16 questions · Society & Everyday
The emergency at home arrives not with sirens but with silence: the power fails, and with it, one by one, heating, fridge, card payments, petrol stations, mobile masts and eventually the water that electric pumps press into the upper floors of many buildings. None of this calls for bunkers or mountains of tins: civil protection agencies simply recommend being able to live off your own supplies for a few days, reckoned at about two litres of drinking water per person per day. The house itself hides quiet reserves, first among them the hot-water tank with dozens of litres. The greatest danger of a blackout is, astonishingly, home-made: every year people die because they bring charcoal grills or gas heaters indoors: carbon monoxide is invisible, odourless and lethal, which is why the camping stove cooks outside or at a wide-open window. For light, the LED lamp is safer than the atmospheric candle; a full chest freezer holds its cold for about two days unopened; information flows from a battery or crank radio when networks and apps fall silent; and a little cash replaces the dead card terminal. For the loud catastrophes there are rules one must have heard once: in a storm, people belong in inner rooms on lower floors; in a flood, never in the basement, whose doors the water pressure seals shut; and never drive into a flooded road, which becomes a current trap at knee depth. In an earthquake the doorframe has retired: get under the sturdy table, hold on, wait. And after any flood, the tap water obeys one rule: boil first, then drink.
Practise for freePurFact brings every card back right before you would forget it. That's how knowledge sticks.
Because of odourless carbon monoxide
Glowing charcoal produces massive CO, which binds to the blood: you notice nothing, grow tired and never wake. After every major blackout, people die of exactly this.
💡 Did you know? CO detectors cost little and warn before it gets critical: sensible wherever anything burns.
In the hot-water tank
The tank's drain valve yields clean water that has been hanging paid-for in the wall all along. Toilet cisterns count too: but only as grey water for flushing and cleaning.
About two litres
That is how civil protection agencies calculate too: plus water for cooking. A crate of bottled water per person covers nearly a week and merely wants drinking in rotation.
Several days up to ten
The official advice: at least three days, better up to ten. No bunker stockpile: just buy the durable food you eat anyway a little more generously and rotate it.
The LED lamp
House fires from unattended candles are a classic blackout consequence. LED head and camping lamps run for weeks on one set of batteries: candles remain the reserve.
From a battery or crank radio
FM transmitters run on backup power and broadcast official announcements. A crank or solar radio needs no batteries at all: the car radio serves as a receiver too.
Cards and ATMs fail with the power
No power, no card terminals; no network, no cash machines. A small stash in small notes buys water, bread and fuel while the digital till stays silent.
About two days
Full and unopened around 48 hours, half full about 24. So: keep the lid shut and eat the fridge empty first: it only manages a few hours.
Outside or right at a wide-open window
Every open flame eats oxygen and makes fumes. Balcony, terrace or windowsill with a draught and never unattended. Fondue and spirit burners count just the same.
Boil first, then drink
Pressure loss in the pipes can draw in germs; after floods the utilities warn explicitly. Three minutes at a rolling boil makes the water safe again.
In inner rooms low down: away from windows
Hallway, bathroom or basement without outside windows: shattering glass and torn-off roofs are the main danger. Attic floors and glazed conservatories are the worst places in the house.
The water pressure seals the doors shut
Knee-high water outside a door makes it immovable, and basements flood in minutes. Most recent flood deaths happened in basements and underground garages. The rule is: go up.
No: knee-high water already sweeps a car away
Around 30 centimetres of flowing water lift a car and turn it into a rudderless boat; the engine drinks water and dies. Turning around is not cowardice, it is physics.
Under the sturdy table
"Drop, cover, hold on": down, under the table, hold tight until it stops. The doorframe tip dates from other construction eras: in modern buildings it does not protect and stands in the path of flying doors.
A folder with the most important documents
IDs, insurance papers, certificates, medication list, as copies or encrypted on a stick. In an emergency, that folder decides over weeks of bureaucracy.
Via cell broadcast
The warning goes to every phone in a cell tower's range, loud alert tone included: the EU, the UK and the US all run such systems. Warning apps and yearly nationwide test alarms complement it.
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