Prepare yourself
Download guides and checklists to help you and your family stay safe during emergencies.
Before a storm, open this website on your phone. Do it while you still have signal and power. Your phone then keeps a copy of the key pages – emergency contacts, hubs, what to do with no signal and Prepare – so they still open when the signal goes.
Tip: add the site to your home screen, and keep a paper copy of the numbers as well.
Your storm cupboard
What to keep at home in case you are cut off for a few days by a power cut, storm or snow.
The essentials
- Water: 10 litres per person per day, for at least 3 days. Add extra for babies and pets.
- Food that needs no cooking – tinned meat, fish, beans and fruit – and a tin opener that is not electric.
- Torch (battery or wind-up). Torches are safer than candles.
- Radio (battery or wind-up) for news during a power cut.
- Phone power bank, kept charged.
- Spare batteries, including for any medical equipment.
- First aid kit.
- Hand sanitiser and wet wipes, for when the water is off.
- Several days of your medicines.
- Baby supplies (nappies, ready-made formula) and pet food.
Based on the government's Prepare advice.
Extra for Alston Moor
- Warm layers, hats and blankets or sleeping bags, in case the heating goes off.
- A flask, to keep drinks hot.
- Some cash – card machines do not work in a power cut.
- A printed list of phone numbers, including family and neighbours. Print our contacts list.
- A shovel and grit or salt for your path.
- In the car: ice scraper, blanket and water.
Community Resilience Cumbria
A collection of resources, guides and information for community emergency planning, on Padlet.
Visit the resource hubFlood damage repair and prevention
A guide to flood damage repair and prevention, to help you protect your home and recover quickly.
Read the guideDocuments to download
Print them and keep them with your emergency kit.
Community Emergency Hubs: Cumbria-wide rollout (and how it links to what Alston Moor already does)
Westmorland and Furness Council and Cumberland Council have shared a “launch” document for Community Emergency Hubs on behalf of the Cumbria Local Resilience Forum. While Alston Moor already has hubs and resilience kits in place, the document is still useful: it sets out the official Cumbria-wide model, shared language, and how communities link into the wider emergency response system. We’ve added it here as a reference for residents, volunteers and local organisations who’d like to understand the bigger picture.
Download PDF (1.2 MB)Household Emergency Survival Guide
A fully comprehensive document that lists pretty much every essential that would be necessary to put together before any emergency.
Download Word (15 KB)Power Cut Essential Back Up List
A list of basic essentials that are worth getting together before a power cut.
Download PDF (33 KB)