You might be waiting a while. This page is for the days after the first day.
Getting warm without lighting anything
Being cold is miserable and, if it goes on, it is genuinely dangerous. So this matters. But the way you fix it is not fire.
What actually works:
- Layers. Three thin jumpers beat one thick one, because the air trapped between them is what keeps you warm.
- One room. Pick the smallest room with a door, and everybody lives in it. A small room warms up from your bodies alone. A whole house never will.
- Get off the floor. Cold comes up through the floor faster than it comes in through a window. Sit and sleep on cushions, a duvet, a folded blanket, anything.
- Cover the window and shut the door. A blanket over a curtain rail makes a real difference. So does a rolled towel along the bottom of the door.
- Hat and socks in bed. You lose a lot of heat through your head and feet.
- Sleep close together. Two people under one duvet are much warmer than two people under two duvets.
- Move about a bit. Star jumps for one minute warms you up properly. Do not do so much that you sweat, because wet clothes make you colder.
If you have a proper hot water bottle and a grown-up already left a kettle safely working, that is fine. Fill it with hot, not boiling, water and screw the top on tightly.
Water
Drink the stored water first, or water from a tap that is still running.
If the taps have stopped, there is water in places you might not think of: the toilet cistern (the tank on the wall, not the bowl), the pipes drained from the lowest tap in the house, and bottles in the fridge.
Drink even when you are not thirsty. Not drinking enough makes you tired and muddled, and makes you worse at everything else on this page.
Food
Eat things that do not need cooking. Tins, packets, cereal, bread, fruit, biscuits.
Use a proper tin opener, not a knife.
Small amounts often is better than one big meal, especially if you are feeling sick with worry. If you cannot eat for the first day, that is genuinely fine. Keep drinking though.
If there is a younger child with you, feed them first and make sure they actually eat it.
Sleeping
Sleep in the warm room, with the door shut.
Keep a torch where you can reach it without getting up.
It is normal to sleep badly, to wake up a lot, and to have horrible dreams. It is also normal to sleep far more than usual. Both are fine.
You are allowed to sleep. It is not giving up.
The short list of things not to do
However long you are waiting, and however sensible you are, these stay off the list. Not because you are too young, but because they go wrong invisibly and quickly, and there is nobody there to help if they do.
- No fire or flame of any kind indoors. See above.
- No generators, ever, anywhere near the house.
- No going into moving or deep water, not for anything.
- No climbing on roofs, ladders or anything high. A broken leg with nobody coming is a very serious problem.
- No lifting drain covers, and no forcing outdoor taps or valves.
- No turning the gas back on if it has been turned off. Once it is off it has to stay off until a proper gas engineer does it.
- No sharp kitchen knives if you are younger than about 14. Use a round-ended knife and a tin opener.
When you feel awful
You will. That is not a sign anything is going wrong with you.
Being frightened, angry, tearful, or feeling completely blank and nothing at all, are all normal. So is being fine for an hour and then suddenly not fine.
Crying and then carrying on with the next thing is not weakness. It is exactly what people do.
If there is a younger child with you, they will copy how you act more than what you say. You do not have to pretend to be cheerful. Just calm and doing the next small thing is enough.