In Emergency
What The Guide Says
Follow the basic UK emergency advice:
If the emergency is inside the home:
- Get out
- Stay out
- Ring 999
If the emergency is outside the home:
- Go in
- Stay in
- Tune in - monitor national and local news and follow official advice for what to do next. BBC radio 2 frequency 88-91 FM, this is the station designated to be used for national emergency information and advice.
You may get a ping or alarm on your phone with a text message from the UK government informing you of the emergency and what to do.
Utilities
If you have time and it is safe to do so, you might need to turn off the
mains water, gas or electric to your home during an emergency.
Familiarise yourself with where these are located.
WARNING: You can turn the water and electricity back on yourself
but NOT THE GAS.
This must be done by a qualified engineer.
Use the following pages to complete your emergency plan with your household and pin it up somewhere visible and easy to remember.
Rationale, background and more
The guidance is mostly obvious. In addition you might want to consider
- Have a 'grab bag' of important documents such as passport, debit/credit cards, copies of insurance policies and the like. If you are unable to get back into your home for a long time (or at all), replacing these can be months of aggravation at a time that is already highly stressed.
- Most commentators advise always carrying or having easy access to some small-denomination cash. If card payment systems have failed, the ability to pay with cash remains an option.
- If you are dependent on particular apps such as online banking, consider keeping a cheap/old second phone with copies of the apps as a backup. Check they still work from time to time.
- Reliable information is better than rumours, see page 19 for more detail. BBC FM radio is designated by the government to be used in emergencies - Radio 2 and 4 from main transmitter sites are designed to be resilient. A battery-powered radio with fresh batteries can be a lifeline. You may come across recommendations to use a 'wind-up' radio. Most are flimsy and tedious to use - better than nothing but inconvenient. Make sure you know how to tune/re-tune your radio to the right station in case your local relay transmitter is off. Note that many cars have a FM radio.