toilet. The cistern inlet will be equipped with a prefilter to keep most of leaves and particles out. If I pump up water, I can put it through a finer filter and boil it, as emergency drinking water.
I guess that I am lucky, having this option available. If you live in a 7th floor apartment, you probably won't be able to collect much rain water!
For the electricity:
I am switching to 12VDC LED lights. I just bought six large solar panels, 6*320 Wp, and two lead accumulators. The controller is hooked up to the grid, so in winter when the panels cannot keep the accumulators fully charged, they will be kept charged from the grid. I can also run my Internet fiber connection from the accumulators, the battery radio (when it runs out of batteries) and charge my telephone and laptop.
About 5 kWh of electricity (continously refilled by the panels if there is sun or bright daylight) is probably sufficient for lights. You can't run a freezer on it, or high-power equipment like a dishwasher. You can't heat water for the shower. For the fridge/freezer, I have got a small generator (originally bought for camping trips in my box car) to run them for a couple of hours every day.
For hot water, I am installing a propane heater, the kind intended for off-grid cabins, both as an emergency heater and in everyday operation as an after-heater when I need glowing hot water. The heat pump driven hot water tank is kept at about 50°C (except under the regular legionella desinfections) which is fine for showering, but not for everything else.
For cooking, I was laughed at, going for a split propane/induction solution: Around here, gas stoves are virtually unknown. (We know them only as something used in other countries.) But I was about to make a grave mistake: I had decided on one model, and made a final check of the specs before finalizing the order ... to discover that it had security mechanism that turned off the gas immediately at power outages, making it useless. There was no way to override this. So when I found another model, before ordering I got in writing from the manufacturer that the stove will work even during a power outage - the electric igniter will not, but I can ignite it with a match/lighter.
To keep the house warm, I have heat pump driven floor heating, which requires electicity to run. I discovered that high effect (4-5 kW) portable propane heaters are fairly cheap, well below a hundred Euros. So I got myself a couple of those, both for emergency situations, and as boosters to rapidly get the heat up e.g. when you return home after having been gone for a couple of days. Or you can put the heater in your car when you go to the mountain cabin, to rapidly get it warm.
Twenty years ago, the grid was rock steady, no outages at all. Nowadays, they do so much "optimization", tying various supply lines up in a tightly connected network, that everyhing depends on everything else. Problems anywhere in the grid, e.g. a transformer breakdown, ripples through the grid, turning off everything miles away from the source of the problem. The last few years we have had 1-3 outages a year, each lasting only a couple hours where I live (in rural areas, they may last for a day!). I can't recall any case were the real problem was in my neighbourhood; it was all ripple effects. A couple hours without electricity isn't disasterous, but keeping light and communication running certainly is good.
I think I have taken care of most water and electricity issues: Light, hot water, cooking, heating, fridges/freezers, communication. At least I am a lot better prepared than most of my friends!
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Only because I am paranoic, it doesn't mean I am not being followed
I will probably get a lot of "what are you doing?", "you are overreacting" and similars... but I think it is something not that impossible to get to really need it.
Last summer we had an outage of 7 hours. We were partially lucky it was during the day, so we could still see and have a "normal day" with the kids in garden and so on. As time was going away we already started thinking we have to throw a lot of the frozen meals, but it just got to the limit without crossing it.
I don't want to be independant for a year, but at least have a buffer of some weeks. That gives already a big margin until things settle down or get repaired
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
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About "prepping": Personally, I tend to reject aything that is only for "prepping". It must contribute to my everyday life and security as well, like handling broken water pipes and grid fallouts and food shortages. You will never see me invest in something that will only be useful during WW3.
Then: More than twenty years ago, I had a slight mental breakdown. It started with my car, realizing how little of it I understood, how much I was dependent on experienced car mechanics. What would I do if they weren't there? I extended it to plumbers, electicians, whatever ... quite brutally getting an understanding of how dependent I am on people who understand the things that I do. If they were not there, what then?
These issues started me creating a literary world, a novel, where those who know how to handle, keep running, fix all the things I depend on, were suddenly gone, with noone to help me. Over a period of several years, I discovered new problem areas, and baked them into the novel - certainly not in McGyver style, more to the opposite: Considering as real issues in a post-apocalyptic situation.
After having mentally processed this situation for a few years, I end up viewing the Preppers, who sometimes take it to extremes, to be rather laughable. Mostly, they pick a few, very narrow aspects, where they are super-prepared, but then there are dozens of ignored aspects that will kill them, because they do not see the dependencies, do not see the long-term issue of supplementing and replacing what they've got.
