Most UK adults have food for 3 days. Only 4% have 3 days of bottled water.

The Doomsday Clock stands at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been.¹ During the Cuban missile crisis, it stood at seven minutes.²

In September, Russia warned NATO it would use its entire arsenal, “including nuclear”.³

The war with Iran has already reached British bases. In March, an Iranian-made drone hit RAF Akrotiri.⁴ In October, the US rushed its B-1 bombers out of RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, fearing a drone attack.⁵

In Ukraine, the war is in its fifth year.⁶

Britain’s Defence Secretary has given the country “a little over 1,000 days” to be ready “to fight and win”.⁷ The Pentagon is preparing a rule for its bases to hold out 90 days on their own.⁸

It will come through a screen.

This year in the US, hackers went after more than 100 water systems in at least 12 states.⁹ In Colorado, “foreign actors” switched off alarms and changed pumping schedules.¹⁰ In Denmark, hackers cut the water to 450 homes: the password was “1234”.¹¹ In Norway, they opened a dam valve for four hours.¹²

In Britain, one cyberattack stopped Jaguar Land Rover for six weeks and cost £1.9bn, the costliest in UK history.¹³ On 29 October, hackers stole $6.3bn from Binance.¹⁴

And AI makes it faster. Britain’s cyber agency has warned that AI will “almost certainly” increase the volume and impact of cyberattacks.¹⁵ In 2025, according to the AI company Anthropic, hackers it linked to the Chinese state used AI to carry out most of a hacking campaign against around 30 organisations.¹⁶

It doesn’t even take an attack. In April 2025, Spain lost power in seconds. Trains stopped, phones died, cash machines went dark.¹⁷ Battery radios sold out within hours.¹⁸

1 in 3 Britons now expect a power cut of 3 days or more where they live within the next two years.¹⁹

Maybe you have a torch. A few tins. Even a 72-hour kit.

Now picture it: the tap coughs, then nothing. The shelves are empty. Your phone has no signal.

Your tap runs on electricity: pumps, treatment, pressure. When the power goes for long, the water goes with it. In January 2025, 130,000 customers in Ireland lost their water when the pumping stations lost power.²⁰ In 2021, 7 million Texans had to boil their water.²¹

And water networks are exactly what hackers are already attacking.

Then the bottles go. On 27 October, Ocado had already run out of several waters.²² In Kent, bottled water stations turned into “mayhem”.²³

Survival experts call it the rule of three: about 3 weeks without food, about 3 days without water. Heat, age or illness make it shorter.²⁴

Yet most homes prepared the wrong thing:

For a family of four, 3 days means 36 litres: 24 big bottles, 36 kg.²⁵

Three days is the minimum the government recommends.²⁵ If a crisis lasts (a war, an attack on the grid), 3 days becomes 7. Or 21.

For a family of four, one week means 84 litres: 56 big bottles. Three weeks: 252 litres, 168 bottles. Who keeps that in a cupboard?

And here is what most people don’t realise: what you need disappears first. When the warning came in October, radios, water and torches started selling out at UK retailers within days. At Maplin, torch sales nearly quadrupled and radio sales almost doubled in three days. Preppers Shop UK saw a 650% jump.²²

On the day, it’s too late to look for containers. The families who have them are the ones who bought them before.

Bottled water is a good start: the government calls it the safest option.²⁵ But you can’t keep hundreds of bottles, and you won’t find them on the day.

That’s why our Water Survival Kits are built around collapsible water carriers. Empty, a 20-litre carrier folds flat like a pouch and weighs about 300 g. A whole stack takes almost no space.

No need to fill them now. Keep them folded at home, with the rest of your supplies. The day you feel something coming (an alert, a warning, the news), fill them at the tap while it still runs.

Our tip: keep your first day or two filled, in case the tap stops without warning. Clean carriers, tightly closed, somewhere cool and dark. Write the date and change the water every 6 months.²⁶

Every kit includes a filter straw. When your reserve runs out, it keeps you drinking: water from a river or a lake is filtered as you drink. Its four-stage filter removes bacteria and impurities (manufacturer data).

A straw filters water. It doesn’t give you any. That’s why you need both: the carriers for the first days, the straw for after.