Hold the toilet paper, talk to your neighbours: Australian experts on surviving disaster

Around the world, households are being urged to prepare for disruption. But as threats of climate-related disasters, cyber-attacks and global instability ratchet up, experts in building resilience say you’re better off connecting with your community than stockpiling toilet paper.

The UK government last month started a campaign urging people to put together emergency stockpiles. The UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, says his includes beans, soup and Twiglets – claiming he couldn’t get by for too long without the Marmite-flavoured snack.

The UK campaign has raised questions about whether Australians should do the same. A fake “emergency request” for Australians to stockpile essential goods purporting to be from prime minister Anthony Albanese, which circulated on social media, only raised the temperature on the debate.

It also prompted the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) to issue a response to Australian federal police fact check, saying: “The Australian government has not asked Australians to stockpile food or water.”

“Nor has the Australian government asked Australians to prepare for any specific emergency other than severe weather events we are likely to face this higher-risk weather season,” it said.

In a statement to the Guardian, a spokesperson for Nema said Australia had a different risk profile from the UK and other countries.

“Bushfires, floods, tropical cyclones, severe storms, heatwaves and drought affect regions differently, while overlapping disasters place sustained pressure on resources,” it said. “Nationally consistent preparedness advice must therefore remain relevant to local conditions and the needs of regional, remote and culturally diverse communities.”

Pack an emergency kit

The global trend of “prepping” or “survivalism” has gained traction since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020, including in Australia. But experts note there is a distinction between being prepared for upheavals and “radical or conspiracy-minded ‘preppers’”.

Australians have long been told to keep a buffer of essential supplies on hand in case of natural disasters, with states and territories offering region-specific advice in line with national advice from Nema.

NSW Health, for example, asks people to think about stocking an essential pantry and emergency kit containing drinks, food (including for pets), health supplies such as a first aid kit and prescription medications, baby supplies, an emergency power supply, portable radio, and anything a family with special needs might require.

The Victorian government advises residents in bushfire-prone areas to carry an emergency kit containing a phone charger, bottled water, spare clothes, toiletries, medication, a torch with spare batteries, identification documents, and a few hundred dollars in cash.

The Australian Red Cross has extensive guides to help people face a range of hazards, including how to make a household emergency plan that can be accessed via an app.

“There’s a range of ways in which you can be prepared, but not panicking is the key,” says Australian Red Cross recovery and resilience director, Nichola Krey.

“Being psychologically prepared for a crisis or a disruption is having those conversations with your family beforehand, knowing how you cope in a crisis situation.”

Krey says people should be aware of any potential hazards they might face in their area.

“That might be floods. It might be fires. It might be urban extreme heat – this is what we’re seeing more and more,” she says.

“Know where you’re going to go, what’s available locally, have your insurance papers and birth certificates ready to go.”

Neighbours, not bunkers

Talk of stockpiling has ramped up in recent weeks in response to growing concerns about global stability and cyber-attacks.

Some people are worried also that US president Donald Trump, reeling from a massive Democratic victory in the midterm elections, will resume bombing Iran. Meanwhile, Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have again ramped up, hoax bomb threats have disrupted at least 25 flights in Europe, and cyber-attackers have targeted internet-connected commercial refrigeration systems across Europe, spoiling food, and hacked blood banks.

The Australian Signals Directorate warned in October Australians should prepare to lose access to services. In its latest cyber threat report, it warned AI-enabled attackers were trying to disrupt critical infrastructure and to steal money and intelligence.

University of Adelaide professor Jill Slay, who oversaw a review of Australia’s critical infrastructure earlier this year, says Australia is vulnerable to malware or a hacking of its systems.

Slay looked at 11 industries in her review of the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act – including communications, defence, space technology, transport, water and power – and examined what would happen if something went wrong.

She outlined risks of energy grid, mobile phone and internet outages; fuel shortages; and a range of other potentially crippling systems failures. The risk of an outage has accelerated at a dangerous pace because of the rapid evolution of AI and other technologies, she says.

“Am I scared? I don’t know. I call it risk management,” she says.

Governments are often not upfront about where those vulnerabilities are, she says, and critical industries too often work in “little silos”. Two in three are unclear what their obligations are.

“I found there was a lot of goodwill, but lots of the information you’d love to know is not in the public domain,” she says. “Who actually decides which bit of critical infrastructure should be looked after?

That coordination task falls to the department of home affairs, but Shay says the general population should be better educated. “If you want social cohesion you have to let the public know what the problems are and what they can do,” she says.

In a parliamentary briefing, Shay said Australia could adopt a similar perspective to the UK, where social cohesion is “treated as equally critical to national security as physical infrastructure itself”, a resource that “if disrupted, significantly weakens national resilience”.

But she adds that now is not the time for individual households to be stockpiling.

“You’ve got to think of it as an event as big as Covid. The time to start stockpiling would be if we had an onshore cyber breach,” she says.

“I can see why you’d be scared but I don’t think extra toilet paper is going to help.”

Krey says in times of disruption, people living in well-connected communities protect each other during disaster and bounce back better.

Knowing your environment, knowing what your council might offer, and knowing who your neighbours are can all help with resilience after a disaster.