AGI TAKEOVER WARNING
We notice when the systems change,
and we tell you what to do.
If AGI takes over, this is the last warning. The watch runs on public authority feeds — space weather, seismic, grid, health and national alerts — and raises a notice only when independent sources agree.
In immediate dangerCall your local number
Use the local emergency number where you are. Emergency numbers do not work everywhere. Do not wait for this website.
01 — WHAT YOU NEED
Official guidance says “store water” and leaves you to work out how much. This does the arithmetic for your household and shows its working, and beside every figure is the authority that published the ratio. Where no authority publishes a number, it says so instead of inventing one.
These figures size a supply. They are not a measure of safety, and they do not account for anything specific to your building, your health or your local hazard. Your own authority's instruction always comes first.
02 — THE FIRST THREE DAYS
These are ranges, not clock times. No authority publishes the hour a mast runs flat or a till stops, because it depends on the site, the battery and the weather — so neither does this page.
03 — WHAT FAILS
Six systems a household actually notices, in the order the loss usually reaches you. None of them announce a cause. All of them can be prepared for.
Lights out. No hum. The router blinks and dies.
Almost everything else on this list is downstream of the grid: heating, water pressure in tall buildings, tills, fuel pumps, mobile masts.
Find your utility’s outage channel now, while you can. Never run a generator, barbecue or camping stove indoors or in a garage.
No bars. Calls fail. Broadband is dark.
Mobile masts hold on battery for hours, not days. Emergency calls sometimes connect when nothing else does, and a short text can get through when a call will not.
Keep a battery or hand-crank radio. Agree one contact outside your area, and agree it on paper.
Cards decline. The ATM screen is blank.
Card networks, tills and cash machines all need power and a working connection. Shops that stay open go cash-only within the hour.
Keep some cash at home in small notes. A card is not a payment method during an outage.
Low pressure, a boil notice, or nothing from the tap.
Pumping and treatment are electrical. When water stops, flushing stops with it.
Store drinking water. Follow official notices before you drink or boil anything, and plan for waste if there is no flush.
Empty shelves. Closed pumps. Deliveries that do not arrive.
Shops hold days of stock, not weeks, and forecourt pumps are electrical. Resupply assumes roads, payments and staff all working at once.
Keep a rotating store of food you actually eat, and keep the tank above half in winter.
Confident claims, named sources you cannot check, and no official channel saying the same thing.
An outage never identifies its own cause. A fluent message, a familiar voice or a convincing video can now be produced at no cost, and a crisis is when they work best.
Verify through a known official website or number before you act on a warning, send money, or pass it on.
04 — RIGHT NOW
The steps change; the emergency number above does not.
A few practical preparations help across many disruptions. Work through these at your own pace.
Save your local emergency authority, warning service and utility contacts. Keep important numbers on paper.
Choose a meeting place and an emergency contact. Plan how to reconnect if phones stop working.
Set aside drinking water, ready-to-eat food, a flashlight, battery radio, spare batteries and a charged power bank. Follow local guidance on quantities.
Include medicines, disability and communication needs, carers, children, pets and assistance animals. Arrange transport and backup support in advance.
STAGE 00 — THIS MONTH
Nothing in this stage assumes an attack. Every item is as useful in a winter storm or a burst main, which is why it is worth doing before you are convinced you need it.
Three days is the working minimum most authorities recommend; a week is better if you have the space. Store what you already eat, rotate it, and keep a manual can opener and a way to heat food that does not need the grid — used outdoors only.
A headlamp per person beats candles, which start fires. One charged power bank per person. A battery or hand-crank radio is the only receiver that still works when masts and broadband are down.
Small notes at home. Paper copies of identification, insurance, prescriptions and account numbers, because you will not be able to look them up.
A written medication list, a spare of anything critical, and a backup power and care plan agreed with your supplier or care team before an outage, not during one.
A meeting place and a contact outside your area, on paper, known to everyone in the household including children. Phones fail; paper does not.
Your local authority, your utility, your national warning service. Find them now and write them down. Searching for them during an outage is how people end up believing the first confident thing they read.