I know why Prepping (with a capital P) is next to useless. It is a joke. If you end up in a post-apocalyptic world, it will essentially be a reset back to stone age - you won't even have the facilities to produce more iron, to keep you at iron age level! For a while, there will be enough iron around, but when that is exhausted, then what? It certainly will be "stone age with a head start", because you have a lot of books telling you how iron is mined ... but will you be able to preseve that know-how until you are strong enough to establish new iron works?
Or maybe you will consider it. Maybe you reconsider what you really, in a post-apocalyptic situation, would choose to spend resources on. After all, lots of the industrial products weren't that essential to quality of life, were they? What should you strive to reestablish? What would you abandon?
I made my own thoughts, and experienced that in the free Western world, you are certainly not free to question the very foundations of our society, of our culture. The very idea of our culture being reshaped into something that we always though of as belonging to "primitive tribe cultures" was so upsetting to those reading my manuscript that it brought me in trouble... (so the manuscript was never published).
Yet I do not regret writing this manuscript. I laugh at most Preppers, and believe that I can justify it. I have considered the situation thoroughly. That is why I prepare for the short/medium term crises, where society will return to normal, more or less, after some time. The post-apocalypse will be a return to the stone age, no matter how you twist it around. If you want to prepare for that, prepare for it that way. Don't expect ironworks, radio stations, weavers, glass makers, paint factories or whatever to be around, because they won't be. Get used to it.
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Member 7989122 wrote: That is why I prepare for the short/medium term crises, where society will return to normal, more or less, after some time.
Exactly. That's why I said to bypass some weeks.
In a post-apocalyptic scenario, I think the first skills you need is to defend yourself and to kill menaces before they kill you for whatever bagatelle they think you have (and the better prepared for such a scenario you are, the most desired target you will be).
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
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It makes a far more exciting movie if we can make it as a "them aginst us" war story, but I am not sure that reality would be that way. It would of course vary a lot with the pre-apocalyptic culture: Some nations are - today - quite explicitly "Grab for yourself whatever you can get hold of" (called "freedom"), others are far more "Let's stand together and make the best out of it" (called "socialism" or "suppression of freedom").
What I am most of all afraid of is being all alone, having to solve absolutely all problems by myself with support of noone. In my manuscript, mentioned above, that was the starting point: The main character is the only adult survivor, plus a small group of kids up to twelve years. Later, contact is made with a few other adult survivors, and several of these are essential to the survival of the group.
This idea of "Kill everybody else before they kill you, even though you are The Good Guy" doesn't appeal to me. In a society stressing such ideals, you must be prepared for everybody else seeing you as the menace, and they will be eager to kill you just as fast as you are to kill them, without giving you a chance to prove to them that you really are a Good Guy (you just want to kill everybody, to be on the safe side). I don't think that attitude is as pronounced in the society where I live.
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Member 7989122 wrote: (you just want to kill everybody, to be on the safe side)
No... only the menaces. But yes, I share your point. I would like to think more of that "let's see what we can do together".
Sadly, the news tend more in the other direction 
It is more a "expect the best, be prepared for the worst", but as I said... this is not really realistic. I am an engineer, not a warrior.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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What are you doing?
You are overreacting 
If I'd stock up I'd buy only things I wouldn't normally eat, because that all has an expiry date.
Fun story, I live on an island (connected to the mainland by the so-called Delta Works, couple of bridges).
A long time ago, probably like 20+ years ago already, we had a power outage.
Smartphones weren't very common back then, but we were also way past the time where everyone had a radio in the house.
The outage turned out to last longer than everyone had expected.
People went into their cars to listen to the radio to find out what happened.
A tractor had rammed into an electricity pole putting the whole island (about 45,000 people at the time) without electricity.
I think we were without electricity for two days, other parts of the island for three.
There was no panic or chaos, stores and the hospital had back-up generators, everyone just went on doing whatever they did, but without electricity and more boredom.
I can't even remember how I spent those days, probably reading, drumming or drawing.
Needless to say, people were quite happy when the power came back on.
The local power grid has been improved since then and (now) 50,000 people don't rely on a single pole for electricity 
I can think of places where such an outage would lead to chaos and anarchy!
And it shames me to say, right now people over here are panic buying too, leaving nothing for the hard working people in healthcare and other critical professions 
For some reason I thought we'd be smarter than that, being the "sober Dutch" (and as a rural area, we're sober even for Dutch standards).
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Sander Rossel wrote: There was no panic or chaos, stores and the hospital had back-up generators, everyone just went on doing whatever they did, but without electricity and more boredom.
Some societies, like our Norwegian one, has made itself completely dependent on electricity. "Going on, doing whatever you do, but without electricity" is not possible.
