Power Out… Organised

About the Author

Ravi Sandhu has worked in digital adoption since 1999 and has spent more than twenty years helping people and organisations change the way they work. He is a Certified Change Practitioner, holds a postgraduate diploma in Online and Distance Education and eLearning from The Open University, and works as a ServiceNow University Consultant in the EMEA team. Alongside his day job he has taught community classes since 1999, trained as a fitness instructor from 2007 and, in 2012, founded Pungra, a group exercise concept built around Punjabi music and dance.

The “… Organised” series brings those worlds together. Each book takes one area of life and applies the same simple method: notice what is actually happening, decide what you want instead, design a better way, and keep it going. Ravi lives in London with his family.

Foreword

Most of us only notice electricity when it stops.

The lights go out, the fridge falls silent, the router’s little lights fade, and for a moment the whole house holds its breath. Usually the power is back within minutes and we forget about it. Occasionally it is not, and we discover how much of our lives was quietly running on a cable we never think about.

This book is not about fear. Large blackouts are rare in Britain, and the people who run the grid work hard to keep them rare. Most emergencies in UK homes are inconvenient rather than dramatic: a power cut on a winter evening, a burst main, a storm that closes the roads, a hot week that is hard on older relatives. This book is about the ordinary, reasonable step of being organised for something that will, at some point, happen to almost everyone: a few hours, a night, or occasionally a few days without power.

In October 2026 the UK government launched its Be Ready campaign, asking households to be ready for three days of disruption. That is a sensible target, and this book will help you reach it. But a kit in a cupboard is not the same as being organised. Torches go flat. Water goes out of date. Phone numbers change. The person who knew where everything was is away that week. Preparedness is not a shopping trip; it is a small system that has to be kept alive.

That is what this book is for.

Introduction

Who This Book Is For

This is the Full edition of Power-out… Organised. It is written for the person in a household who is willing to lead on preparedness: the one who will read the detail, set up the plan and keep it going. You do not need to be an expert, a “prepper” or someone with a garage full of supplies. You need to be the person who says, “Let’s sort this out properly, once, and then keep it ticking over.”

There are three editions of each book in the series:

• Full (this edition): all the detail, for the person leading the change.
• Guide: a short audiobook and ebook, under an hour, that sets the leader up to run the Todoist project and bring the household along.
• Support: a ten-minute audiobook and ebook for everyone else in the household: what to expect, what words we use, and what to do and not do.

This book also has three companion printables: The Ready Household planner (in a full-colour version and an ink-saver version), the Ready Household Phone Pack, and a wall poster. The book explains the why and the how; the printables are where your household writes its own answers down. Each chapter tells you which page of the planner to fill in, and the appendix on the companion printables shows how they all fit together.

If you are listening to the audiobook editions, the narration uses an AI voice trained on my own voice. Please excuse the occasional odd pronunciation.

What This Book Will and Will Not Do

This book is written mainly for households in the United Kingdom, so it refers to UK services such as the 105 power cut line, the Priority Services Register and the government’s Be Ready advice. The principles work anywhere.

It will help you understand what actually happens in a power cut, find the hidden dependencies in your home, set a realistic preparedness target, build a kit and a plan, practise them, and keep them working year after year. Because power cuts rarely arrive alone, it also covers the emergencies that travel with them: winter storms, water outages, heatwaves, flooding, having to leave home, and losing phone and internet.

It will not tell you how to wire a generator into your home, how to store fuel in bulk, or how to survive the end of civilisation. Some of those things are dangerous without professional help, and none of them is what most households need. When a topic needs a professional, such as an electrician, a Gas Safe engineer, your GP, your pharmacist or your phone provider, the book says so.

In an emergency, always follow instructions from the emergency services. If life is at risk, call 999.

Start Here: Five Jobs in Twenty Minutes

You do not need to finish this book to be better prepared. These five jobs cover the things people most often wish they had known. Do them today; the rest can wait. They are also the first page of the planner, so tick them off there.

1. Save the key numbers (3 minutes). Put these in everyone’s phone and on paper: 105 for a power cut in England, Scotland and Wales (03457 643 643 in Northern Ireland); 0800 111 999 for a gas emergency or suspected carbon monoxide (0800 002 001 in Northern Ireland); 0345 988 1188 for Floodline; and 111 for NHS 111. The full list is in the chapter on the household plan.
2. Find your load block letter (3 minutes). Look it up on your electricity bill or at powercut105.com, and write it down. The chapter on what actually happens explains why it matters.
3. Find the stopcock and the fuse box (5 minutes). Walk to them now. Check that the stopcock turns, and work out which switch on the consumer unit is the main switch.
4. Agree two meeting points (4 minutes). One just outside your home and one out of the area, plus an out-of-area contact everyone has saved.
5. Sign up for what applies to you (5 minutes). The Priority Services Register, if anyone in your household is eligible. Free flood warnings, if you are in a flood-risk area. emergencySMS, if anyone is deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired.

Bonus one-minute job: put one torch in a fixed spot that everyone knows. Torches are safer than candles in a power cut.

Everything Is an Organisation

When most people hear the word “organisation”, they picture a company: an office, a logo, an org chart. I want to offer you a wider lens, because it is the one that runs through this whole series. Everything is an organisation.

Start with your own body. It is trillions of cells, dozens of organs and several systems working together, and it is not run by a single boss. Different parts of your brain and body pull in different directions: one part wants the biscuit now, another wants the long-term goal, another just wants to rest. Much of what we call willpower is really the work of coordinating these competing motives so that the whole person moves in one direction.

Zoom out and the pattern repeats. A married couple is an organisation, with shared goals, divided responsibilities and the occasional need to renegotiate who does what. Friends are an organisation, held together by commitments, rituals and trust. Parents and their children are an organisation, one whose structure has to change as the children grow. A community is an organisation. A company is an organisation. A city is an organisation of millions of people, services and systems. A country is an organisation of cities, institutions and laws. At every level, the same questions apply: What are we trying to achieve? Who does what? How do we know whether it is working? What do we change when it isn’t?

There is a deeper reason this matters. Science tells us that, left alone, things drift towards disorder; physicists call it entropy. Living things are remarkable precisely because they hold their organisation together against that drift, and they have to keep working at it. A cell that stops maintaining itself dies. A habit that is not maintained fades. A relationship that is not tended drifts. Organisation is never finished; it is a continuous effort.

That is why I believe being organised is one of the most fundamental skills for all life on this planet. It is not a personality trait that some people are born with and others lack. It is a set of skills: noticing what is actually happening, deciding what you want instead, designing a better way, and keeping it going. Those skills are the four Ds you will meet in the next chapter, and they work the same way whether the organisation in question is your body, your family, your community or your company.

So as you read this book, notice which organisation you are really working on. It is rarely just you. You are almost always part of something larger, and you are almost always made up of smaller parts that need to cooperate. Get better at organising one, and you get better at organising all of them.

In this book, the organisations are the household, the street and the power system: a household that keeps what matters running, neighbours who check on each other, and a grid that, however well it is run, will sometimes fail.

The Four Ds

Every book in this series uses the same four-stage method. It borrows from two disciplines I have worked in for most of my career: process mining, which looks at what actually happens in a process rather than what people assume happens, and organisational change management, which helps people move from the old way to the new one and stay there.

Discovery. Find out what is really going on. In this book, that means learning what a power cut actually does, walking your home room by room, mapping everything that depends on electricity, and starting an event log of the outages you have already lived through.

Dream. Decide what good looks like. What would a calm, safe, well-handled power cut look like in your home? How long do you want to be able to cope on your own: three hours, three days, longer?

Design. Build the better way. That means a kit, a written plan, roles for each person, arrangements for children, pets and anyone who needs extra help, and short playbooks for the emergencies that travel with power cuts.

Defend. Keep it going. Practise, maintain, review after every real outage, and extend your preparedness to the people around you.

Most people who “get prepared” stop after a single burst of Design: they buy a torch and some bottled water and feel better. Six months later the torch is in a drawer with dead batteries and the water has been drunk during a heatwave. The four Ds exist to stop that drift. Defend is not the end of the process; it is the part that never ends.

Part One: Discovery

What Actually Happens When the Power Goes Out

Most power cuts are short and local

Most power cuts in Britain are caused by faults on the local network: a damaged underground cable, equipment failure, a tree on an overhead line, or severe weather. Most are fixed within hours. That is the good news, and it should shape your thinking. You are not preparing for a disaster film. You are preparing for an evening, a night, or occasionally a few days.

The harder truth is that “most” is not “all”, and the long outages tend to arrive at the worst times: in storms, in the cold, and in rural areas where repairs are slowest.

Three recent reminders

Storm Arwen, November 2021. Ofgem’s final review found that over one million customers lost power. Most were reconnected quickly: 82% had power restored within 24 hours. But around 40,000 customers were without supply for more than three days, and nearly 4,000 for over a week, mostly in the north of England and Scotland. The review criticised poor communication and slow compensation for some customers. The lesson for households is not that the network failed everyone. It is that the tail matters: if you are in that 0.4%, a week is a very long time without heat, light or a way to charge your phone.

The North Hyde substation fire, March 2025. A fire at a substation in west London cut power to over 70,000 customers and closed Heathrow Airport for most of the following day. The National Energy System Operator’s review found that the most likely cause was moisture in a transformer component, and that an elevated moisture reading had been recorded in 2018 without the component being replaced. I mention this not to blame the engineers involved, but because it is a perfect illustration of a principle this book returns to in Defend: systems fail when maintenance is deferred. That is as true of your torch batteries as it is of a transformer.

The Iberian blackout, April 2025. On 28 April 2025, mainland Spain and Portugal lost power almost entirely. Some areas were without electricity for up to 16 hours. The European grid operators’ final report, published in March 2026, found no single cause; it pointed to a combination of factors, with problems controlling voltage at the heart of them. People who had a battery radio could follow the news. People who relied only on their phones watched their batteries drain while mobile networks struggled. In Barcelona, street sellers were selling battery radios and torches the next day.

Closer to home, Storm Goretti in January 2026 left tens of thousands of homes in Cornwall, Wales and the Midlands without power, some for more than a day, during a week of freezing weather.

Rota power cuts and your load block letter

There is one kind of power cut most people have never heard of. In the unlikely event of a national shortage of energy, the government’s Be Ready advice explains that rota power cuts could be scheduled area by area, for about three hours at a time, so that the shortage is shared fairly. Each home belongs to a “load block”, identified by a letter. If rota cuts were ever announced, they would be published by letter.

You can find your letter on your electricity bill or by entering your postcode at powercut105.com. Write it on the planner’s key numbers page, on the phone pack and on the wall poster. It costs nothing, takes three minutes, and means that if you ever hear “Block P will be off from 4pm to 7pm” on the radio, you will know whether that is you.

What the grid aims to do in the worst case

Great Britain has never had a complete national blackout. The system operator nonetheless plans for one, and a new Electricity System Restoration Standard takes effect at the end of 2026. It requires the operator to have the capability to restore 60% of electricity demand in every region within 24 hours, and all demand within five days. That is a planning standard, not a promise about your street, but it is useful context. It suggests that even in a very severe event, a household that can cope comfortably for three days, and get through five, has covered most realistic scenarios.

What stops working

The obvious things stop: lights, electric cookers, kettles, televisions, fridges and freezers. Less obvious things stop too, and these are the ones that catch people out:

• Most heating. Gas boilers need electricity for their controls and pumps. Heat pumps and electric heaters stop completely.
• Broadband and Wi-Fi. Your router needs mains power.
• Your landline. The old copper telephone network carried its own power, so a basic phone worked in a power cut. That network is being switched off by January 2027. A digital landline runs through your router and will not work in a power cut unless it has a battery backup.
• Mobile signal, eventually. Phone masts have backup batteries, but these are finite. In a long or widespread outage, signal may become patchy or disappear.
• Card payments and cash machines in your area, if shops and banks lose power.
• Water, in some buildings. Many blocks of flats rely on electric pumps to lift water to the upper floors. If the pumps stop, so may your taps.
• Lifts, door entry systems, electric garage doors and gates.
• Medical equipment, stairlifts, adjustable beds and telecare alarms.
• Solar panels, in most cases. This surprises people. Most solar systems without a battery, and many with one, are designed to shut down when the grid fails, to protect engineers working on the lines.

Discovery begins with accepting that your home is more dependent on electricity than it looks.

Your Household’s Hidden Dependencies

Walk the house, room by room

Set aside thirty minutes and walk through your home with the planner’s room-by-room audit pages, or a notepad. In each room, ask one question: If the power went off now and stayed off for three days, what here would stop, and what would that mean for us? Then look for the quick wins you can fix on the spot.

Kitchen.

• Is there a manual tin opener in a drawer you could find in the dark?
• Is a fire blanket mounted near, but not above, the hob?
• Is there a fridge thermometer? The Food Standards Agency recommends keeping your fridge at 0 to 5°C, and a freezer should be around −18°C.
• Have gas appliances been serviced by a Gas Safe registered engineer?
• Is a carbon monoxide alarm fitted, if you have gas appliances?

Living room.

• Is there a torch in one fixed spot?
• Is there a battery or wind-up radio, with spare batteries?
• Are blankets and warm layers easy to reach?
• Are the curtains thick enough to keep heat in?
• Are chargers and power banks kept together in one drawer?

Bedrooms.

• Is there a torch or head torch by each bed?
• Is the escape route clear, can the windows open, and are keys kept near window locks?
• Are slippers or shoes by the bed?
• Do children know two ways out, and is there a night light or torch for little ones?

Bathroom.

• Are medicines in date and out of reach of children?
• Is the first aid kit stocked?
• Are there spare toilet rolls, wet wipes and hand sanitiser?
• Is there a bucket you could use for flushing the toilet with stored water if the mains water stopped?

Hall, stairs and landing.

• Is there a working smoke alarm on every floor?
• Are keys kept on a hook by the door?
• Are stairs and hallways clear of clutter?
• Is the grab bag stored near the exit?

Garage, garden and loft.

• Can garden furniture, trampolines and bins be tied down or brought in before a storm?
• Are gutters and drains clear before winter?
• Are loft pipes, the water tank and outside taps lagged or insulated?
• If you are in a flood-risk area, do you have flood products such as door barriers?

You will find the obvious electrical dependencies quickly. Look for the hidden ones too:

• the fridge that holds a family member’s insulin;
• the electric toothbrush that is fine, and the CPAP machine that is not;
• the baby bottle steriliser and the formula preparation machine;
• the smart lock that needs Wi-Fi, or the door entry phone that needs mains power;
• the fish tank, the reptile heat lamp, the pet’s heated bed;
• the freezer in the garage full of food you could not afford to lose;
• the work laptop you need for a deadline;
• the electric car you assumed you could drive away in.

Find the shut-offs and meters

Before you need them, find and write down where these are. The planner has a page for this called Our home: shut-offs and meters. Note the location of each, and the date you checked it.

Then write, in your own words, how to turn each one off. In an emergency the person who needs to do it may not be the person who usually does.

Sort by consequence, not by cost

Process mining teaches us to focus on what matters to the outcome, not on what is most visible. Sort everything you found into three groups:

1. Safety-critical. Losing it could harm someone: medical equipment, refrigerated medicines, the only way an older relative can call for help, heating for a newborn in winter.
2. Important. Losing it causes real hardship or cost: the freezer, water in a high-rise flat, the ability to work, the phone you rely on for everything.
3. Comfort. Losing it is annoying but harmless: television, games consoles, the coffee machine.

Your plan will spend most of its effort on the first group, a fair amount on the second, and almost none on the third. Many households do the opposite: they buy a power station big enough to run the television and forget to write down the GP’s phone number.

Find the single points of failure

A single point of failure is one thing whose loss takes many other things with it. In most homes, the biggest one is the phone. It is the torch, the radio, the news source, the address book, the bank, the map and the way to call for help. If its battery dies, all of those go at once.

Other common single points of failure:

• The router, which carries broadband, Wi-Fi calling, smart home devices and, increasingly, the landline.
• One person’s knowledge. If only one adult knows where the torches are, how to reset the consumer unit and who to call, the household’s preparedness lives in their head and leaves the house with them.
• The fridge, when it holds medicines.

Write your single points of failure at the top of your notes. Your design will aim to give each of them a backup.

Your Outage Event Log

Start with what has already happened

In process mining, the foundation of every analysis is the event log: a record of what actually happened, step by step, with times. Your household already has an event log for power cuts; it is just stored in people’s memories. Get it out.

Ask everyone in the household: when have we lost power before? For each outage, note:

• when it happened (date, time of day, season);
• how long it lasted;
• what caused it, if you know (storm, local fault, planned work, a tripped switch in your own consumer unit);
• what went wrong for you (no torch to hand, phone flat, food lost, couldn’t reach someone);
• what went right (a neighbour checked in, the gas hob still worked, the children treated it as an adventure).

You will probably find patterns. Perhaps your area loses power in winter storms. Perhaps the problem is always your own consumer unit tripping. Perhaps every outage starts with ten minutes of fumbling in the dark for a torch.

Learn the first move: is it just us?

One of the most common rework loops in a power cut is people calling for help about a problem that is inside their own home. Before anything else, check:

• Are your neighbours’ lights on? Are the street lights on?
• Has a switch tripped in your consumer unit? If so, try resetting it once. If it trips again, unplug appliances and try again; if it keeps tripping, call an electrician.
• If you have a prepayment meter, has it run out of credit?

If the outage is wider than your home, report it on your network operator’s website, or call 105. It is free in England, Scotland and Wales and connects you to your local network operator, whoever supplies your electricity. In Northern Ireland, call NIE Networks on 03457 643 643. Most network operators also have websites and apps that show live power cuts and estimated restoration times.

If there is immediate danger, such as a fallen power line, a damaged substation, a fire or someone injured, call 999. Stay well away from fallen lines and assume they are live.

