"Lights Out" Ted Koppel

[Brent S]

“People expect way to much from the Government, our Government wasn't designed to take care of us, don't rely on the government including FEMA, folks in this Country needs to get off their fxxken ### and learn to fend for themselves!”
Amen

 

[brandx]

Logistically, even a local outage for any longer than a week is going to be problematic. While most rural residents were out about 5 days due to Irma, most businesses were only out 2 days max. I'd hate to see it if the businesses were down for 5 days or more. (including hospitals, etc.)

I think it is important for people to know how to live primitively. That is without electricity. The reason is because electricity has to be produced by fuel, wind or sun or water. Most people can't afford solar power or live in areas where solar is feasible. I can't afford it and where I live and have support I don't have good wind or sun or moving water. The weather constantly changing here. I feel that being able to survive without being dependent on power is pretty important. I often think to myself when performing a task, "How would I do this without electricity?". I am not that far removed from the generation that lived without. My great grandparents lived not far from here, no electricity or city water. Water came from the well with a hand crank "GEM" pump, and outhouse, a wood stove and kerosene lamps. Farming was done with the horse or mule. Walked to church down the road. I think if that situation came up, as in long periods of going without power, people would double up.
Scary to think of the dying off period though. Many of the things we see as necessary really aren't.

 

[jimLE]

It turns out that I have the 27 page sample book. so that means that I need to get the full version of it.

 

[DrHenley]

There are emergency plans on paper and then there are actual emergency plans. Preppers have actual real emergency plans. Government and business's have paper plans.

As Prussian Chief of Staff, Helmuth von Moltke famously said "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

I saw this repeated over and over when I was on a Red Cross Disaster Action Team in the late 70's. I only ONCE ever witnessed a disaster plan that actually "survived contact with the enemy" - that was in Leakesville, MS after Hurricane Frederick. It was AMAZING!!! The whole town just did what they were supposed to (well except for the jackass Civil Defense Director, but they got along just fine in spite of him) Most places after natural disasters..."Disaster Plan??? Say...What???"

 

[brandx]

“the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”,
(idiomatic)A proverbial expression used to signify the futility of making detailed plans when the ability to fully or even partially execute them is uncertain.

Ain't it the truth though.

 

[Gazrok]

Still, it's better than NO plan at all.

 

[bigpaul]

I did read a long time ago that if the power grid goes down, that's the British power grid, no transformers or other parts are kept in stock, its down to the old "just in time" delivery method again, it would take about 3 months to order, make and ship each individual part, if more than just one has failed it would take 2 years to replace the entire system, that's 2 years without power, not only would the economy be down the pan by that time but about 90% of the population would have died of starvation, dehydration, disease and violence.

 

[Maverick]

I seen our local power company has moved new big distribution transformers as spares to the sub stations, also seen CAT generators replace the old smaller generators going in at distribution stations, looks like the BPA (the BPA is Federal) is storing extra LPT transformers. The Government is getting replacements on hand for standby!

 

[Arcticdude]

I've got my own power plant. Don't really care about what happens to commercial power.

 

[Brent S]

I've got my own power plant. Don't really care about what happens to commercial power.

Most will likely never be able to produce all their own power, but I believe that being able to produce some is important. I’m not worried about running an AC but hope to cover most other things. One thing to think of is hot water dosent need electricity, you can use a rooftop reservoir to heat it all day, solar without the need for ‘juice. Cooking on a rocket stove dosent require lots of fuel. You can cool vegetables in a zeer pot to make them last longer. There are many things to learn with living without the grid.

 

[Arcticdude]

Most will likely never be able to produce all their own power, but I believe that being able to produce some is important. I’m not worried about running an AC but hope to cover most other things. One thing to think of is hot water dosent need electricity, you can use a rooftop reservoir to heat it all day, solar without the need for ‘juice. Cooking on a rocket stove dosent require lots of fuel. You can cool vegetables in a zeer pot to make them last longer. There are many things to learn with living without the grid.

Some good ideas Brent. The solar electric system that I installed will provide 100% of our electric needs, including the shop. During winter I expect the generator to kick in occasionally to supplement our electric needs. When I get the new well in I may need to add another solar array and additional batteries to the system. We have propane for cooking and water heat plus a flat top wood stove that can be used for cooking also.

 

[bigpaul]

i'm not personally bothered about electricity, I have lived without it and can do so again, just keep everything simple.
electricity has only been in UK houses since the early 1930s that's not even a century yet, many places even less than that, but every time there is a winter storm and a power cut you would think its the end of the world by some on the comments! I don't give much hope for the human race once the power goes down.

