You may have seen the government’s new Be Ready campaign asking every household to be ready to manage for three days in an emergency — a power cut, flooding, whatever it turns out to be. Good idea, in principle. But if you actually try to follow the checklist as written, a couple of the numbers don’t quite add up for a real home. Here’s what it says, what it misses, and how to make it actually work for your household.
What the checklist asks for
The headline ask is three days of self-sufficiency: water, food, light, warmth, a way to charge your phone, your medication and documents, plus a reminder every six months to check it’s all still in date. Sensible list, as far as it goes.
Where the maths gets tricky
The water figure is “3 litres per person per day for drinking,” with more needed for cooking and washing. Do that sum for a family of four and you’re at 36 litres of drinking water alone — before a single dish gets washed or a toilet gets flushed, because the checklist doesn’t mention either. That’s roughly eighteen 2-litre bottles. Most UK kitchens don’t have a cupboard that fits that, which is probably why it doesn’t come up much once people actually try to follow the advice.
It’s not that the water figure is wrong — three litres a day for drinking is a reasonable medical estimate. It’s that “go and store this much water” is a much bigger practical ask than the checklist lets on, and sanitation water (for flushing, washing, basic hygiene) isn’t mentioned at all.
A more realistic version for your household
- Start with drinking water, not the full figure. A few large containers (5–10 litres) refreshed every six months covers genuine drinking need without needing a spare room. Water filters or purification tablets are a realistic backup for more than that, and take up far less space than bottled water.
- Think about flushing and washing separately. A simple bucket-and-bowl system, plus keeping your bath or a large container topped up when severe weather is forecast, covers far more ground than buying bottled water for washing — which almost nobody actually does.
- Put the six-month check in your calendar now, not “at some point.” The checklist’s own advice — a reminder every six months to check expiry dates — is the single most skipped step of any kit, because it’s boring and easy to forget. Pick a date that’s easy to remember (the clock change is a good one) and set it today while you’re thinking about it.
- Build it gradually. The government’s own advice says to check your cupboards first and buy what’s missing during your normal shop, rather than one big trip. That’s genuinely good advice — a three-day kit doesn’t need to happen, or be paid for, all at once.
The real takeaway
General guidance like this is a useful nudge, but it’s written for an average household, and your household isn’t average — it’s yours, with its own space, budget and routine. The checklist is a reasonable starting point; working out what it actually means for your specific home is the part worth five minutes of thought rather than taking the numbers at face value.
If working through “what does resilience actually mean for us” is the kind of thing you’d rather have a proper framework for, rather than figuring it out from scratch, that’s exactly what our short courses are built for — have a look and see what fits.
Related posts:
What England’s World Cup night can teach you about crisis management (even if, like me, you couldn’t care less about football)
The Loggist: one of the most important roles nobody trains for
ISO Spaghetti: Making Sense of the Standards You Keep Hearing About
What Every Public Inquiry Is Really Telling Us About Logging