Almost all house heating is electric. Even heat pumps require electricity. Oil furnaces are forbidden from last newyear. Very few homes have gas heaters or wood stoves. In parts of the country, you need additional heating for more than half of the year. If a winter storm knocks out the grid, with -20°C outside, and the indoor temeperature falls below freezing, you cannot continue all activities as normal.
Most of our food is conserved by cooling/freezing; we have forgotten all the traditional conservation methods (drying, smoking, salting...). In summer heat, our food would soon be ruined.
99,9% of all hot water heaters are electric. You can shower in cold water, but that sure is a change!
The water supply depends (in my town, and many other towns) on electric pumps raising the water into pressure basins. Modern waster quality requirements dictate use of filtering/purifying systems that demand electricity.
99,9% of all cooking is electric. You won't get any hot food, tea, coffee... without electricity. You can't bake your bread.
All lights are electric. For at least four months (more further north), e.g. classrooms will be too dark for teaching. Lots of workshops and factories will be too dark for working.
All communication - radio, TV, phone, computer networks - require electricity. Even running a printing press for a paper based newspaper require electricity.
Most office work is done with a PC, much work relies on network access to remote servers that will be unavilable without electric power.
A significant part of production of goods / food makes use of robots, or at least motorized tools. This would stop without electricity.
All monitoring, surveillance and control systems depend on electricity. Access control does. If power goes out, I will probably be locked out of my office (or possibly, all doors are open to any burglar). We don't have any mechanical keys.
Most trains are electric. Goods transport would suffer significantly if they can't run.
Trams and metro are electric. When they stop, traffic is in a complete chaos.
Electric cars have become popular. Many people can't get to work, or the grocery store, without electricity.
Gas station fuel pumps are electric; I doubt that new models can be hand cranked. Cars would be useless when they run out of fuel, including trucks for delivery of goods.
You can't possibly call for "business as usual" without electricity.
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Come to think of it, it was probably more like 15 years ago.
We did a lot with electricity already back then.
However, heating and cooking was all done with gas (and still is for most households).
As said, I live in a rural area and only the island was hit with the outage.
Just drive over the bridge and there electricity again (a PITA if you live on the center of the island).
The whole island has, from the top of my head, three traffic lights and no trains.
We all went to bed pretty early though
We're talking about a failure of the main grid though.
I think stuff like water filtering has back-up generators for these kinds of scenarios, like our store had.
It wasn't the end of the world, but as you said, we had no light or ways of communication and many businesses were closed for two or three days.
Today it would be a bigger problem, although two days in this particular area probably still wouldn't be the end of the world (unless we get it on top of corona, of course).
Not that I'm willing to try 
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Sander Rossel wrote: Not that I'm willing to try
You could make a limited, controlled try:
I suppose you have some sort of main switch or circuit breaker for your power grid connection. Switch it off, see how many days (or hours?) it takes before you "absolutely have to" turn it back on, and take note of that reason.
If you've got a generator, you may choose to use it for some functions (such as freezer/fridge), or pretend that there is no fuel available. Try not to "cheat", e.g. by taking your stuff to work for charging it there. Rather, terminate the experiment and optionally remedy what caused problems (e.g. get yourself a solar charger for your mobile phone).
If there are noticable seasonal climate changes in your part of the world, you may want to repeat the exercize in a different season. Here in Norway, the effect of a power outage in midwinter is quite different from one in midsummer.
Everyone knows that you should have regular "family fire drills", pretending that your house is on fire and must be evacuated (few families realize it, though!). I think similar regular "out of electricity" drills would be quite useful as well!
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Currently, on a regular work day I'd need power after about 4 to 5 hours or my laptop will die.
My heating and cooking uses gas, so that would be alright (unless I have leftover that I want to heat up in the microwave).
I wouldn't be able to use my oven either.
In the evening I can currently live to about 19:30 before it goes completely dark.
I'd be bored to death before that time though.
After about two days my phone will die leaving me without any forms of communication, other than face to face.
The food in the fridge and freezer will go bad.
All in all I'd rather not try, not even limited and controlled 
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Sander Rossel wrote: A long time ago, probably like 20+ years ago already, we had a power outage.
20+ years ago we were not that dependant of electricity as today.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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See my reply to member [number] above, probably more like 15 years ago, come to think of it 
Nevertheless, not a situation I hope to be in again 
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Marc Clifton wrote: Who has enough resources to survive 3 weeks in home
In the West? Almost nobody.
In the East? Almost everybody.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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OriginalGriff wrote: If you live in a city in India
We care as much as we did in the last ten years 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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OriginalGriff wrote: nobody allowed to leave home for any reason
Almost. Supermarkets, grocery stores and pharmacies will be open, so I expect residents will be able to venture out (sparingly) only to obtain food and meds.