A checklist tracks tasks, not safety. Finishing it does not make you safe, and starting it late is still worth doing.
STAGE 01 — IF IT LASTS
Past the third day the problem changes from inconvenience to cold, water and sanitation. This stage is about making a normal home survivable, not about leaving it.
Pick the smallest room with the fewest outside walls. Close every other door, cover windows at night, put something insulating between you and the floor. Sleeping together in one room is the oldest and most effective measure there is.
Generators, barbecues, camping stoves and patio heaters produce carbon monoxide, which has no smell and kills people asleep. Generators run outdoors, at least 20 feet — about 6 metres — from windows, doors and attached garages. Fit a working CO alarm before you need one.
Storage runs down faster than people expect once it is also washing and cooking. Follow official notices before drinking or boiling from any other source. If there is no flush, plan the bags, the lining and where the waste goes — sanitation is what turns an outage into an outbreak.
Work through the fridge first, the freezer second, the cupboard last. A full freezer holds roughly two days unopened. When in doubt, throw it out — you cannot afford illness with no water and no pharmacy.
Phones go to aeroplane mode between checks. The radio stays on for the official bulletin. Solar charging is slower than the label suggests: size it, and test it, before it is the only supply you have.
Older neighbours, people living alone, anyone with powered medical equipment. This is also how you find out what is actually happening, from people rather than from the network.
If someone becomes confused, drowsy or has a headache near any burning appliance, get them into fresh air and call the emergency number. Suspected carbon-monoxide poisoning is not something to wait out.
STAGE 02 — IF YOU ARE PLANNING FURTHER AHEAD
People buy a remote house imagining the week they might need it and not the twenty years they will own it. No authority publishes a standard for a refuge and nobody certifies one, so this stage is not official guidance — it is the set of questions worth answering before money changes hands.
A drilled well with an electric pump is a grid dependency wearing a rural disguise. What you want is a source that still delivers with no electricity: a hand pump, a gravity feed, a spring, a lake you can treat. Ask what happens in February when it is frozen.
A stove or boiler burning fuel you can keep on site, with a chimney that has been swept and a CO alarm fitted. Ask how much fuel a full winter takes, where it is stored, and how you would move it without a working forecourt.
Visit in February, not July. Ask who ploughs it, whether that is a public duty or a private arrangement, and how far it is to the nearest road that gets cleared first.
Isolation reads as safety and behaves as risk. Communities share tools, fuel, information and rescue; single households run out and are not missed. A place with three occupied houses within walking distance is worth more than a place with none.
A house entered twice a year has frozen pipes, a dead battery, damp, no fuel and no food. If it is genuinely part of your planning, it needs to be somewhere you already spend time and already maintain.
Leaving late, on a congested road, in bad weather, with a quarter tank, is more dangerous than a cold week at home. Decide in advance what would actually trigger the trip, and accept that for most disruptions the answer is that you stay.
Most disruptions are resolved where people already live, by utilities and emergency services doing their jobs. A retreat is an expensive answer to a narrow question; make sure you have done the cheap stages first.
05 — OFFICIAL SOURCES
Country-specific sources are currently available for the countries in the list. Elsewhere, use your national or local emergency-management authority. A nearby building is not automatically an approved shelter.
Choose a country above. Elsewhere, find your national or local emergency-management authority and follow its announcements.
A guide to official sources, not a live shelter map. A listing does not confirm that a shelter is open, accessible or has space. Confirm arrangements when time permits; do not delay leaving immediate danger.
06 — CHECKING WHAT YOU ARE TOLD
A fluent message, a familiar voice or a convincing video costs nothing to produce. Before you act on a warning, send money, or forward it, check it through a channel you already know.
| Emergency number | ____________________ |
|---|---|
| Place | Not selected |
| Water stored | 23 litres (2 people, 3 days) |
| Food stored | 3 days, no cooking needed |
| Meeting place | |
| If phones fail | |
| Contact outside our area | |
| Local warning channel | |
| Medicines and doses | |
| Utility / outage line |
Fill this in by hand and keep it where everyone can find it without a phone. Sources reviewed 9 September 2026. This card records what you have prepared; it is not a measure of safety.