AMERICAN BLACKOUT- A Real Life Nightmare Nearer Than You Think

Family Security Matters ^ | by R. JAMES WOOLSEY, DR. PETER VINCENT PRY

[Carbonsteel]

Four days before Halloween, on Sunday morning, October 27, 2013, terrorists in Mexico's Michoacan state blacked out the electric grid, leaving some 420,000 powerless and thirteen dead. That same Sunday night, National Geographic aired the docudrama American Blackout. This fictionalized account of a cyber attack on the electric grid depicts some of the horrific consequences of a nationwide blackout lasting 10 days.

[Travis McGee]

“When the Music Stops: How America’s Cities May Explode in Violence.”

http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/bracken-when-the-music-stops-how-americas-cities-may-explode-in-violence/

[Black Agnes]

Because those stop lightening. Right?

[MHGinTN]

I dunno, never had the house hit by lightening ... ground rod for that eventuality, IIRC.

[Black Agnes]

Most homes and businesses don’t have those.

And I’m not sure what protection they’d offer against the emf scenario.

[OB1kNOb]

I just read your most excellent essay. Thank you for posting it here.

[Gritty]

A Carrington event style of flare that runs 2 days would surely set most homes and businesses on fire

Wouldn't our main breaker box prevent that by tripping the breaker or would the surge be so fast and overwhelming an immediate fire breaks out?

[DuncanWaring]

The “Carrington Event” appears to be caused by a large solar flare, so we would have at least a few hours notice.

I suspect disconnecting your main breaker would isolate your house and prevent fire damage to it, even though you would be without electricity for quite some time after the flare had passed.

[Myrddin]

Would disconnecting your house via the main breaker prevent that?

Assuming the breaker pops with the surge. Assuming there isn't an arc over the open breaker. Assuming you don't have a fire start in your walls before the breaker can pop.

If you know the event is underway, you can pull your own breaker and be vigilant with respect to the buildings adjacent to your own home. You might still have arcs occurring in the breaker box that would imperil your building.

[PLMerite]

“The British version which ran several weeks earlier...”

What did they call it? I’ll try to see if I can find it online.

[familyop]

"I hope you’re right."

He's right. During the '70s, I moved closer to a job and into an urban neighborhood that nearly no Freepers would drive through (for several years, over 300 unsolved murders each year in that one municipality and over 700 in the metro there). Lived in another one during the '90s for over a year (not really bad at all, that neighborhood).

Mention of staying anywhere in rural areas scared most of the urban folks. As for suburbanites, I see them each visiting some of the vacant lots here, in the middle of nowhere, once in a while. Mostly people who get their incomes from government or contractors (bureaucrats, Java developers, office admin., public teachers, pensioners from the same, etc.).

They look around, baffled by their perceived lack of possibilities (no building experience or other useful technical experience in those folks, property taxes here going up fast, regulations like NY), and drive back to the cities. They see the land, some of the animals (mostly rodents), the wind--nothingness, from their point of view.

Others...most all others are out of work and wouldn't be able to afford to go anywhere (unemployed true private sector workers and other poor--high fuel costs, other travelling costs, lack of fuel with no electricity anyway, weather and other dangers of travelling far on foot and so on).

And besides, contemporary "marauders" wouldn't get enough to sustain themselves for any noticeable distances. Long intervals between successful robberies with neighbors watching them, police catching them (always rural police, even after power outages in distant cities). Exhaustion, common obesity, intolerances for absences of comforts, disease, starvation, stress fractures, weakness, etc. No TV, no drugs, no physical fitness, lack of realistic knowledge of rural areas, lack of durable, useful hardware (silly axes, plastic water purification gizmos, the sunlight and other natural effects waiting to age such things very quickly,...), no technical abilities,...

If the economy continues to slow down with debts piling up, for the most part, most people would just get poorer--especially remaining middle class folks. There's no way out for Walter Mitty except for his dreams. Others, more realistic, would more likely do well with ingenuity where they already live (technical/agricultural experience, continuing technical study and technical tinkering). There are always ways. More civilized people woud generally do best. Troublemakers, as always, would be hunted like bad dogs and rounded up.

[greeneyes]

Maybe. Many dastardly things are possible with this crew.

[familyop]

"Your area doesn’t require the use of ‘breaker boxes’ for home electrical installation yet?"

Some of the big discount vendors are so out of touch with technology and reality, they're calling breaker boxes "control centers" now. The academic march to increasingly vague terms continues.

[AppyPappy]

“I’ll be arming and coordinating.”

Not me. I got rid of my guns. Too dangerous. I’ll be here in Cleveland reading the latest Obama book by candlelight.

[ansel12]

The British version was called “Blackout”.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/blackout

[familyop]

On the “main breaker,” the power line going to the house from the power company’s poles or ground junctions are always connected to the box. Depending on the amount of power in a pulse, arcing may or may not cause a fire. Unlike with some appliances (solid state and micro stuff) it would take a monstrous pulse to cause fires through residential electrical systems. Highly unlikely and rare. Old shacks of the 1800s were much easier fuel for fires than contemporary houses. See fireproof sheetrock and wherever it might be needed, though (any bare wood above a switch?).

It’s always a good idea to have fire extinguishers around though. Ten-pounders are good. And here’s an idea. Some race cars have had little auto-extinguisher systems on them. Might be able to build an automatic system for a house with something that would provide more volume (more foam, halon or whatever).

[familyop]

Also see arc fault protection, GFICs, etc.

[cripplecreek]

Years ago I made a trip to the Jackson county dump which was next to southern Michigan prison farmland.

We saw a truckload of black inmates drive out into the field with a load of hay. The cattle saw the hay and swarmed the truck causing the inmates to climb up on the truck in fear of the cows.

[PLMerite]

Amazon.com has a “waterBoB” that fits in the bathtub and holds 100 gallons of water for drinking, $20. I’ve got one on order but have no first-hand experience with it yet. But it gets good reviews.

[PLMerite]

Thanks!

[familyop]

Yes, that’s a good anecdote to recall. That would happen. Cattle are scary. They’re so big, you know! ;-) Thanks for posting it.

There were a mess of lawsuits and accusations here against a rancher, after some people moved in from suburbs of eastern cities (tax break for residents for allowing rancher to graze cattle on unfenced lots—fears of cattle, fears of manure, fears of losing their cattle-chasing mutts, etc.).

Most of them are moving back to cities now after experiencing foreclosures, second thoughts about the weather, fewer services and the like. They pushed for tax hikes for more government services and got their way on some questionable tax hikes without voter approval. But now, the backlash is beginning against tax hikes for some time to come.

If they can’t survive around icky cattle, don’t see the demanded deference from ranchers to their expensive, cattle-chasing idols (suburban pets) and need snow plowing so much, maybe they would have difficulty trying to survive here with even smaller government in the near future.

They weren’t very social anyway—not in the country sense. Surviving some end of the world environment or other? Probably not likely for any of them except for a local preacher, who is also a jack of all trades.

I guess that moving to the country is a “wrong turn” for many nowadays. Bringing suburban desires to regulate more activities only drives beef prices up and house prices down (more realistic buyers avoiding metropolitan regulations and high taxes).