/ravi
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: Supermarkets
Not sure about that. There were reports that air-conditioned supermarkets will not be allowed to function. Those with natural air circulation will be allowed, I heard.
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And apparently home delivery of food is permitted, according to a friend in Bombay.
Edit:
Confirmed by examining the official government declaration.
/ravi
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So, although "everyone" is confined to home, "everyone" can go to the shops; plus shopworkers, delivery drivers can travel to their place of work; and presumably (?) healthcare workers can travel to/from work; as can electricity, water, sewage workers... a total lockdown on everybody just doesn't exist in a modern society. A similar situation in the UK; people still allowed to go to the shops, to travel for medical treatment, to work in "key" sectors, (plus allowed a daily outing for exercise purposes). The streets are quiet for sure, but some residential roads are actually busier than normal, as people walk/run the streets instead of driving to the gym or getting exercise through their work.
As for "stocking up"; in our household tinned / dried foods are an "extra". We tend to eat meals consisting of some meat/fish and plenty of fresh veg. We drink fresh milk and use it on/in cereals. We snack on fresh (seasonal) fruit. We do bake our own bread and perhaps should have had more flour "in stock" than we did. (The "panic" buying I did was to buy some additional seeds for veg later in the year, but we have the luxury of a garden large enough to grow veg that arguably could support us through later summer and autumn; just as well as the garden centres are now closed). We have some frozen stuff of course, and an inventory of everything shows that, apart from fresh milk, we probably don't really need to shop for 3 weeks. But by then our stocks will be near-zero and we'll be dependent on the shops having stuff to sell, which is far from certain. Exiting this strategy of "lockdown" is going to be the biggest challenge yet 
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I feel this is a required step, to preempt a situation as in Northern Italy.
A huge experiment, hoping and praying that this experiment succeeds.
From an "Notification", which was widely circulated on WhatsApp yesterday, grocery and medicine shops will be open. So, looks like no need for stocking up, even though there was a big rush in the vegetable shop nearby yesterday night.
Today, in many states, including mine (Karnataka), it is New Year's Day. Beginning of Chaitra month, the first month of our calendar. However, this will be low key; no shopping, not much celebrations.
modified 24-Mar-20 21:19pm.
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A commentary in Norwegian radio today pointed out how important close ties to friends and family are in Italy - much more than in some other cultures. They embrace, they hug, kiss and touch each other far more that e.g. up here in Scandinavia, where "closeness" is expressed by shaking hands. When a family member is dying, it is a really hard strain on the relatives if they are not allowed to touch their relative at all, much more so than it would be in some other cultures. When something essential happens, birth, death or inbetween, involving relatives, friends and neighbours in the celebration or mourning is an important part of their culture and social life. It isn't that surprising that the virus spread so fast in Italy.
India is enormously large with a lot of subcultures, so we should avoid generalizing remarks. Yet my impression (mostly through Indian coworkers) is that within the family - and probably the extended family as well - physical closeness is far more common than up here in the north. I know neither Italian nor Indian cultures well enough to compare them, but I fear that they might belong at the same halft of the scale. At least some Indian subcultures, not necessarily all.
That radio commenter raised similar worries about other societies as well. In very individualistic societies where citizens detest being commanded by authorities, and where gatherings of crowds is rather common, we await the development. Believing that the epidemic will die out before Easter under those conditions is probably naive. We could just as well see an explosion.
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I live in New Delhi, 21 days lock-down became necessary as educating people and requesting self isolation wasn't working as people got out to the streets anyway. And that too in some kind of festive spirit (?).
OriginalGriff wrote: 21 days, nobody allowed to leave home for any reason.
Essentials remain open for business and available. Only one person from a household is allowed for that too.
Implementing this would be a challenge. But we are facing a bigger challenge already.
OriginalGriff wrote: a lot of breaches, or a heck of a lot of deaths in the next 3 weeks
I hope none of that happens. Police is allowed to use force if necessary to keep people out of the streets.
And the virus hasn't community spread yet. So fingers crossed.
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China and Korea have clearly shown (even to the stupidest and blindest who couldn't see the obvious if it were painted on a ten-foot poster, five feet from their faces) that the only way to handle coronavirus is with a huge amount of testing and near-total lockdown.
So it's unfortunate, yes, and there will be horror stories, but there genuinely is a greater good here (hint: it ain't the %$@#&^* stock market!)
There will be several more "Italies", yet, particularly in countries with alt-right denialist or "money is more important than lives" leaders (or both).
On total lockdown, India will struggle for a short while, then heal. Other countries are unlikely do as well.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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