Record the next one

From now on, every time the power goes off, add a line to your event log. Your Todoist project, set up later in this book, has a place for it, and the planner’s Lessons learned page is its paper twin. Over a year or two, this small habit will tell you more about your real risks than any general advice can.

Part Two: Dream

What a Calm Outage Looks Like

Describe the happy path

Process improvement starts by describing the “happy path”: the way a process goes when everything works. Before you buy anything, describe the happy path for a power cut in your home. Imagine it is a winter evening and the lights go out. What would good look like?

Here is one household’s version:

Within a minute, everyone knows to stay where they are. The nearest adult turns on the torch kept by the door and checks the consumer unit. Within five minutes, we have checked whether the neighbours are affected, reported the power cut or checked the network operator’s website, and switched off appliances that could be a fire risk or be damaged when power returns; one light stays switched on so we know when the power is back. Within fifteen minutes, phones are on low-power mode, the battery radio is on, the fridge and freezer are closed, and we have messaged the family group to say we are fine. If it lasts into the night, we gather in one warm room, we know where the warm clothes and blankets are, we have food that needs no cooking, and we have agreed who will check on Mrs Patel next door. If it lasts for days, we have water, food, a way to cook safely, medicines, cash, and a plan for whether to stay or go elsewhere.

Write your own version. It does not need to be perfect. The point is that once you can describe good, you can design for it.

Calm is a design outcome

People often assume that how they react in an emergency is a matter of character: some people are calm, some panic. Research on disasters suggests that genuine mass panic is much rarer than films suggest, and that people generally behave sensibly and help each other. What people do struggle with is uncertainty: not knowing what is happening, what to do first or who is responsible.

That is good news, because uncertainty can be designed out. A household with a plan, a torch where everyone can find it, and roles agreed in advance does not need to be braver than anyone else. It just has fewer decisions to make in the dark.

Include everyone in the dream

Ask each person in the household what a good power cut would look like for them. A teenager may care most about phone charge. A partner may care most about not losing the contents of the freezer. An older relative may care most about not being left alone. A young child may care most about not being frightened of the dark. A pet cannot tell you, but someone has to speak for it.

None of these is wrong. A plan that ignores them will not be followed.

Setting Your Resilience Target

Three days is the national baseline

The UK government’s Be Ready campaign, launched by the Cabinet Office on 22 October 2026, asks households to be ready for three days of disruption to everyday services, including power, water, phones and the internet. The same three-day benchmark is used in France, Ireland and the Netherlands. The campaign replaced the earlier Prepare website, and much of the advice is unchanged.

The government is clear about two things that matter to the tone of this book. First, the advice is not a call to panic-buy or spend a lot of money; households are encouraged to start with what they already have and build up gradually. Second, one of the most important steps is free: if anyone in your household may need extra help, sign up to the Priority Services Register. The stated aim is that if households who can prepare do so, emergency services can focus on the people who most need them.

Set your own levels

Three days is a sensible headline, but different needs have different horizons. I suggest setting three levels:

Most households should aim to be solid at Level 1 within a week of reading this book, at Level 2 within a few months, and to have at least a written decision plan for Level 3.

If anyone in your household depends on electrically powered medical equipment, your Level 1 target is different: it is to have that equipment covered for as long as it would take you to reach help, and to have spoken to the equipment supplier and your clinical team about it. Do this first.

Respect your capacity

Not everyone has spare money, spare cupboard space or a garage. People in small flats, people on low incomes and people who move often face real limits. The Be Ready campaign was built with charities that work with people in insecure housing and people who use food banks, precisely because preparedness advice can sound like it was written for people with large homes and spare cash.

A good target is one you will actually reach. Three torches and a written plan are worth more than an ambitious shopping list that never gets bought. The chapter on the household plan sets out three budget tiers, starting at roughly the price of a takeaway for two.

Part Three: Design

Light, Information and Communication

Light: torches, not candles

Every household needs light that works the moment the power goes off, in a place everyone can find in the dark.

• Keep at least one torch in a fixed, known place near the main exit or the consumer unit, and one per bedroom.
• Head torches are worth more than they cost: they leave your hands free for cooking, caring for children or finding the consumer unit.
• Battery-powered LED lanterns light a room for hours and are much safer than candles.
• Consider plug-in emergency lights that charge from a socket and switch on automatically when the power fails. They are useful in hallways and on stairs.
• Label spare batteries with the date you bought them.

Avoid candles. Candles are one of the most common causes of house fires, and fire services repeatedly warn about them during power cuts, when people are using more of them in unfamiliar places, often with children and pets moving around in the dark. If you must use them, use proper holders on a stable surface, keep them away from curtains, furniture and clothing, never leave them unattended and never take them to bed.

Information: the radio is your most resilient channel

When the power goes off, your phone becomes your news source, and its battery begins to run down. In a long or widespread outage, mobile networks may also become unreliable. Broadcast radio keeps working as long as you have a receiver with power.

• Keep a battery, wind-up or solar radio that can receive FM and, ideally, DAB. Many wind-up radios include a small torch and a modest power bank.
• Write down the frequencies of your local radio station and the BBC national stations on a card kept with the radio, and on the planner’s local contacts page. You may not be able to look them up.
• A car radio also works, but in severe weather it may be safer to stay indoors.

Government advice has long recommended a battery or wind-up radio for exactly this reason.

Communication: power for phones, and backups for everything else

Power banks. Keep at least one fully charged power bank per adult, and charge them every month. A power bank that has sat in a drawer for a year may hold far less charge than you think. Larger portable power stations can charge phones many times over and run small devices, including a router; they are optional, but useful if someone depends on a device that needs regular charging.

Phone habits. In the first minutes of a power cut, switch phones to low-power mode, turn screen brightness down and close apps that drain the battery. Agree in advance that the household will not use phones for entertainment until you know how long the outage is likely to last.

If your own network is down. According to Ofcom, if your mobile provider’s network is down, your phone will automatically try other networks for 999 and 112 calls; you may see “SOS only” on the screen. If 999 will not connect, try 112, and move outdoors or to higher ground for a better signal.

If someone cannot make a voice call. People who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired can register in advance for emergencySMS by texting “register” to 999 and following the reply. It is slower than a call, so use it only when a voice call is not possible. Relay UK offers emergency access by textphone on 18000 or through the Relay UK app.

Emergency Alerts. The government can send Emergency Alerts to compatible phones and tablets when there is a danger to life nearby. A loud alarm sounds even if the phone is on silent. Do not read an alert while driving.

The digital landline. If your home phone has moved to a digital service, it will not work in a power cut unless it has a battery backup. Ofcom requires providers to offer at least one free solution, working for at least an hour, to customers who rely on their landline and have no mobile phone or no reliable mobile signal. If that applies to anyone in your family, especially an older relative living alone, contact the provider now and ask exactly what backup they will supply and how long it lasts. One hour is the minimum; some options last much longer. Telecare and personal alarm services may also be affected, so check with the alarm provider too.

Numbers on paper and on the phone. Write down the numbers you would need if your phone died: family members, neighbours, your GP, your pharmacy, your network operator, your water company, your home insurer and your employer. Keep one copy in your kit and one on a wallet card. The Ready Household Phone Pack holds the same information as pages to save on your phone, so it is there even when you cannot get online. Paper for when the phone is flat; phone for when you are away from home.

The household message. Agree a simple message pattern for the family group chat: one person posts “Power cut at home, all fine, will update at 9pm” rather than everyone calling everyone else and draining their batteries.

When you are apart and cannot call

Most power cuts happen while the household is together. Some do not: the children are at school, one adult is at work, the networks are struggling. Agree in advance what everyone will do.

• An out-of-area contact. Choose someone who lives elsewhere. If local lines are busy, everyone checks in with this person, who passes messages on.
• Three meeting points. One just outside your home (for a fire); one in your neighbourhood, somewhere easy to find and open to the public; and one out of the area, such as a family member’s home. Write down each address, or a what3words location.
• A time rule. For example: “If we cannot call, we go to meeting point two and wait until the next hour mark.” A time rule stops people criss-crossing town looking for each other.
• School and nursery pick-up. Agree which trusted adult collects the children if you cannot get there, and tell the school.
• A household code word. A private word that a trusted adult can use so that children know a pick-up is genuine. Keep it out of anything you post online.
• Children should know at least one grown-up’s number by heart.

These go on the planner’s Meeting points and communication page and in the phone pack.

Water, Food and the Fridge Clock

Water

Most power cuts do not affect water supply, but some do: in blocks of flats that rely on electric pumps, in homes with private water supplies or pumps, and in wider emergencies. Water outages can also happen on their own, from a burst main or contamination.

The government’s Be Ready advice quotes the World Health Organization’s minimum of 2.5 to 3 litres per person per day of drinking water for survival, and about 10 litres per person per day to cover basic cooking and hygiene. Babies’ formula, medical devices and pets need extra.

