3 Days of Darkness, A Warning

The Northeast power outage should be a warning to us all. If an enemy of the United States, or if elements of our own government wanted to take over our country, they could easily cripple us by attacking our regional and national power grids. What this does is immediately isolate people, communications, and worse, placing us into a very vulnerable position. For much of the country when it happens in winter it is even worse.

People are obviously left without all their electrical devices. No television, no radios, and no phones, and in the winter, no heat. People take for granted how much communication means in their daily lives. Most people will be without sufficient batteries. Battery operated devices will be short lived as the batteries wear out and without the ability to recharge the rechargeable ones. Gasoline and other fuels will be scarce, many relying upon non existent electrical dispensing. Those who have generators will run out of gasoline or fuel to run them. In a short time the ability to generate power will disappear.

Perishable foods will spoil. There will be a rush for non perishable food and this food will soon become scarce. People will make fires for heat, cooking, boiling, or use other toxic or dangerous devices and many accidents, even deaths will occur. Water will become scarce since water treatment plants will depend upon non existent power sources. Water will become contaminated and will present problems for not only drinking but for bathing and cleanliness. Health problems will begin to occur with the potential of widespread disease. Medical and emergency services will be greatly curtailed...eventually people will not even be able to call 911.

The network of vital communication will be cut short to family members within a home and the immediate neighborhood. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with family, relatives, and friends for information and support outside the immediate area. Vital information from responsible government, news, and support services will be very limited. Communication will, to a large extent, be by word of mouth. The difficulty with this is that it will be very hard to distinguish truth and facts from opinions, rumors and incorrect information. This will cause a lot of confusion with many isolated pockets of people.

With a prolonged power outage, the above scenario is exactly what will happen (and has happened to some extent recently). In addition to the great peril that the people of our country will be placed into through this process, if an enemy of the United States wishes to attack us; or an element of our own government wants to do away with democracy and turn us into a totalitarian state we will be very helpless to defend ourselves. (If this sounds far fetched, how many of you completely trust those in Washington? Surveys have shown very few.)

What we need to understand and do is the following:

1) We need to understand how we all are tied into regional and national power grids. Bigger is not always better vs. local area power sources that can act and provide power locally in an emergency. A large scale "grid" implies by its nature that when it goes down...everybody is without power! This is not a good thing. We need to not only FULLY understand this, but have a clear and publicly explained plan on how to prevent large scale power outages to a massive number of people. Currently this is all much too mysterious and it should NOT be.

2) There needs to be a national plan, well known and communicated, in the event of an emergency where very massive numbers of people are without power over an extended period of time. We should not be, as appears to be the current case, in a reactionary mode. It is clear that in the last several large scale power outages we definitely appear to be in a reactionary mode. This is unacceptable to the people of this country and unacceptable in regard to our national defense. All of us should have pasted up on our refrigerators what our national plan is, clear and simple, so we know what to expect and can plan for it. And how about the people in this country having a say about the whole thing?

3) At the local level there needs to be clear plans in the event of extended power outages. What can the people expect, what communications, emergency, and support mechanisms are in place? This is critical. There also needs to be a clear must list for families and individuals on what they need to do in order to prepare for extended power outages. They seem to be occurring at an increased rate due to weather and other causes. People need to know and prepare. The scenario above on what to expect with prolonged power outages is real!

We desperately need, on both the national and local levels, an emergency preparedness plan for long term power outages. NO matter what they say, we currently are reactionary and that is unacceptable.