Posted on 08/21/2013 5:41:40 AM PDT by Old Sarge
WASHINGTON — The electric grid, as government and private experts describe it, is the glass jaw of American industry. If an adversary lands a knockout blow, they fear, it could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of Sept. 11.
~ SNIP ~
One goal of the drill, called "GridEx II", is to explore how governments would react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain for everyday necessities.
~ SNIP ~
Most of the participants will join the exercise from their workplaces, with NERC, in Washington, announcing successive failures. One example, organizers say, is a substation break-in that officials initially think is an attempt to steal copper. But instead, the intruder uses a USB drive to upload a virus into a computer network.
The drill is part of a give-and-take in the past few years between the government and utilities that has exposed the difficulties of securing the electric system.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Whenever there is severe weather approaching, fill water containers. We're only one lightening strike from not having water. If there is time, do the laundry, do the dishes, take a shower, clean the kitchen and bathroom. Chores aren't fun but they're even less fun when there's no water or electricty to get them done later. It is also a good idea to always keep water jugs in the freezer as those will help keep the freezer cool a bit longer and provide water once it's thawed. If you know you're going to be without power, bake up foods like cakes and cookies which don't have to be refridgerated. Cook up a couple of meals with what is in the fridge to keep that from going bad. When the electricty is off for days, eat the ice cream first!
If there is a local wildfire, keep your lawn well watered long before it gets close. Gather debris. Again, you never know when the fire will knock out your power and a wet soil may save your property.
I hear banjos...
Good idea for everyone to add black paint to their prepping lists.
True. Back on the old family farm, we could hear when someone was coming down the road to the house hundreds of acres away.
I think experiencing no power, no running water, and outdoor potties, as a child at my house (we had power and running water but no indoor bathroom) and my grandmother’s house with no power, no running water, and an outhouse, helped me put together substitutes for those utilities. I knew life at my grandmother’s was fine, just had to adjust to the methods they had.
I started with thinking I was back in those times and put together a system that would work. I’ll have running water with no piped water, I’ll have working fans to substitute for air conditioning, I’ll have stored food and food growing outside, I’ll have a working TV if there are any stations in Houston, have working radio and short wave receiver, have working phone if phone companies are working. Will have light several ways if power is out. Have several ways to have a potty and a better way to clean than regular toilet paper and that method stores in a not huge box.
Really, it just took thinking, planning and researching to find substitutes for what we have now.
But how much power can you get from a solar generator? We can power our entire house and most importantly, our furnace. I doubt a solar generator could power even an average size furnace, not to mention the rest of the house.
Have some of these on hand. They filter any water and make it drinkable, even removing viruses. Katadyn makes water purification systems for the worlds miltaries. We have several on hand.
“But how much power can you get from a solar generator? We can power our entire house and most importantly, our furnace. I doubt a solar generator could power even an average size furnace, not to mention the rest of the house.”
No, my solar panel only recharges regular batteries. I would not be able to run any item that takes regular electric power. I have another way to have warmth and cooling that is either regular battery or bottles of propane. Eventually, fuel runs out for generators and that, plus the noise, was what I avoided.
My parents survived in rural MS after Katrina. You could hear gennies for a mile, minimum. There was little traffic as gas was hard to come by.
There’s also the smell of cooking food to contend with. That goes a distance too.
Moreover the sound of the generator could keep you from hearing someone/someones approach.
A neighbour of mine has a 40x255w solar array. He can sell his surplus @9.9 cents/kh to Fortis here in B.C.
As the price of solar panels fall, it begins to make real sense to use solar. The investment in batteries remains high, unfortunately.
Forget electricity try losing your water supply.
A year ago they shut our water off at the drop of a hat for 4 days straight. we were freaking out.
Imagine how long a new civil war would last when the gov shuts our water, electricity, natural gas, gasoline, internet, cell phone service off.
Not too long i would imagine.
We are F’ed...
The notion that ANY PART of our power grid is subject to failure/sabotage by some dumbass with a USB port/chip/disc or any such piece of krap is disgusting and smacks of lazyass incompetence of the highest order. It’s one thing to use the internet and related equipment to MONITOR operation but controlling a grid this way is beyond stupid. Controlling generation and switching by anything other than HANDS-ON , EYES-ON action is criminal.
In an earlier career part of my job was devising drills to simulate failures/casualties in nuclear power plants. The first thing that would have been corrected/eliminated as a possible problem would have been the chance that operation could be affected by something happening from outside the “wire” or “hull”. Lawsuits and jail time are too good for the clan of geniuses that have built these weaknesses into our systems.
“There’s also the smell of cooking food to contend with. That goes a distance too.”
In the case you speak of, I imagine they were cooking outdoors. I will be cooking inside the house and can close windows and doors. I have several ways to cook outdoors but that would be after my inside fuel source was gone, which is after a year or more.
Actually they weren’t cooking outdoors. But it was early September in MS and the temps were in the 90’s. I defy you to cook indoors in that heat with no electricity and the windows closed. They were using those little heat packs that come with MRE’s.
The zombies won’t get you. Heat stroke might though... :P
We have identified that as a single point of failure at The Bunker. To counter it, we’ve gotten a redundant water system ginned up to that we won’t lose out, especially in the tropical heat.
Fellow FReep, I agree. Either incompetence, or intentional point of failure.
My late father, FReeper "Skyraider", was with power generation all his life. He would be horrified at the extent to which the grid has been compromised.
You have to develop a source of water. That is No. 1 when putting together a plan.
If you have a house, it has gutters that move water from your roof down the gutters to the downspouts. Get a rain barrel for each downspout. To do this, you need the kit for each downspout so you can switch it to run into your rain barrel. Let the first amount of water flow down the spout as usual to get rid of as much dirt as possible off the roof. Then switch the water to run into the rain barrel and fill it up. Get a water PURIFIER, not a filter, to purify that water.
The best water purifier is a Berkey. You can take dirty water out of a ditch, filter it through regular coffee filters to get out as much dirt as possible, then run it through the Berkey and pure water flows out the bottom of the Berkey. A Katadyn purifier would also work and is less money. I have three Katadyns as well as the Berkey.
I also have plastic kiddie pools in small boxes to take out and set on the deck to catch rain water. There is also a 15,000 gallon swimming pool not many steps from me. That would go in the Berkey, too.
“In an earlier career part of my job was devising drills to simulate failures/casualties in nuclear power plants.”
I have a relative who, at one time, had a job to think up ways to destroy a naval station’s software. He would deliver a way to corrupt it and the naval IT people would have to come up with a way to save their functions. He did this for years.
I have operating fans in a power outage. Won’t burn up in closed house. Did it that way after Ike, no problem. At that time, I didn’t have screens for my outside doors and mosquitoes were heavy so kept the doors closed all the time. I now have screens for those so can keep them open now when not cooking. After Ike, during those 5 days without power, people had food they bought for that so if I had screens, I could have kept them open. It is the long term power outage when people have run out of food that would necessitate cooking inside and closed up.
You can dampen your face, chest, arms, with water and turn on a battery fan and get cool fast.
Good for you.
Someone I know mentioned that cooking odors are a concern, too. But that seem impossible to eliminate.
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.