Could you survive 3 days without power? UK tells households to prepare now

The British government on Friday launched the “Be Ready” campaign, urging the public to keep three days' supply of food, water and essential provisions at home to build national resilience against unexpected crises, such as ‌this week's PHP software glitch, as well as a record-setting summer of heat, drought and wildfires.

Andy Burnham said, “unexpected events seem to be becoming more and more common”, as governments and major tech providers globally were scrambling to patch two critical, "unprecedented" vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, the programming language that underpins a vast portion, roughly 70% of the World Wide Web.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, hosting ​a meeting on the response to wildfires, said that in the ​past Britain had been "on the back foot" while responding to emergencies; it ‌needed ⁠to be more proactive.

UK, like many other countries, has a vulnerable food supply chain and relies on overseas imports for roughly 40% to 50% of the food it consumes, a figure that spikes drastically to 80% for fruit.

"It's not about panicking... It's about just taking sensible measures to have enough in the house to tide you over should there be a difficult situation," said Burnham.

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What is the "Be Ready" campaign?

The government recommends having enough supplies in the kitchen to last three days. This includes 3 litres of water per person, which means 9 litres for three days, and non-perishable food with a long shelf life that requires no refrigeration and no cooking or water to prepare, such as tinned meats, tinned fish, vegetables, and dried fruits. The government also urged other essential provisions at home, such as a battery-powered or wind-up FM radio to receive emergency updates from broadcasters if power fails, a fully charged portable power bank, a battery-powered torch, cash, as electronic payment systems can collapse in a power outage, medical supplies, and a basic first aid kit, hand sanitiser, blanket, sleeping bag, etc.