Work out your household’s target with a simple sum. The planner’s Water storage plan page does it for you:

People × days × litres per person per day + extras = our target

For example, for four people over three days at the 3-litre minimum, that is 4 × 3 × 3 = 36 litres, plus extra for pets or formula. At the comfortable 10 litres, the same household would need 120 litres, which is more than most homes can store. Most households sensibly aim for the minimum in bottled drinking water and plan to manage hygiene in other ways.

Storing water well:

• Buy sealed bottled water and keep it somewhere cool and dark.
• Note the best-before date and rotate it into everyday use, rather than letting it sit for years.
• A few large bottles are easier to carry than one big container.
• Keep a bucket aside for flushing the toilet with non-drinking water.
• If you live in a flat, find out whether your water depends on a pump. Ask your landlord or managing agent.
• Water companies run their own priority services registers, which may include bottled water deliveries for people who need them.

Food

Choose food that you already eat, that keeps without refrigeration, and that can be eaten without cooking. Ready-to-eat tins of fish, meat, beans, vegetables and fruit; crackers, oatcakes and crispbreads; nut butters; dried fruit and nuts; cereal bars; long-life milk or plant milk; and anything your family genuinely likes.

The rule for emergency food is the same as for water: store what you eat and eat what you store. A cupboard of unfamiliar emergency rations is likely to go out of date unused. A cupboard of the things you normally buy, with a little extra, rotates itself. When you buy a new tin, put it at the back and use the oldest first. The planner’s Pantry rotation page tracks what you have and when it goes out of date.

Remember the Food Standards Agency’s distinction: a “best before” date is about quality, and a “use by” date is about safety. Never eat food after its use-by date.

Do not forget:

• a manual tin opener;
• ready-to-feed baby formula and food for anyone with special dietary needs;
• food for pets;
• a treat. Chocolate and biscuits matter more to morale than they should.

A three-day no-cook menu

Planning meals in advance means nobody has to make food decisions in the dark. Here is an example; adapt it to your family’s favourites and allergies on the planner’s meal plan page.

Notice the order: fridge food first, then freezer, then cupboard.

The fridge clock

When the power goes off, a clock starts on your fridge and freezer. The Food Standards Agency’s advice gives you the numbers to plan around:

• Keep the doors closed as much as possible.
• If the power is off for less than four hours, it is unlikely to affect the safety or quality of your food.
• A fridge should stay cold for up to four hours if the door stays closed.
• A full freezer should keep food frozen for up to 48 hours, and a half-full freezer for about 24 hours. These are estimates; room temperature makes a difference.
• A fridge thermometer tells you whether your fridge has become too warm. Food Standards Scotland’s guidance is that chilled food is safe to keep in the fridge as long as it stays at 8°C or below; if the temperature reaches 8°C or more, eat food that normally needs refrigerating within four hours or throw it away.

The simplest household rule is this: note the time the power went off, and keep a thermometer in the fridge permanently. If the power has been off for more than four hours and you have no thermometer, or the fridge has gone above 8°C, throw chilled food away. If in doubt, throw it out. Never taste food to check.

If you have a chest freezer full of valuable food, keeping it full, even with bottles of frozen water, helps it hold its temperature longer.

Medicines in the fridge

Some medicines, including several types of insulin, need refrigeration. The rules for how long they can safely stay out of the fridge vary by medicine. Ask your pharmacist now, before you need to know, and write the answer down on the planner’s medical information page. Do not rely on a general rule.

Warmth, Cooling and Safe Cooking

Staying warm

Most British power cuts that last longer than a few hours happen in winter storms, so warmth deserves serious planning.

• Make one warm room. Close internal doors and curtains, gather the household into one room and block draughts under doors with towels. The NHS advises heating the rooms you use regularly, such as your living room and bedroom, to at least 18°C if you can; in a power cut you may not be able to, which is why one shared room helps.
• Layer up. Several thin layers, hats, socks and gloves work better than one thick jumper. Blankets and sleeping bags are excellent, and foil emergency blankets are light to store.
• Hot water bottles can be filled from a gas hob, if yours works, or from a flask filled before the power went off.
• Eat and drink. Warm drinks and regular meals help the body keep warm.

Babies, older people and people with some health conditions lose heat faster and may not notice they are getting cold. Check on them often.

Staying cool

Power cuts can also happen in heatwaves, when the fans and fridges you rely on stop.

• Stay out of the sun between 11am and 3pm; use shade, a hat and sunscreen.
• Close curtains and windows on sun-facing rooms during the day; open windows at night when it is cooler outside than in.
• If you have a battery fan, the NHS notes that electric fans can help when the temperature is below 35°C.
• Drink water regularly, and avoid alcohol, caffeine and hot drinks.
• Never leave children or animals in parked cars.
• Check on anyone at higher risk, especially older people living alone.

Know the difference between heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Someone with heat exhaustion should be moved to a cool place, have extra clothing removed, sip cool water and have their skin cooled; they should improve within about 30 minutes. Call NHS 111 if you are struggling to manage it. Call 999 for signs of heatstroke: confusion, hot dry skin, fast breathing, a seizure, or no improvement after 30 minutes.

Cooking safely

Electric and induction hobs will not work in a power cut. Gas hobs often do, although the electric ignition may not; keep matches or a lighter near the hob, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

If you plan to cook any other way, one rule overrides everything else in this chapter:

Never use a generator, barbecue, camping stove or patio heater indoors, in a garage, or near windows and doors. Not even with the windows open.

These produce carbon monoxide, a gas you cannot see, smell or taste. In the United States, where portable generators are common, public health investigations after major storms have repeatedly found that generators used inside homes and garages cause deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning, and that opening doors and windows does not prevent dangerous levels building up.

Fit an audible carbon monoxide alarm in every room with a fuel-burning appliance, and test it monthly. Make sure at least one alarm in your home runs on batteries, not mains power. The symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include headache, dizziness, nausea, breathlessness and confusion; they can feel like flu. If you suspect it, get everyone into fresh air immediately, call the gas emergency line on 0800 111 999 (0800 002 001 in Northern Ireland), and call 999 if anyone is unwell.

If you want a way to cook without power, the safest options for most households are the no-cook menu above, a flask of hot water prepared when you have warning of a storm, and a gas hob if you already have one. A camping stove can be used outdoors, away from the house, in reasonable weather, if you know how to use it safely.

Generators, power stations and home batteries

Portable petrol or diesel generators are common in some countries and rare in British homes. If you are considering one, speak to a qualified electrician first. A generator must never be connected to your home’s wiring without a proper changeover switch installed by a professional, because it can feed power back into the network and endanger engineers working on the lines.

Battery portable power stations are a safer alternative for most households: they produce no fumes, can be used indoors, and can run phones, lights, a router and small devices. Larger ones are heavy and expensive, so buy one only if your Discovery work found a real need, such as a medical device or a home-based job.

Home battery systems, often installed alongside solar panels, can provide backup power in an outage, but only if they are designed and installed for it. Many are not. If you have one, ask your installer whether it provides backup power when the grid is down, and to which circuits.

Health, Medicines and the Priority Services Register

The Priority Services Register

The single most valuable free step in this book is the Priority Services Register. Ofgem requires energy suppliers and network operators to keep one, and water companies run their own registers.

According to Ofgem, you may be able to join if someone in your household:

• is of state pension age;
• is pregnant or has young children;
• struggles to speak or read English;
• has a disability or long-term medical condition, including mental health conditions; sight, hearing or smell conditions; or medical equipment that needs power;
• is going through a change, such as recovering from an injury or a hospital stay, a bereavement or losing their job.

What it can include:

• priority support in an emergency;
• advance notice of planned power cuts, where possible;
• an ID and password scheme, so you can check that a caller is genuine;
• a nominee who can receive bills and communications on your behalf;
• bills in large print or braille, regular meter readings, and help with moving a prepayment meter or reconnecting gas.

Each supplier and network operator keeps its own register. With your permission your details can be shared, but if your gas and electricity come from different suppliers, contact each one, and re-register if you switch. Register with your energy supplier, your network operator (call 105 to find it), your water company, and your gas supplier if it is separate. Record the date and any reference number on the planner’s register page.

Being on the register does not mean your power comes back sooner. In a long cut, though, network operators may offer extra help, such as heating, hot food or a place to stay. You can also register on behalf of someone else, such as an older parent, with their consent.

Electrically powered medical equipment

If anyone relies on equipment such as an oxygen concentrator, home dialysis, a ventilator, a feeding pump or a powered wheelchair:

• Speak to the equipment supplier and the clinical team about what to do in a power cut, how long any internal battery lasts and what backup is recommended.
• Keep backup batteries charged, and keep a paper copy of the device’s instructions.
• Register on the Priority Services Register.
• Write the supplier’s helpline and the backup plan on the planner’s medical information page.
• Agree a threshold for when you will go elsewhere, such as to a relative’s home or, if advised, to hospital, rather than waiting.

This is the one area of this book where you should not rely on general advice. Follow what the people responsible for the equipment tell you.

