Emergency Guide
Slightly Anxious
THE EMERGENCY GUIDE
Seven days. One household. One book.
Almost nobody knows where their stopcock is. We know, because we asked, repeatedly — and the answer is usually a pause, a guess, and a cheerful offer to go and have a look. That is not what you want to be doing at eleven at night, with water coming through the kitchen ceiling.
The Emergency Guide is the book that fixes that, before you ever need it to. It is not a survival manual, there is nothing here about bunkers, wilderness or the collapse of society. It is for the things that actually happen to ordinary British households, several times a year, in every part of the country: the power goes off, a pipe bursts, the boiler dies, the road floods, the shops cannot be reached.
There is no jargon and no scaremongering, and nothing is pitched at people who already own a generator. It is written for the household that has never thought about any of this before — which is most households — and it assumes nothing except that you would rather work this out now, calmly, than at eleven at night.
Two decisions make it different from almost everything else written on this subject:
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Seven days, not three. Most preparedness advice plans for seventy-two hours. Storm damage, burst mains and serious flooding routinely take longer than that to put right — seven days is simply the length of a bad week.
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Ten litres of water a person, a day, not two. Two litres is a drinking figure. It does not cover washing, cooking, cleaning and flushing — a single flush of an older lavatory alone uses nine litres.
WHAT'S INSIDE
Ten one-page hazard cards at the front — what to do in the first five minutes and the first hour, for everything from a power cut to a house fire — so you are never hunting through chapters mid-emergency.
1. Know Your House — the four things almost nobody knows about their own home, and how to find them in twenty minutes
2–9. Water, Warmth, Portable Heat, Light and Power, Backup Power, Food and Cooking, Health, Hygiene and Sanitation — the practical core, chapter by chapter
10–13. Information and Contact, Money and Papers, Keeping Occupied, People and Pets — staying informed, solvent, sane and together
14–16. Keeping the Water Out, Leaving, After — flood defence, the grab bag, and the part every other guide stops before — insurance, the doorstep caller, and drying the house out properly
Plus three appendices: every job in the book sorted by when you would actually do it, the numbers to put in your phone tonight, and what to buy — cheapest first, and what we would not bother with.
“It costs nothing but a slightly dusty jumper, and it is the single highest return on effort
in this entire book.”
— Chapter 1, on finding your stopcock
Written by Steve Donoughue (aided by A.I.) in plain, calm, unstartling English, with a foreword and hand-checked illustrations throughout. Almost everything in it is free, or nearly free — and a good deal of it is simply knowing where things already are in your own house.
There are no affiliate links and no product pushing inside — just the book, written to be read once and kept on the shelf for the week it turns out you needed it.
The book costs £14.99 and is only downloadable in an .epub format which means it is perfect for your kindle or other e-book reader. We recommend these as they have a lengthy battery life and will see you through most emergencies.
If you become a member of the Slightly Anxious Members Club you get the book for free.