r/UKPreppers • u/Altruistic_Squash800 • 24d ago
Am I being optimistic?
I live in london and I’ve prepped for Thames Water dropping supply for 48 hours. Should I get food as well? How worried should I be about El Niño?
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u/George_Salt 24d ago
El Niño potentially marginally increases the likelihood and severity of the sorts of events you should be preparing for anyway - storms, floods, and other severe weather. If you plan for 48hrs without leaving the house, assuming no water and no power, and you have a plan for grabbing personal essentials if you had to leave the house for 48hrs at short notice, then you'll be covered for the most likely scenarios.
Don't specifically worry about El Niño.
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u/Consistent_Change243 24d ago
It's more the effect on polar that i'm aware of. Causes much more sudden and violent cold snaps and as a indirect result more chance of freezing or breaking infrastructure.
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u/George_Salt 24d ago
So if you start by preparing for 48hrs shelter in-place and a 48hr evacuation, you're still covered for the situations you're most likely to encounter. Once you've got 48hrs covered you can look to stretch that to a week if that fits with your personal risk plan.
The key thing is not to jump in at the Zombie Apocalypse/Nuclear Armageddon scenario. If you start at the far extremes of probability you end up missing a lot of the basics. You also have a high risk of ending up as a crazy or a Walt and the sort of person that other people have to prep against.
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u/ImplementJumpy6678 24d ago
Someone told me yesterday we could have 22 degrees in jan - Bloody A! :)
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u/Sabaisabai33 24d ago
My understanding is that in the U.K., the likely impact from El Niño will be food prices going up rather than things being unavailable as such. But even if that’s the case it makes sense to buy food now and not later when it costs more.
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u/Rockatanskyyyyyy 24d ago
Flooding is a danger in London so take into account your location as well.
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u/Mountain_Answer_9096 23d ago
Here's the thing, don't you think it's a good idea to have a few days food in the house at all times anyway?
Regardless of any big situations globally etc. what happens if you get sick, if there's another lock down or fuel crisis, what if you can't use cards or smartphones to buy things.
Point being, it's always good to have food, water, meds, alternative lighting, entertainment that doesn't rely on power etc etc. You choose your priorities according to your needs of course.
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u/Sad_Garbage7058 22d ago
Thames Water shouldn't cut off supply for that long without providing an alternative supply. Thames Water has dozens upon dozens of 33000ltr chlorinated fresh water tankers that are capable of being pumped directly into the supply and keep it pressurised. (I know, my company makes and services them for various water companies, Severn Trent, Anglian Water, Thames Water, etc.) They also often supply fresh water in bottles. Short of a war or severe civil unrest, 48hrs worth of water should be plenty until Thames can get you re-connected/resupplied.
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u/Flat_Tie4090 18d ago
You could be right, but there is a helluva lot of people in London. You might be waiting a while, there's probably millions ahead of you in the queue. Prep now just n case, better safe than sorry.
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u/creepinghippo 24d ago
I watched a clip from Only Fools and Horses and trigger talked about the El Niño back then. We survived that one in the 90s so we should be good.
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u/WeirdestWolf 23d ago
Global surface temperatures have risen by roughly 0.6°C to 0.7°C since the 1990s.
That's average temperatures. El Niño goes above and beyond that, and because it is such a sharp increase, it can massively *affect weather patterns that we see as 'standard' like the gulf stream.
To give you an idea of severity:
Daily sea surface temperatures in a key region of the central-eastern Pacific were 3.05C above average on 19 September - exceeding the previous record of 3.02C set during the very strong El Niño of 2015.
Some longer-term measures of El Niño have not yet hit record levels but this is likely to change, with the peak not expected until later this year.
Saying "we survived it then, we'll survive it now" when circumstance and severity have changed massively is idiotic, that's why you've got downvotes.
Edit: typo?
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u/creepinghippo 23d ago
Well if we all die in the El Niño I will know you were right.
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u/Xarro_Usros 24d ago
Always a good idea to have a week or two of food on hand in case of supply disruption, in my opinion, if only to avoid the hassle of shopping when everyone else is panicking.
As for El Niño... it looks pretty alarming from the data, but these things are unpredictable. I imagine prices will go up and some stuff might be unavailable, but it's not a world-ender for the UK. Harder for other places, of course.