Medical information, on paper

The Be Ready advice includes a written list of the medicines each person takes, with names and doses. This is easy to overlook and very valuable if phones are flat and someone needs help. For each person, write down:

• name and NHS number;
• medicines, doses, when they are taken and when the next repeat is due;
• allergies;
• medical devices, their backup plan and the supplier’s phone number;
• GP surgery and phone number.

Keep it in the planner, in the phone pack and in the grab bag. Alongside it, keep:

• several days’ supply of regular medicines, where your prescriber agrees this is safe;
• a basic first aid kit;
• spare glasses or contact lenses, and hearing aid batteries.

Children, Pets and Neighbours

Children: calm, simple and given a job

Children take their emotional cue from adults. A child who knows the plan is far less likely to be frightened by the dark. Read something like this together, in your own words:

Sometimes things happen that change our normal day. The lights might go off. A big storm might blow outside. The taps might stop working for a while. These things happen to lots of families, and they get fixed. Our family has a plan, so we always know what to do. Being ready is like packing for a trip: it means we can stay calm and look after each other.

If the lights go off, stay where you are. A grown-up will get the torch. We never use candles.

If there is an emergency, call 999. Say your name, your address and what is wrong.

If we get split up, go to our meeting place and wait for a grown-up you know.

If you feel worried, that is OK. Tell a grown-up. Worries shrink when we share them.

Then make it practical:

• Make sure each child knows their name, address, a grown-up’s phone number and the meeting place.
• Let them help build the kit. The planner includes activity pages, a word search and space to draw the meeting place and the kit, which turn preparation into play.
• Give them a real job: keeper of the radio, guardian of the head torches, the person who reminds everyone to keep the fridge shut.
• Pack a comfort item and a book or game in the grab bag.
• Ask them for their calm-down ideas: deep breaths, a song, a cuddle.

Pets: animals are family too

For each pet, record its name, type, microchip number, food and amount, and any medication. Then build a pet kit:

• three days of food and water;
• bowls, lead, harness and carrier;
• litter tray or poo bags;
• medication and dosage notes;
• vet records and vaccination card;
• a recent photo of each pet, in case it gets lost;
• a blanket or familiar toy;
• a muzzle, if needed.

Decide in advance who could take your pets, and where you could stay that accepts them, if you had to leave home. Note your vet’s number and the nearest 24-hour emergency vet. Remember that pets with heat lamps, heated tanks or aquarium pumps have their own electrical dependencies.

Neighbours: a knock on the door

In almost every account of a long power cut, the same thing happens: neighbours start knocking on each other’s doors. Someone has a gas hob and boils water for the street. Someone has a battery radio and shares the news. Someone notices that the older man at number 14 has not opened his curtains.

The government’s advice suggests agreeing a backup plan with anyone who may need extra support: if an outage happens and you cannot call, you or another trusted person will visit them in person. Ask first, and respect people’s wishes. For each person you agree to check on, note their address and phone, any needs or devices, a key holder and a family contact.

When you knock, ask:

• Are you warm enough (or cool enough in a heatwave)?
• Do you have water, food and your medication?
• Do you have a working torch and a way to get news?
• Is any medical equipment powered or on backup?
• Would you like me to call your family?

The chapter on street-level resilience shows how to grow this into something larger.

The Household Power-out Plan

Everything in Design comes together here. The planner holds the full version, with space to write; this chapter explains what goes in it and why.

Paper first

The plan must be printed, because a plan that lives only on a phone disappears when the battery does. Fill in the planner on screen or by hand, then print it. Keep one copy with your important documents and one in your grab bag. Print the wall poster for the inside of a kitchen cupboard door, and cut out the wallet cards. Use the phone pack as a backup on every adult’s phone.

Our household

List everyone who lives here, with date of birth, mobile number and any medical needs or allergies. Add regular visitors and carers, with their role and when they visit. Add your out-of-area contact and your household code word.

Key UK numbers

These were checked against official sources in October 2026. Put them on paper, on the wallet cards and in the phone pack.

Add your load block letter to the same page.

Local contacts and utilities

Fill this in once and update it at every review: electricity supplier; electricity network operator; gas supplier; water company; broadband and landline provider; mobile networks; home insurer and policy number; car insurer and breakdown cover; landlord or letting agent; local council; GP surgery; pharmacy; dentist; vet; school or nursery; workplaces; trusted neighbour; key holder; plumber or electrician; and your local radio station and frequency.

Important documents

Know where the originals are, and keep copies somewhere else: passports; driving licences; birth, marriage and civil partnership certificates; home, car, life and health insurance; mortgage or tenancy agreement; bank and building society details; pensions; wills and powers of attorney; prescriptions and NHS numbers; vet records and microchip numbers. Keep some spare cash in small notes, because card machines and cash machines may not work.

Once a year, take photos or a short video of each room and inside open cupboards, and store them off-site, such as in cloud storage. Insurers often ask for evidence of what you owned.

Roles

Process maps show who does each step. Your plan should too. Typical roles in a household:

• Lead. Makes the calls, checks the consumer unit, reports the power cut, decides when to move to the next stage of the plan.
• Deputy. Can do everything the lead does, so the plan works when the lead is away. Every household with more than one adult needs one.
• Comms. Sends the family message, checks on the neighbour or relative who needs it, keeps track of updates from the network operator.
• Supplies. Fetches the kit, sorts food and water, keeps the fridge closed.
• Children can have real roles too, as the previous chapter describes. A job turns fear into responsibility.

The first five minutes, the first hour, the first night

1. First five minutes. Torch from its fixed place. Check the consumer unit and the neighbours. Report on the network operator’s website or call 105. Switch off ovens, irons, electric fires and fryers; unplug televisions and computers, which can be damaged by a surge when power returns. Leave one light switched on so you know when the power is back. Stay away from fallen power lines.
2. First hour. Phones on low-power mode. Radio on. Fridge and freezer closed, time noted. Curtains and internal doors closed to keep heat in. Family message sent. Check on anyone vulnerable.
3. If it lasts into the night. Gather in one warm room. Warm layers and blankets. Eat fridge food first. Check the carbon monoxide alarm is working if using any fuel-burning appliance.
4. If it lasts more than a day. Report once, then follow updates by radio or the operator’s website. Water and food plan. Medicines plan. Check neighbours every day. Ask your network operator what welfare support is available locally. Decision point: stay, or go to a named alternative place.

The 72-hour home kit

The Be Ready advice asks households to build a small emergency kit gradually, enough for everyone at home for about three days.

Keep most of it together in a box in a known place, and write that place on the plan. Keep torches spread around the house so you can reach one from anywhere.

The grab bag

A grab bag is a separate bag for each person, or one per household, with what you would need if you were asked to leave home quickly. If you are escaping a fire, do not take anything: just get out.

• copies of ID, insurance and prescriptions in a waterproof pouch, and a copy of this plan and the wallet cards;
• cash in small notes and a bank card;
• spare house and car keys;
• phone charger, cable and a charged power bank;
• medication for several days; glasses, contact lenses and hearing aid batteries;
• a small first aid kit, a torch or head torch, face masks and hand sanitiser;
• a change of clothes, a warm layer and a waterproof;
• toiletries, sanitary products and wet wipes;
• a water bottle and snacks;
• baby items, such as nappies and ready-to-feed formula;
• pet lead, food, carrier and vet details;
• a comfort item and a book or game for children;
• a notebook and pen.

Note whose bag it is, where it is kept and when you last checked it.

The car kit

If you have a car, keep a few essentials in the boot in case you are stuck in wintry weather or have to leave: a torch and spare batteries; a first aid kit; warm clothes and blankets; high-visibility clothing; food and drink; an in-car phone charger; a shovel for snow; an ice scraper and de-icer; jump leads; a paper map; and your breakdown cover number. Keep the screen wash topped up.

Before a winter journey, check the Met Office forecast and warnings, keep the fuel or charge above half, charge your phone and tell someone your route and when you expect to arrive.

Budget tiers

You do not need to buy everything at once, and you do not need any particular brand. As a guide, at prices checked at the end of October 2026, the non-food essentials fell into three tiers:

Water and tins come from your weekly shop. Prices change often; treat these as a sense of scale, not a shopping list. Add one or two items each time you shop, starting with whatever your Discovery work showed was safety-critical.

Stay or go

For long outages, decide in advance where you would go if staying at home became unsafe or unbearable, for example because of cold, a lack of water or a medical need. Name a first choice and a second choice: a relative’s home, a friend’s home outside the affected area. Write down how you would get there if the trains and traffic lights were not working, and where your pets would go. Know two routes out of your area. Making this decision calmly in advance is much easier than making it at 2am in the cold.

Ticked Is Not Ready

In 1975, the economist Charles Goodhart noticed that whenever governments started relying on a particular economic statistic to steer policy, that statistic stopped behaving the way it used to. The anthropologist Marilyn Strathern later put the idea in words that stuck: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Numbers are wonderful for seeing what is really happening. But the moment we are rewarded, or reward ourselves, for moving a number, it becomes tempting to move the number rather than the reality behind it. The answer is not to stop measuring. It is to start with the purpose, in words, measure to learn rather than to judge, and pair every measure with a second one that would get worse if the first were being gamed.

