Households across the UK have begun preparing after warnings that the National Grid may impose a series of rolling three-hour power cuts this winter if the supply of gas for power stations falls too low.
Some are preparing blackout boxes and buying candles, camping stoves and windup radios. Others are sourcing batteries and generators to keep vital equipment running, including a home aquarium and sensory equipment for an autistic family member.
Six people discuss how they’ve been preparing for potential blackouts.
‘I’ve made a blackout box with torches and biscuits for my elderly parents’
Jennifer Bolland, 64, lives a two-hour drive away from her parents, who are 85 and 93, and worries about how they will cope in a blackout. She has been speaking to them about it since September to prepare them: “I don’t know if they are optimistic or can’t believe it. They thought the hard times were long past.”
Bolland has made them a blackout box containing “two torches, biscuits, fruit cake” as well as “tea lights properly stuck into aluminium foil trays so they can grip and carry them”. She says: “We’ve practised with the poky straws and ripping the top off of milk. We’ve practised putting the straw in – the squash jumps everywhere but it doesn’t matter as long as they have something to drink.”
The couple rely on a stairlift to get to bed, Bolland explains. “If there’s a blackout, they’ll have to sleep where they are. I’ve put blankets and fleeces folded on dining chairs.” Bolland visits them once a month for 10 days. “It’s a case of preparing for what I can and hoping for the best.”
‘I’ve bought warm pyjamas and thermals for my children’
Vanessa Linden, 46, started assembling “all the classic” blackout items in September. “We’ve got a battery-driven torch and radio, stocked up on candles, bought thermal first base layers, fleece slipper boots,” she says. Linden, who works in learning and development in Chiswick, also has supplies of dried and tinned food.
With two young children, aged two and four, she worries about safety if she has to rely on candles. She has bought her children thick pyjamas and is concerned about them all staying warm as well, saying that there is a “high probability all four of us will sleep in the super-king bed just for warmth”.
“I showed my little children how dark it gets with no lamplight and only candles,” she says. “[But] how long can you realistically keep up the ‘this is an adventure, let’s read with a torch in the tent’ narrative?”
‘I’ve got a windup radio and camping stove’
In September, Joanna Young bought a windup radio, windup torches and a windup lantern in order to be prepared for the possibility of power outages. “The radio has a solar panel, can take AA batteries, has a torch, and a USB port for charging your phone.” Young made sure she had plenty of matches in case the electric ignition on the kitchen’s gas stove didn’t work.
Then the 60-year-old from Eastbourne stepped her preparations up, entering what she called “phase two” with a camping stove. “We ordered our single gas ring hob from Amazon and a supply of gas canisters after reading about Yarrow and having become aware of the incidents around Nord Stream. Being of a pessimistic/realistic nature, I started thinking the gas might go as well as electric.”
“I’m wondering about what to do about drinking water but wondering if going I’m going overboard at this point,” she adds.
‘I’ve bought a 12v battery to keep my aquarium alive’
Mike Wharton, 37, is the owner of a rare saltwater marine aquarium, which is home to a diversity of species, including fish, corals and invertebrates. “There is a lot of machinery and equipment that is needed to keep it all alive,” he says. “It all requires power. I have some emergency back-up equipment which will keep it going in a power cut for maybe an hour – but after that the system needs power.”
Wharton, the co-founder of a digital consultancy from Dundee, recently purchased a 12v battery which he hopes will be able to run off his wife’s Nissan Leaf car. He says: “It should keep it going for about a week. It is concerning me but I live in a part of town where the power isn’t overhead, it comes through ground cables, so I’ve never had a power cut here before.”
‘We keep dry-pack emergency rations on hand’
Lewis, 73, from Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex, says he and his husband have been prepared for any power outages for some time, given their backgrounds. “We have [supplies] on hand all the time,” he says. “My husband is from Japan, I’m from San Francisco, so we are both used to earthquake preparedness.
“The big difference is that the San Francisco Bay Area doesn’t get as cold as it does here, so heat will remain a problem. But we keep a week’s worth of dry-pack emergency rations on hand. I always make sure I have a week’s worth of medicine. I have bottled water stored, plus chemicals to disinfect it if we needed to. It’s like a church with all the candles we have scattered around the place for the dark hours.”
The couple also keep their emergency documents in bags that can withstand water and fire. However, Lewis says he has never had to deal with repeated blackouts before.
He says: “I’ve never had to last more than a day. For example, the 1989 earthquake in the Bay Area or shortly after that was the Oakland wildfire. Not terribly long but probably longer than the two to three hours they are talking about in the evenings here. Longer than that but not repeated.”
‘We’ve bought a generator to keep my brother’s life-saving tech running’
Hannah, who is in her early 30s and lives near Glasgow, is an unpaid family carer to her brother, in his 20s, who has autism. He has learning disabilities, is unable to speak and relies on digital technology to communicate with those around him. “My brother doesn’t verbally communicate, he relies on technology to convey the most basic needs, whether it is that he needs to go to the bathroom or if he has hurt himself,” she says.
“Due to his epilepsy, we’ve also got sensors around the house in case he has seizures. One in particular is a kind of mat that goes under his bed and will set off alarms in case he has seizures and we can support him. All of this needs to be plugged in or charged with electricity.”
Worrying about the potential for blackouts this winter, Hannah and her family have invested in a £300 small generator to use in case of an emergency. “Hopefully it will just sit at the back of the cupboard and not need to be used, but it’s a fair signal of the impact a blackout would have on a family like ourselves. It would last three or four hours,” she says.
Hannah adds that she feels disabled people are often overlooked when decisions that will affect them are made by politicians.
