Link to the full-text Free Republic thread.
Posted on 07/18/2014 3:36:38 PM PDT by Kartographer
When the power goes out, everything just stops. For residential users, even a few hours begins to intrude heavily as melting freezers, dying cell phones, and the awkward realization that we don’t remember how to play board games nudge us out of our comfort zone.
However, those are just small inconveniences.
For industrial and other heavy users, the impact of even a relatively short outage can be expensive or even ghastly. Hospitals and people on life-assisting machinery are especially vulnerable. Without power, aluminum smelters face the prospect of the molten ore solidifying in the channels from which it must be laboriously removed before operations can be restarted.
Many types of nuclear power plants have to switch to back-up diesel generators to keep the cooling pumps running. And if those stop for any reason (like they run out of fuel), well, Fukushima gave us a sense of how bad things can get.
And of course banking stops, ATMs are useless, and gas stations cannot pump gas. Just ask the people of New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
A blackout of a few hours results in an inconvenience for everyone and something to talk about.
(Excerpt) Read more at shtfplan.com ...
Preppers’ PING!!
I’ve long said (much to the chagrin of others) that the “they are gonna take our guns” is a complete canard. They not only don’t give two hoots about our guns (think infrared, drones, tanks, etc) that is NOT how any battle would be fought. It will be fought technologically. It will either be shutting down the technology or using it for spying. They wanna take down a Bundy? Technology they won’t even see coming.
They gun canard is used to keep us from seeing the real threat.
It doesn’t take much, look what happen when the EBT Cards stopped working not long ago. Think about what happens after severe thunderstorms, winter snow storms, hurricanes roll though. Heck look at what happens on Black Friday and that just for stuff you can live without not like food and water.
Here’s a good tale that shows it can happen anywhere and with little provocation:
http://sgtreport.com/2012/06/an-event-at-my-grocery-store/
It is your choice you can prep or you can stand around on a bridge waiting for FEMA to bring you a bottle of water, a MRE, a warm blanket and a kiss for your boo-boo and maybe you can even get your picture as you stand there on the national news.
The world is dry tinder just awaiting the right spark.
So listen to what the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. NIV Proverbs 22:3
Selco covers this in this article many times people just can not except that a breakdown is occurring even as they watch it happening before their eyes. Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.
It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
You either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’. Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
Just getting started or an old hand you might find my Preparedness Manual helpful. You can download the manual at:
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, cash (I myself have been putting up change for the past few years both for the metal content and the fact that using change places to make what purchases you can will move you down the the list of possible marks during shtf), tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Again I like to recomend FReeper’s ChocoChipCookie Blog The Survival Mom (Please Blog Police let this one slide!) Where you can get lots of useful information like:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/11/20/8-morale-boosters-for-any-worst-case-scenario/
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/02/02/survival-priorities-the-rule-of-three/
And More
Also there is Ferfal’s Blog a survivor of Argentina’s first collapse:
And there is Selco’s Blog a Bosnian War survivor at:
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger. Underestimation can be fatal.”
Ubama’s war on coal is going to do that all by itself.
Well, We down here can breathe just a little bit more easy than the rest of the country.
Texas has its own electrical grid separate and apart from the rest of the country. ;-)
I hate when the power goes out. I have backup but it is time consuming to hook everything up and the power usually comes back on in a few hours. That being said I’m prepped for long term. I do not want to go back to basics but I have lived basics. My grandchildren will be miserable, but I have put away plenty of board games, jigsaw puzzles, mother earth projects and card games to make the transition.
And what makes it impossible to attack? Its hooked up to the internet just like the others. In fact with the border situation taking it out would really open things up.
Time to seriously plan for an alternative power system or plan to live in the dark and be miserable.
They gun canard is used to keep us from seeing the real threat.
I agree.
Those of us who have lived near the Gulf for a while or at least since pre-Ike know a thing or two about living without power. Going to be interesting to see how all those Yankees down here do though when a hurricane does hit.
Having the internet go down is, IMO, much more of an issue than anything. At least 99 percent of all business transactions are now handled electronically. At least we used to have hard copies in the file of everything and it wasn’t all stored off in the clouds somewhere.
I'll be in the hills when that hits the fan. Most there are prepared anyway and
don't rely on all that stuff. Gardens, hunting, and local trade.
Monopoly, anyone?...
Link to the full-text Free Republic thread.
Ubama’s war on coal is going to do that all by itself.
************************
We were 1 power plant away from a grid crash in the NE just this last winter.
The moops.
thank you as always for your great information & encouragement.
As a woman alone with a lot of challenges I find it reassuring that there will be a time in the future of leveling.. My home has been off grid for several years.. not by choice but by circumstance. I have some sources for water and electrical use (for my inhalant oils) and so am thankful. For now I don’t have to beat the clothes at the river (laundromats) and am thankful that I am a problem solver rather than winner . so much appreciate all your pings.
I have a backup generator to keep my refrigerators and freezer running and a window AC unit or two. I have BBQ pits and gas grills to cook food, but need ways to keep the serfs from stealing my food. Guess I'll b carrying my .45 cal. M1911 when I am doing that.
I received this heads up from Lady Buck:
72-Hour 1 Person Survival bucket
Normally $77.99. With online coupon (code: 50percent), the cost is $38.99
Pretty sure there isn’t free shipping, so you may want to check, based on your area.
Normally, I wouldn’t buy these, but it has a decent amount of calories, and I’m planning ahead for holiday gifts.
Happy Prepping!
LB
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.