Emergency preparedness is full of Goodhart traps. A checklist with every box ticked feels like readiness. A kit that cost £400 feels more ready than one that cost £50. A planner with every page filled in looks complete. None of these is the purpose. The purpose is a household that knows what to do, and has what it needs, on the night the lights go out.

So pair every measure with a test that would fail if you were only ticking boxes. “Torch bought” is paired with “torch found in the dark in under a minute during the drill.” “Power bank in the kit” is paired with “power bank actually charged this month.” “Plan written” is paired with “the deputy could follow it without asking the lead.” “Neighbour list made” is paired with “we actually knocked during the last power cut.” The drill described in Defend is where these pairs are tested.

The full treatment is in the chapter on Goodhart’s law in Applications… Organised.

Part Four: Defend

Drills and the First Hour Routine

Practise the happy path

A plan that has never been practised is a hypothesis. The simplest way to test it is a power-cut drill: once or twice a year, on a pleasant evening, switch off your main lights for an hour and follow the plan. (Leave the fridge, freezer and any medical equipment running; you are testing the people, not the food.)

Watch for friction, the process miner’s word for steps that take longer than they should:

• How long did it take to find a torch?
• Did everyone know where the radio was? Did it work?
• Did the power banks have charge?
• Could the children find their head torches, and did they remember the meeting points?
• Did anyone know how to check the consumer unit, or where the stopcock was?
• Could the deputy run the plan without the lead?

Every point of friction becomes a task in your Todoist project.

Make the first hour automatic

The aim of drills is to make the first hour of a real power cut feel routine. When the actions are familiar, people make fewer decisions under stress and the household stays calmer. Children, in particular, take their emotional cue from adults. A parent who says, “Right, power cut. Head torches on, radio on, let’s see how long it lasts,” with a plan already in place, turns a frightening moment into an adventure.

The fridge summaries in the playbooks appendix, and the wall poster, exist for the same reason: five steps, printed, where everyone will see them.

Use warnings

Many long power cuts come with warning: a named storm, a Met Office weather warning, or a planned outage notice from your network operator. The Met Office’s advice is that an amber warning means you should think about changing your plans, and a red warning means you should take action now and avoid travelling where possible. When a warning arrives, run a short pre-storm routine:

• charge every phone, power bank and rechargeable torch;
• fill a flask with hot water and, if you can, a few containers with tap water;
• turn your freezer to its coldest setting a few hours ahead, if you know how;
• bring in or tie down garden furniture, bins and trampolines;
• check you have several days of medication;
• check on the people you have agreed to check on;
• make sure the car has fuel or charge, in case you need to leave.

Put this routine in Todoist as a task you can duplicate with one tap.

Keeping the Kit Alive

Entropy comes for every emergency kit

Physicists call it entropy: left alone, every ordered system drifts towards disorder. Emergency kits are a perfect demonstration. Batteries discharge. Power banks lose capacity. Bottled water and tinned food pass their best-before dates. Medicines expire. Torches are borrowed and not returned. Phone numbers change. Children grow out of the clothes in the grab bag. The person who set it all up moves out.

The North Hyde substation fire is a large-scale example of the same principle. A warning sign was recorded years earlier, the maintenance that would have dealt with it was repeatedly postponed, and when it failed, it failed in the worst possible way. Your household is not a national grid, but the lesson scales down perfectly: preparedness that is not maintained is not preparedness.

A maintenance rhythm

The fix is not more effort; it is a rhythm. Set recurring tasks so the work arrives in small pieces at the right time:

The six-month review

Tie the review to the clocks changing in March and October, which most people already notice. It takes about ten minutes. The planner’s 6-month review log records who did it and what changed.

• Phone numbers and contacts still correct.
• Medication list updated.
• Water and food rotated; dates checked.
• Torches and radio tested; batteries replaced.
• Power banks charged.
• Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms tested.
• Grab bag documents current, and clothes still the right size.
• Everyone remembers the meeting points.
• Priority Services Register details up to date.
• Digital landline backup still in place for anyone who relies on it.

The kit and expiry tracker

Use the planner’s Kit and expiry tracker for anything with a date: batteries, water, tins, medicines, first aid supplies. Record the quantity, where it is kept, when it expires and when you replaced it. Add the expiry dates as Todoist tasks, so the reminder arrives before the date rather than after.

Store what you eat, eat what you store

The best maintenance is the kind that happens without anyone thinking about it. If your emergency food and water are things you use normally, and you always take from the front and add to the back, your stock rotates itself. That is why this book recommends ordinary food, not specialist emergency rations.

Street-level Resilience

Your neighbours are part of your organisation

The chapter on children, pets and neighbours set out how to check on the people next door. Street-level resilience grows that into something the whole street shares, gently and without making it a big project:

• Know who might need help on your floor, in your building or on your street. Not their medical details, just who might need someone to knock.
• Swap numbers with one or two neighbours and agree to check on each other if the power goes off.
• Share skills and assets. Who knows how to reset the building’s systems? Who has a gas hob, a car, a battery radio? Who speaks the languages of other neighbours?
• Share the Priority Services Register. Many people who are eligible have never heard of it. Mention it.

The government’s Be Ready campaign makes the same point: the purpose of households preparing is partly so that help can reach the people who need it most. Being organised is a community contribution, not just a private one.

Blocks of flats

If you live in a block of flats, some of your dependencies are shared: lifts, door entry, water pumps, corridor lighting, fire alarms. Ask your landlord, managing agent or residents’ association:

• What happens to water supply in a power cut?
• Is there emergency lighting in the corridors and stairs, and is it tested?
• How would residents who cannot use the stairs be helped if the lifts stopped?
• Is there a list of residents who may need extra help?

You are entitled to ask these questions. The answers may prompt the building to improve its own plan.

Leading without preaching

Not everyone wants to talk about emergencies. Some people find it frightening; some think it is unnecessary; some have had experiences that make it painful. You do not need to convince anyone. Offer, do not lecture. “We’re putting together a list of neighbours to check on in a power cut. Would you like to be on it?” is enough. A torch left as a small gift for an older neighbour says more than any argument.

After the Lights Come Back

Restore safely

When power returns:

• switch appliances back on gradually rather than all at once;
• reset clocks, boiler timers and alarms;
• check the fridge thermometer and follow the food safety advice; if in doubt, throw it out;
• check that heating, alarms and medical equipment are working properly;
• recharge torches and power banks, and restock batteries;
• check on the neighbours and relatives you were looking out for.

If there has been storm or flood damage, photograph it before you clean up and contact your insurer. Do not switch on gas or electrical appliances that have been in flood water until a Gas Safe engineer or a qualified electrician has checked them.

Claim what you are owed

In Great Britain, Ofgem’s Guaranteed Standards of Performance set how quickly network operators must restore power and what they must pay if they do not. Outside severe weather, they should restore supply within 12 hours. If they do not, you may be entitled to a payment, with more for each further period without power. Different rules apply in severe weather, and the amounts are updated each year for inflation. Payments are meant to recognise inconvenience, not to cover losses such as spoiled food. Check Ofgem’s website for the current rules, and check your home insurance for food and other losses.

Run a review

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that turns each power cut into an improvement. Within a few days, sit down with the household and the planner’s Lessons learned page and ask four questions:

1. What happened, and when?
2. What worked well?
3. What did we wish we had?
4. What changes will we make?

Add the outage to your event log. Turn each change into a task. Over time, your plan will fit your real home, your real risks and your real people far better than any generic checklist.

That is the four Ds in motion: every real outage is new Discovery, which sharpens the Dream, which improves the Design, which strengthens your Defend.

The Six Cs of Power-out Preparedness

The four Ds are the leader’s method. The six Cs are the shared language for everyone in the household. They describe how we behave towards each other while we prepare and when the lights go out.

Compassion. Power cuts frighten some people more than others: children, older people, people who have been through emergencies before, people with health conditions. Treat fear as understandable, not silly. Equally, do not shame people who have not prepared, including your past self. Preparedness is a skill, not a moral test.

Communication. Everyone knows the plan, where the kit is, who does what, where we meet and who our out-of-area contact is. In a power cut, we share updates briefly and calmly, use the agreed family message rather than a flurry of calls, and say so if we need help.

Capacity. We prepare within our means. We build the kit gradually, use what we already have and focus first on what is safety-critical. No one is expected to spend money the household does not have.

Commitment. We keep the system alive: the monthly checks, the six-month review, the yearly drill. Small, regular actions beat one big burst of effort.

Consideration. We think beyond ourselves: the neighbour who lives alone, the relative whose landline has gone digital, the family member who needs medicines kept cold, the pet that cannot tell us it is cold. We share what we can when the power goes off.

Consistency. We follow the same first-hour routine every time, so it becomes automatic. We return torches to their places. We put things back where the plan says they are.

For supporters, the Support edition explains each of these in a few sentences, with a short list of dos and don’ts.

