Storm Austen and Boelo, the first named storms of autumn, are set to bring severe gales and possible power cuts from Thursday night, prompting warnings for households to prepare. A preparedness expert has cautioned that most families have no idea how long their current supplies would genuinely last in an emergency.
Expert Warns on Supply Rotation
Dominic Brooks, an independent developer based in Greater Manchester, recently launched an emergency store tracking app called Provision to help households calculate exactly how many days of food, water, and fuel they have. Brooks notes that people often mistakenly believe a store bought years ago will still cover them, pointing out that rotation is where household preparedness quietly fails.
"People stock food because food is what a cupboard is for," Brooks stated. "Water is almost always what runs out first, and it is the one number nobody has checked."
Three-Step Check Before the Storm
While official advice suggests keeping around three litres of water per person per day, it is heavy, bulky, and rarely stored in sufficient quantities. Writing on the Provision blog about what to do before a named storm lands, Brooks emphasised that the real threat at home is not the wind, but the loss of power.
He advised households to conduct a ten-minute three-step check rather than a massive shop. First, residents should count all sealed water and divide it by the number of people in the house, warning that taps may stop working during a power cut for those in flats with pumps or on rural supplies. Second, he recommends counting food that requires no cooking, such as ring-pull tins, cereal, and peanut butter, alongside securing a manual tin opener.
Finally, Brooks advises preparing fuel and light by ensuring there is a torch for each person and charging all devices and power banks the night before the storm hits, rather than waiting for the lights to go out.
How the Provision App Works
To eliminate the guesswork, the Provision app allows users to input their household size and count their supplies. Rather than simply dividing a total by a daily rate, the software walks forward one day at a time, using the soonest-dated stock first and discarding anything that expires before it can be reached. This produces one honest number showing how many days the store will actually last, and highlights exactly which essential item will cap the timeframe.
Residents are also encouraged to save 105 in their mobile phones, which is the free national number to call to reach local network operators during a power cut.
Dominic's Three Main Tips
Count the water: Bottles, jugs, anything sealed. Add up the litres and divide by the number of people. Under 9 litres each and you're short of three days.
Count food that needs no cooking: If the power's off, so is the electric hob and the microwave. Tins with a ring pull, cereal, crackers, peanut butter, fruit. And a tin opener that doesn't need a plug.
Count fuel and light: A torch for each person, spare batteries, a charged power bank. A camping stove and gas if you have one. Charge everything the night before, not when the lights go.
