When the lights go out

By: Scott Morefield

Due to the recent destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy, millions of people found themselves without power. There are reports of 6 hour gas lines, people knifing each other to get food and supplies, people rummaging through dumpsters for food, defecating in hallways, and more. Authorities say it could be late November before all power is restored. There are places in New York, such as Staten Island, right in what would seem to be the middle of Federal power, where people have waited for days for FEMA assistance. (Meanwhile, in an entirely unrelated note, President Obama had a grand time campaigning in Las Vegas – good to know he’s got his priorities straight!)

Sure, this is a unique event, a hurricane, that isn’t likely to be repeated anytime soon. When things get back to normal they should stay normal for the foreseeable future – at least until another hurricane comes. That’s the common perception, until one starts to realize just how vulnerable our power grid is. In 2011 over 5 million people lost power in Southern California and Arizona because of, according to the agencies that investigated the failures, “unpredictable weather and the unreliability of the grid.” Today the average transformer, built with a 40-50 year lifespan, is over 42 years old. According to Clinton’s former secretary of energy, Bill Richardson, America is a “superpower with a third-world grid.”

So this all begs the question: If things are THIS bad in the Northeast after a few days without power, right in the middle of the ‘belly of the beast,’ where there’s a bureaucrat on every floor of every building and a cop on at least every street corner, how bad could it get where you live? Sure, in a massive nationwide disaster scenario one would expect the cities to fare far worse, but in this localized disaster, when the resources of the nation should be at their disposal, there are still crazy, apocalyptic goings-on.

Our challenge to our readers, to ourselves, in the wake of this hurricane, is to examine what life would be like without power for a day, for two days, for a week, for a month, for longer…

If the electricity went out in the middle of the winter, what would you do for heat? How would you light your home? If it lasted more than a couple of days, would you be able to keep your freezer running? If it lasted for a week, do you have enough food in your pantry? How would you…

Read the rest here:

http://amorefieldlife.com/2012/11/04/when-the-lights-go-out/