 

[Arcticdude]

i'm not personally bothered about electricity, I have lived without it and can do so again, just keep everything simple.
electricity has only been in UK houses since the early 1930s that's not even a century yet, many places even less than that, but every time there is a winter storm and a power cut you would think its the end of the world by some on the comments! I don't give much hope for the human race once the power goes down.

I've lived without electricity too, but why bother when I can make my own? There's still many areas in the US that don't have commercial power available, and many more people are choosing to make their own power.
I do agree with you that the majority of people in city and urban areas won't handle the loss of power very well.

 

[Maverick]

Honestly, it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit if grid gone down and stayed down, though electricity is nice and make thing a little more comfortable but it doesn't change the fact it's not necessarily needed where I'm at.

 

[DrPrepper]

I've lived without electricity too, but why bother when I can make my own? There's still many areas in the US that don't have commercial power available, and many more people are choosing to make their own power.
I do agree with you that the majority of people in city and urban areas won't handle the loss of power very well.

Life as we know it would come to a screeching halt where I live. I live around a lot of uppity people who think they are entitled and “deserve” certain treatment. Without something as basic as electricity, they would crumble and die in a couple of days.

 

[jimLE]

Only time I get uppity, or what ever. Is whenever someone won't lift a finger to prepare for a short term outage. By buying a flashlight n batteries.. I've had ppl say. Oh I have a candle. I bite my tongue, and think. Your older then me and don't you know how dangerous that is if you don't do that right. And fall asleep?.

 

[Brent S]

Life as we know it would come to a screeching halt where I live. I live around a lot of uppity people who think they are entitled and “deserve” certain treatment. Without something as basic as electricity, they would crumble and die in a couple of days.

I think life as we know it would change drastically across the whole country. Sure some would be fine, but the vast majority would suffer. The economy would collapse within three weeks.

 

[DrPrepper]

Only time I get uppity, or what ever. Is whenever someone won't lift a finger to prepare for a short term outage. By buying a flashlight n batteries.. I've had ppl say. Oh I have a candle. I bite my tongue, and think. Your older then me and don't you know how dangerous that is if you don't do that right. And fall asleep?.

Some examples of uppity (too high toned) around here are:

1. Police go into a local high school to teach safety to kids and parents. The policeman uses the word "rape" in his presentation and one of the mom's was offended that he used the word (true story).
2. Local moms group on Facebook decided they weren't going to let their kids see the movie "Avengers Infinity Wars" because many of the superheros in the movie die (sort of) at the end. They thought it would be too traumatizing for the kids to witness the end of life of their favorite characters.
3. There was a debate about building a new high school football stadium and it was mentioned several times that our kids "deserve" a nice place to play football.
4. I had man come in to our office all depressed because his Porsche needed 25K in maintenance and repairs. He wasn't upset about the money because he admitted that he had that. He was disappointed because it only had 20 K miles on it and it already needed that much work ... the car is almost 20 years old..
5. Some kid took his parents BMW out to the local fast food place. He yelled and screamed (for no reason) at the car hop incredibly insulting things. Someone took a picture of the licence plate and posted on the Facebook city page to alert the parents of the kids behavior. There was a big uproar when the parents were insulted that this stranger did such a thing. They tried to turn it more on the stranger for posting rather than addressing their kids stupid behavior.

Yeah..if the lights ever go out on these people.... they are screwed.

 

[Brent S]

Some examples of uppity (too high toned) around here are:

1. Police go into a local high school to teach safety to kids and parents. The policeman uses the word "rape" in his presentation and one of the mom's was offended that he used the word (true story).
2. Local moms group on Facebook decided they weren't going to let their kids see the movie "Avengers Infinity Wars" because many of the superheros in the movie die (sort of) at the end. They thought it would be too traumatizing for the kids to witness the end of life of their favorite characters.
3. There was a debate about building a new high school football stadium and it was mentioned several times that our kids "deserve" a nice place to play football.
4. I had man come in to our office all depressed because his Porsche needed 25K in maintenance and repairs. He wasn't upset about the money because he admitted that he had that. He was disappointed because it only had 20 K miles on it and it already needed that much work ... the car is almost 20 years old..
5. Some kid took his parents BMW out to the local fast food place. He yelled and screamed (for no reason) at the car hop incredibly insulting things. Someone took a picture of the licence plate and posted on the Facebook city page to alert the parents of the kids behavior. There was a big uproar when the parents were insulted that this stranger did such a thing. They tried to turn it more on the stranger for posting rather than addressing their kids stupid behavior.

Yeah..if the lights ever go out on these people.... they are screwed.

I’ve got to admit, the stupidity of this made me smile!

 

[tmttactical]

The stupidity makes me smile too and prep all the harder. Stupid is not contagious but it is dangerous.