Setting Up Todoist: Organise Power-outs

The series uses Todoist as the command centre, because a preparedness plan is mostly a set of recurring tasks and a few decisions, and Todoist is very good at both. The planner is where you write your answers down; Todoist is what reminds you to keep them current. If you are new to Todoist, please sign up through the affiliate link on this website. It costs you nothing and helps make the effort of writing these books worthwhile.

The project

Create a project called Organise Power-outs, with four sections:

Discovery

• Do the five jobs in twenty minutes
• Walk the house room by room and fix the quick wins
• Find and record the shut-offs and meters
• List everything that depends on electricity
• Sort dependencies into safety-critical, important and comfort
• Identify single points of failure
• Start the outage event log (add a comment for each past outage)
• Find our network operator and our load block letter
• Check whether our water depends on an electric pump (flats)
• Check what happens to our landline and any alarms in a power cut

Dream

• Ask everyone what a good power cut would look like for them
• Write our happy path
• Set our targets for Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3
• Choose our budget tier

Design

• Sign up to the Priority Services Register: energy supplier, network operator, water company
• Help [relative] sign up to the Priority Services Register
• Ask the pharmacist how long fridge medicines can stay out of the fridge
• Speak to the medical equipment supplier about power cuts (if applicable)
• Ask the phone provider about battery backup (if anyone relies on a landline)
• Register for emergencySMS (if anyone needs it)
• Put a torch in a fixed place by the door, and by each bed
• Buy head torches
• Buy a battery or wind-up radio and write station frequencies on a card
• Buy and charge power banks
• Fit and test carbon monoxide alarms
• Buy a fridge thermometer
• Work out our water target and build the water store
• Build the food store and our three-day no-cook menu, plus a manual tin opener
• Write the medical information sheet for each person
• Fill in the planner’s Our Plan section
• Agree an out-of-area contact, three meeting points, a time rule and a code word
• Agree roles, including a deputy
• Pack the 72-hour home kit
• Pack the grab bags
• Pack the car kit
• Write the pets plan and pack the pet kit
• Talk the children through the plan
• Agree who we check on, and swap numbers with neighbours
• Decide where we would go if we had to leave
• Print the planner, the wall poster and the wallet cards; save the phone pack on every adult’s phone

Defend

• Monthly: test torches, radio, smoke and CO alarms; charge power banks (recurring)
• Every 3 months: check the kit is complete and in place (recurring)
• Six-month review when the clocks change (recurring, last Sunday of March and October)
• Yearly: run a power-cut drill and review the plan (recurring)
• Yearly: photograph each room for insurance (recurring)
• Before winter: warm kit, car kit, gutters and stay-or-go check (recurring, each October)
• Pre-storm routine (keep as a task to duplicate when a warning arrives)
• After any power cut: restore safely, check food, claim compensation, run the lessons-learned review

Add each expiry date from the kit and expiry tracker as its own dated task.

Labels and filters

Add a label such as @power-out to every task that belongs to the plan, so you can see them all at once, even if some live in other projects such as a family project. A filter for overdue tasks with that label will show you at a glance whether entropy is winning.

The Habit Tracker

Turn on Todoist’s Habit Tracker integration and use it for the monthly checks. A visible streak of completed checks is a small, immediate reward for a job whose real reward, being ready on the night it matters, may be years away. Remember the lesson of Goodhart’s law: the streak is a prompt, not the purpose. The drill is where you find out whether the checks are working.

Share it

If you share a home, share the project. Assign the deputy role in Todoist as well as on paper, and make sure at least two people receive the recurring tasks. Preparedness that depends on one person has a single point of failure.

Keep the paper backup

Your Todoist project is the command centre for preparing and maintaining. On the night of a long power cut, your phone’s battery is precious. That is why the planner, the poster and the wallet cards must also be printed.

Conclusion

Electricity is so reliable that we have built our lives as if it could never stop. Most of the time, that bet pays off. But every so often a storm, a fault or a chain of unlucky events reminds us that the system we depend on is made of cables, transformers and people, and that even the best-run system will sometimes fail.

Being organised for that moment is not about fear. It is about care: for yourself, for the people you live with, for the neighbour who lives alone, and for the emergency services, who can focus on those most in need when the rest of us are ready to look after ourselves for a few days.

You now have a method. Discover what really depends on electricity in your home. Dream of what a calm, safe outage would look like, and set a target you can actually reach. Design the kit, the plan, the roles and the playbooks. Then commit to Defend: practise, maintain, review and extend it to the people around you, because the work of being organised is never finished.

Start small. Do the five jobs in twenty minutes. Put a torch by the door tonight. Check whether someone you love should be on the Priority Services Register. Then open the planner, open Todoist and create your project.

When the lights go out, you will know exactly what to do.

Appendix A: Quick Playbooks

Power cuts rarely arrive alone. These one-page playbooks cover a power cut and the emergencies that most often travel with one. Each follows the same pattern of before, during and after, and ends with a five-step summary to print and stick on the fridge. The planner has a full-page version of each, with space for your household’s own notes, and the phone pack has the summaries as pages to save on your phone. Each playbook below ends with its phone pack card.

Power Cut (Short): Minutes to a Few Hours

Before. Keep a torch and spare batteries where you can find them in the dark. Save 105 in your phone and write it down. Find your load block letter. Charge power banks monthly. Ask your landline provider whether your phone or telecare works in a power cut. Join the Priority Services Register if eligible.

During. Check whether neighbours are affected; if not, check your consumer unit. Report it on your network operator’s website or call 105. Turn off ovens, irons, electric fires and fryers. Unplug televisions and computers. Leave one light switched on. Keep the fridge and freezer shut; close curtains and doors to keep heat in. Stay away from fallen power lines.

After. Reset clocks, boiler timers and alarms. Check fridge food; if in doubt, throw it out. Recharge torches and power banks. Check on vulnerable neighbours.

Fridge summary:

1. Torch, not candles.
2. Check neighbours and the fuse box.
3. Report: website or call 105.
4. Switch off and unplug; leave one light on.
5. Keep the fridge and freezer shut; keep warm.

Power Cut (Multi-day): After Storms or Major Damage

Before. Hold water and no-cook food for at least three days. Keep a battery or wind-up radio with spare batteries, warm bedding and layers for everyone, and some cash. Arrange backup power for any medical equipment and know the supplier’s helpline. Know your network operator’s website and social media accounts.

During. Report once, then follow updates by radio or your operator’s website. Make one room the warm room and close the doors to unused rooms. Never use a barbecue, camping stove, patio heater or generator indoors. Eat fridge food first, then freezer, then cupboard. Check on vulnerable neighbours every day. Ask your network operator what welfare support is available locally.

After. Check fridge and freezer food against the fridge clock in the chapter on water, food and the fridge clock. Photograph any damage and contact your insurer. Note what you ran short of and add it to your kit. Refill water and replace used food.

Fridge summary:

1. One warm room, layers on.
2. No barbecues, stoves or generators indoors.
3. Radio for updates; check 105 or the operator’s website.
4. Fridge food: over 4 hours off and above 8°C, or no thermometer? Throw it out.
5. Check on neighbours every day.

Severe Winter Storm: High Winds, Snow and Ice

Before. Check the Met Office forecast and warnings. Bring in or tie down garden furniture, bins and trampolines. Pack the car winter kit. Make sure you have several days of medication. Agree check-ins with vulnerable neighbours.

During. An amber warning means think about changing your plans; a red warning means take action now and avoid travelling where possible. Keep away from windows in very high winds. Heat the rooms you use to at least 18°C if you can. Wear layers; have hot drinks and regular meals. If the power goes off, use the power cut playbooks. Report fallen power lines on 105 and never approach them.

After. Check your home and garden for damage and photograph it for insurance. Clear paths of snow and ice if it is safe. Report fallen trees on roads to your council. Check on neighbours. Restock anything you used.

Fridge summary:

1. Check Met Office warnings.
2. Secure the garden.
3. Stay in; travel only if essential.
4. Living room and bedroom 18°C or warmer, if you can.
5. Fallen power line? Stay away and call 105.

Water Outage: Burst Mains, Contamination, Drought

Before. Keep bottled water: at least 2.5 to 3 litres per person per day. Know your water company and where it posts updates. Join your water company’s priority services register if you need extra help. Keep hand sanitiser, wet wipes and bin bags.

During. Check your water company’s website or social media for updates. Use stored water for drinking first, then cooking, then washing. Flush the toilet with a bucket of non-drinking water. Collect bottled water from any station your water company sets up. Follow any “boil water” notice exactly until it is lifted. Check on neighbours who may struggle to collect water.

After. When water returns, run the cold kitchen tap until it runs clear. Follow any extra advice from your water company. Refill and re-date your water store.

Fridge summary:

1. Check water company updates.
2. Drink stored water first.
3. Flush with a bucket.
4. Follow any boil-water notice.
5. Run the cold tap until clear afterwards.

Heatwave: Hot Spells and Heat-health Alerts

Before. Check the Met Office forecast and, in England, the UK Health Security Agency’s heat-health alerts. Know who is at higher risk: older people, babies and young children, and people with long-term conditions. Find the coolest room in your home. Have a way to shade sun-facing windows.

During. Stay out of the sun between 11am and 3pm. Close curtains on sun-facing rooms by day and open windows at night. Fans can help below 35°C. Drink regularly and avoid alcohol. Never leave children or animals in parked cars. Check on anyone at higher risk.

After, or if someone is unwell. For heat exhaustion: move to a cool place, remove extra clothing, sip cool water and cool the skin; they should improve within 30 minutes. Call NHS 111 if you are struggling to manage it. Call 999 for signs of heatstroke.

Fridge summary:

1. Shade from 11am to 3pm.
2. Curtains shut by day, windows open at night.
3. Fans help below 35°C.
4. Drink water; skip alcohol.
5. Heatstroke signs? Call 999.

Flooding: Rivers, Sea, Groundwater and Heavy Rain

Flooding and electricity are a deadly combination, which is why this playbook belongs in a book about power cuts.

Before. Check your long-term flood risk on GOV.UK and sign up for free flood warnings online or through Floodline on 0345 988 1188. Know how to turn off gas, electricity and water. Keep important documents in a waterproof bag, upstairs if possible. Photograph your home contents for insurance. If you are at risk, consider flood products such as door barriers and air brick covers.

During. Follow advice from the emergency services and call 999 if life is at risk; a severe flood warning means danger to life. Move people, pets, medicines and valuables upstairs or to higher ground. Turn off gas, electricity and water if it is safe; never touch electrical switches while standing in water. Do not walk, cycle or drive through flood water, which can hide hazards and contain sewage. Keep listening to local radio, and report power hazards on 105.

After. Return home only when you are told it is safe. Do not switch on gas or electrical appliances until a Gas Safe engineer or a qualified electrician has checked them. Call your insurer first, and photograph the damage before throwing anything away. Wear rubber boots, waterproof gloves and a mask, and wash your hands. Never use generators or camping stoves indoors to dry out or heat the house. Throw away any food that has touched flood water.

Fridge summary:

1. 999 if life is at risk.
2. People, pets and medicines upstairs.
3. Gas, electricity and water off, if safe.
4. Never walk or drive through flood water.
5. Insurer and photos before cleaning.

Evacuation and Grab-and-go: When You Are Asked to Leave

Before. Pack a grab bag for each person. Agree meeting points and an out-of-area contact. Know two routes out of your area. Plan for pets: carrier, lead, food and where they can stay. Agree where you would stay. Keep copies of key documents in the grab bag.

During. If there is a fire, get out, stay out and call 999; do not take anything. Otherwise, follow instructions from the emergency services exactly. Take grab bags, medication, phones, chargers and pets. Turn off gas, electricity and water if you are told to and it is safe. Lock up and tell your out-of-area contact where you are going. If a rest centre is opened, register there so people know you are safe.

After. Return only when the authorities say it is safe. Check for damage and contact your insurer. Restock grab bags and update the plan.

Fridge summary:

1. Fire? Get out, stay out, call 999.
2. Grab bags, medicines, pets, phones.
3. Utilities off, if told to and safe.
4. Lock up; tell our contact.
5. Return only when told it is safe.

No Phone or Internet: Network Outage, Flat Battery, Lost Phone

Before. Write key numbers on paper and on wallet cards. Agree “if we can’t call” rules with family: a meeting point and a time rule. Keep a battery or wind-up radio. Ask your landline provider about a backup battery if you rely on a landline. If anyone is deaf or speech impaired, register for emergencySMS in advance.

During. If your provider is down, your phone will try other networks for 999 and 112; you may see “SOS only”. If 999 will not connect, try 112, and move outdoors or to higher ground. Save battery with low-power mode, fewer apps and lower brightness. Use the radio for news. Go to the agreed meeting point at the agreed time. Check on vulnerable neighbours in person.

After. Tell your out-of-area contact you are OK. Recharge power banks. Update numbers and the plan with anything you learned.

Fridge summary:

1. Numbers on paper.
2. No signal? Still try 999, then 112.
3. Radio for news.
4. Meet at our point on the hour.

Appendix B: The Companion Printables

This book comes with three printables. They are designed to be filled in, printed and kept where you will need them, because in a power cut, paper is what works.

The Ready Household planner

A 55-page A4 planner, in a full-colour version and an ink-saver version for home printers. Every line and box is a fillable field: open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader, Apple Preview, Edge or Chrome, type, save and print. Keep one printed copy with your important documents and one in your grab bag. Work through it in five short sessions: fill in Section 1 together (about 45 minutes); walk round your home with the audit; build your kit slowly; read the playbooks; and review twice a year.

Note on the fridge clock: where the planner and this book differ, follow this book and the Food Standards Agency. Chilled food is safe as long as the fridge stays at 8°C or below; a full freezer holds for up to about 48 hours and a half-full one for about 24.

The Ready Household Phone Pack

A 12-page pack sized for a phone screen. Save it to your phone’s photos or files so it is available offline. It contains the eight fridge summaries, the key UK numbers, and three pages to fill in once: Our contacts (out-of-area contact, network operator, water company, GP, insurer, trusted neighbour and load block letter), Meeting points (with a time rule, who collects the children, where the pets go and a private code word) and Medical info for each person.

The four reference pages from the pack are shown here. The eight scenario cards appear with their playbooks in Appendix A.

The wall poster

A one-page “Our Home Emergency Plan” poster with a one-line instruction for six situations (power cut, flood, storm, water off, heatwave and leaving home), the key numbers, and spaces for your meeting points, out-of-area contact, where the torch and kit are kept, where the stopcock, fuse box and gas meter are, and your load block letter. Print it and stick it inside a kitchen cupboard door, where everyone in the household, and any visitor or babysitter, can find it.

Sources

UK government and regulators

• Cabinet Office (22 October 2026). Households encouraged to take small, simple steps to stay prepared in an emergency. GOV.UK. Be Ready advice and checklist: beready.campaign.gov.uk (formerly Prepare), including power cuts, water storage (WHO minimum of 2.5 to 3 litres per person per day; about 10 litres for basic cooking and hygiene), rota power cuts and load blocks, meeting points, grab bags and car kits.
• Ofgem (9 June 2022). Final report on the review into the networks’ response to Storm Arwen.
• Ofgem. Check if you can get a payment for a power cut (Guaranteed Standards of Performance, updated annually).
• Ofgem. Get help from the Priority Services Register.
• National Energy System Operator (July 2025). North Hyde Substation Outage: Final Report.
• National Energy System Operator. Electricity System Restoration Standard and Electricity System Restoration Assurance Framework (targets effective 31 December 2026).
• Ofcom (2018). Protecting access to emergency organisations when there is a power cut at the customer’s premises: Guidance on General Condition A3.2(b). Ofcom guidance on staying connected in severe weather, and on emergency calls using other networks.
• GOV.UK. Communication providers: ensuring telecom services are resilient.
• GOV.UK. Emergency Alerts (gov.uk/alerts).
• GOV.UK. Prepare for flooding; Get flood warnings; What to do during a flood; How to recover from flooding.
• Food Standards Agency (2023). Food safety in a power cut: advice for consumers; guidance on fridge temperatures and best-before and use-by dates.
• Food Standards Scotland. Food safety during a power cut.
• NHS. Keep warm, keep well; Heatwave: how to cope in hot weather; Heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
• UK Health Security Agency. Heat-health alerts.
• Met Office. Weather warnings guide.

Networks, utilities and emergency services

• Energy Networks Association. Power Cut 105 service, and powercut105.com load block lookup.
• NIE Networks. Power cuts in Northern Ireland: 03457 643 643.
• National Gas. Emergency contacts: 0800 111 999.
• nidirect. Gas emergency in Northern Ireland: 0800 002 001.
• Relay UK. 18000 and emergencySMS.
• London Fire Brigade and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Candle safety and power cut guidance.

International

• ENTSO-E (March 2026). Grid Incident in Spain and Portugal on 28 April 2025: ICS Investigation Expert Panel Final Report.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2005; 2006). Reports on carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators after hurricanes in Florida, Alabama and Texas. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
• US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Portable generator safety guidance.
• World Health Organization. Minimum drinking water requirements, as quoted in UK government Be Ready guidance.

Measurement

• Goodhart, C. A. E. (1975). Problems of Monetary Management: The UK Experience. Papers in Monetary Economics, Reserve Bank of Australia.
• Strathern, M. (1997). “Improving ratings”: audit in the British University system. European Review, 5(3).

Companion printables

• The Ready Household: A calm, practical emergency planner for UK homes (UK edition, 2026), with ink-saver version; Ready Household Phone Pack; Our Home Emergency Plan wall poster. Homefront Ready.

Facts and figures were checked in November 2026. Product prices were checked on 28 October 2026. Compensation amounts, phone network rules, prices and government advice change over time; check the current guidance from the organisations above.