please empty your brain below
Ooh, look, "Influx of British Nationals" is on there!!

the orange one | 25.10.18 - 7:23 a.m. | #

Top right is blank because they'll be no one left alive, so it doesn't matter.

Still Anon | 25.10.18 - 7:50 a.m. | #

I worked on an early version of this. It looks like the fundamentals of risk assessment are no longer being used. To be fair, the assessment I saw was very influenced by recent events; at that time, the 2004 tsunami

Gloomer | 25.10.18 - 8:39 a.m. | #

Good to know that this is being done. My fave is HL34 - an accident involving a passenger vessel visiting London. What sort of twisted mind thought that one up..?

Iain Mitchell | 25.10.18 - 8:57 a.m. | #

No risk of a plane (short of fuel) dropping out of the sky then?

B | 25.10.18 - 9:03 a.m. | #

@B - that would be "Aviation Incident" presumably. Although there is also "Light Aircraft".

No entry though for "Incident at Hat Museum".

Andrew | 25.10.18 - 9:33 a.m. | #

Is it me, or doesn’t there appear to be a heading that would have covered the Grenfell fire? Would have thought there is still a reasonably high probability of a catastrophic fire in a high rise.

And I would have rated the possibility of a cyber attack on the UK’s electronic payment systems as rather higher (hello Vladimir!).

Marc | 25.10.18 - 9:54 a.m. | #

So, there's more chance there's going to be effusive volcanic activity, than a fire at a fuel depot.

Erm... wasn't there a fire at a fuel depot only a few miles north of London a few years ago?

Should I start to carry my volcano-proof hat & jacket?

Tom | 25.10.18 - 10:00 a.m. | #

Before comparing risks, I recommend reading the pdf.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 25.10.18 - 10:37 a.m. | #

Don't panic! Don't panic!

Cornish Cockney | 25.10.18 - 10:58 a.m. | #

I wonder which volcano is going to produce an effusive volcanic eruption that would affect London? The lava has got to flow an awfully long way from any existing volcano (and travel across the sea after covering most of Europe with lava).

I can't see Brexit anywhere on the risk ratings.

Martin | 25.10.18 - 11:42 a.m. | #

Effusive Volcanic Eruption is about "generating large amounts of gas, aerosol and ash over a 5 month period affecting the UK and Northern Europe", not slow-crawl lava.

The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was followed by The Year Without A Summer, despite being thousands of miles away in Indonesia.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 25.10.18 - 11:52 a.m. | #

1816 didn't sound much fun! I fear there could be food (and other) riots in UK long before the next volcanic eruption.

Frank F | 25.10.18 - 2:53 p.m. | #

2010-Eyjafjallajökull eruption caused all kinds of havoc with air travel

But Katla, also in Iceland, is supposed to go anytime now. And it's reckoned this will be much worse.

HoosierSands | Homepage | 25.10.18 - 3:40 p.m. | #

A volcanic eruption with lava is as likely as a tube strike?

Uncle Audrey | 25.10.18 - 4:13 p.m. | #

"» Influx of British Nationals" is a risk, but "efflux of Non-British Nationals" isn't?

Uncle Audrey | 25.10.18 - 4:15 p.m. | #

Before comparing or querying risks, I recommend reading the pdf.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 25.10.18 - 4:23 p.m. | #

I half remember that there is an edict that if the Today Programme on Radio 4 is off-air for a certain number of days then the world has officially ended.

How many days should we wait for a DG post before saving ourselves?

drD | Homepage | 25.10.18 - 6:38 p.m. | #

@Andrew cf aviation incident...the plans seem only to account for potential collisions & maintenance issues. I still think lack of fuel IS a problem. I understand some planes land in London ahead of their slots because their fuel is running out. Now say, UK affected by nationwide poor weather conditions & alternative landing options don't exist. Plane or planes drop from sky?

B | 25.10.18 - 7:13 p.m. | #

I sometimes secretly wish for a massive EMP burst to strike the Earth, just to see what people would do without their phones and other 'essential' devices.

dg writes: You nearly got your wish in 2012, but the Earth wasn't quite lined up properly.

Burntweenie | 25.10.18 - 7:33 p.m. | #

Make lots and lots of money quickly and move far away London.

E | 25.10.18 - 8:10 p.m. | #

How am I going to get any sleep now?

Gazza | 25.10.18 - 8:25 p.m. | #

I once came close to putting 'coronal mass ejection' as the reason for an interruption to a TV programme at work, because we could think of no other explanation (and there had been sunspots forecast). In the end someone came clean that it was human error.

martin | 25.10.18 - 11:41 p.m. | #

An interesting read. The city-wide risk table differs from the likelihoods and impacts of events on people as individuals, in that that more people would be affected by widespread power failure than fluvial flooding.

Having been involved in disaster risk assessing for an organisation, including looking up advice etc. on how to do this, I do recommend noting down (rather than nebulous thoughts) a list of what you would want to take (in two hands) in a short notice evacuation - one in which your home is directly at risk and one in which it isn't. The London Resilience advice goes as far as suggesting one has an emergency grab bag ready. I settled for a list of what to put in it, and knowing where the things to put in it are... and remembering where the list is.

The other main one would be coping with a prolonged district-wide power cut, bearing in mind the effects on things as diverse as gas appliances, transport and access to money. I also can't help thing that cyber-doings should be higher up the list.

It's always a little sobering to consider that 'normal life' only has a shelf life of just under a week in the face of major disruption to power and transportation. The last big test that I recall was the fuel strike: 4 days to the brink and a fortnight for all the petrol stations and supermarkets to fully recover. It's this that makes one wonder about border disruption. External EU borders do involve more queuing than internal ones. Rotterdam port, for one, has already started making physical alterations in anticipation, whether we want to wave everything through Dover or not.

NickW | 26.10.18 - 12:01 a.m. | #

Because of yesterday’s post, I immediately thought piss-take when I started reading this. Anyone else?

Stephen | 26.10.18 - 4:32 a.m. | #

Re the "grab bag" for emergencies, back in 1972 the advice from the NCT was that when the deilivery date was near one should prepare a small case with the things that wouild be needed during the first few days in the maternity hospital, including such things as a child's inflatable life ring...

strawbrick | 26.10.18 - 10:13 a.m. | #

Even if you don't make one, it is worth knowing about the concept of a bug-out bag. That link has a list there of items you might want to include. The preppers are keen on that sort of thing too. And the US Department of Homeland Security has its own version.

At its most basic: water, food, necessary medication, and spare clothes (warm, waterproof); ID documents, cash and cards; phone, torch and radio (preferably wind-up, or with spare batteries and/or chargers); first aid kit, whistle, bin bags, swiss army knife, maps. Hope.

Can you put all of that together - plus anything else you consider essential to last two or three days - for each member of your family on 5 to 10 minutes notice?

Ahdrew | 27.10.18 - 12:34 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy