Global Governments Urge Citizens to Prepare for 72-Hour Infrastructure Outages
Governments worldwide are urging citizens to prepare 72-hour emergency kits amid rising concerns over infrastructure vulnerabilities, cyber threats, and geopolitical instability.
Governments across the globe are increasingly urging citizens to prepare for severe disruptions, recommending that households stock up on non-perishable food, bottled water, flashlights, batteries, and radios that operate without internet access. While these emergency preparedness lists traditionally circulated mostly in regions like Israel, recent government campaigns in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Japan advise citizens to be ready to cope independently for 72 hours without electricity, running water, or reliable communication.
New Preparedness Guidelines in Europe
On October 22, the British government launched the "Be Ready" campaign to encourage households to prepare for disruptions in essential services, recommending a 72-hour supply of basic essentials to reduce the burden on emergency services during a crisis. Similarly, the Netherlands advanced its "Denk vooruit" (Think Ahead) campaign on October 12, noting that over 40% of Dutch citizens have already taken steps to prepare for potential outages affecting power, water, and internet services. In Luxembourg, authorities distributed approximately 300,000 official guides starting October 14, detailing responses to cyberattacks and prolonged blackouts.
This wave of preparedness reflects a broader shift in European security strategy. Following a report delivered in October 2024 by former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, the European Union adopted a new preparedness strategy in March 2025, recommending that citizens be equipped to manage on their own for at least three days. The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and successive energy crises have underscored the vulnerability of basic infrastructure to widespread disruptions.
Cyber Threats and Sabotage Risks
The anxieties driving these campaigns are not purely hypothetical. Between October 11 and 12, cooling systems in hundreds of supermarkets across France were targeted by remote hackers who manipulated temperature settings, causing food to spoil and prompting investigations into similar cyber incidents reported in Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Estonia. Authorities are also increasingly concerned about the physical security of critical digital pathways. On October 22, the UK government proposed new legislation to safeguard vital undersea telecommunications cables against potential sabotage, specifically pointing to foreign submarine activity near critical maritime infrastructure.
