US/UK Governments Issue “Be Ready” Warnings – But Ready For What?

Being “Plan B”-types at heart we have a stash of beans on hand for when the lights go out, but we tend not to get rattled by any of the numerous conspiracy and “end of days” theories kicking around the Interweb at present.

We do tend to react when our readers react, however, and you appear to be reacting to recent governmental admonitions to – “Be Ready.” In fact, that’s actually what great minds in the United Kingdom are calling it – launching a new “Be Ready” public information campaign urging households to stockpile emergency supplies for, exactly what remains unclear.

Blimey. Our friends across the pond maintain their advisory is not a sign that war/alien invasion/chip shop failure is imminent – preferring to cite growing concerns about severe weather, climate change, aging infrastructure, technological reliance, and cyber or state-actor threats as their rationale.

Double Blimey.

At first we thought a much ballyhooed “attack” on RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire in late September might have had something to do with the British sending up their national warning flare. Depending on how you source it, that incident was either an early-morning farm fuel raid broken up by a miffed farmer’s wife or a highly credible terror and sabotage plot against an airbase serving as home to American long-range B-1, B-2, and B-52 strategic bombers used in ongoing strikes against Iran.

Although there were some comical elements to the story and doubts raised about security at high-profile military installations, police recovered a “quantity of petrol” and several British nationals were arrested, with Prime Minister Andy Burnham stating there were “strong indications” the plot was directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Hence, “Be Ready” was issued in October, with British ministers and security officials advising citizens to prepare for 72 hours of self-sufficiency – including up to 9 liters of bottled water per person and three days’ worth of non-perishable food, medical supplies, cash, and wind-up radios or torches (flashlights).

Taken on its own, the UK advisory may have triggered a few raised eyebrows, but as it happened – it followed preparedness guidance issued in the U.S. by FEMA and Ready.gov in September as part of National Preparedness Month messaging.

Like the UK, officials in the U.S. emphasized personal readiness, community response, and critical infrastructure protection for individual citizens while, separately, federal directives instructed military bases and critical sectors to review off-grid resilience (such as 90-day power backup plans).

As practical and farsighted as the advisories might seem, in the land where people take guns into pizza parlors looking for basement dismembering labs – a passel of Americans substituted “WTF” for the more reserved British “blimey” and, it quickly became evident, alarm bells started sounding and questions started making their way around the InterWeb.

Because Yours Truly has become a sort of unofficial yet de facto alert system for folks within earshot of our messaging we started getting inquiries almost immediately.

We have firsthand knowledge with how public fears can rise and ebb and we’re acutely aware of how people have come to rely on us (the farmer’s wife outside RAF Fairford turned to her local digital network after failing to raise an official response by calling 999) and we think you know we tend to under-sell breaking news incidents here.

That said, we’ve added some more cans of beans and SPAM to our larder after questions about whether the midterms would trigger America’s Third Battle of Manassas or if our countrymen were taking notes from street protests abroad began to surface.

We shall see. As has been said: “the future remains unwritten” – though we’d modify that by adding: “Yes, but it’s also better to be safe than sorry.”