Power Outage/ The Whole Country(uk) Grinds To A Halt.

Good morning Lone Wolf,

From the prepper perspective, it does not matter if the power loss was due to a cyber attack or seagulls damaging the wind farm and bacteria closing down Little Bedford.

The power loss still affects the population. Can't Brussels HQ, EU immediately dispatch some power-generating ships to UK ?

In lieu of a post card, answer enroute by carrier seagull infected by bacteria.

 

Good morning Lone Wolf,

There are frequent power outages here. I do believe in social Darwinism. The headache with my belief is that I must fund via indirect taxes and user fees the extra costs to support our equivalent trash without flashlights and driving on dangerous roads during adverse weather while talking on their phones.

At the low level I am involved in politics to change above. So far, slow but strong progress being made.

 

The whole country certainly did not grind to a halt.

Torches of smart phones came in handy, they use next to no power.

It was just an inconvenience that lasted a couple of hours, no big deal, the streets were not awash with blood, it was not like Purge night, mainly just a bunch of pissed off commuters.

 

Good morning Duke in Wales,

Getting driven home after surgery with no lights on in house was an inconvenience.

No street lights on road where police officer was driving on to station to report for daily shift; an inconvenience.

One delayed commuter missed the meeting and his / her / its London-based company lost the export sale. True; no hostile military attack; just an inconvenience.

I personally like my dentist's office to have power at all times when I'm there. I calibrate inconveniences somewhat differently.

 

Here in the U.S.:
We were on the same power grid as the hospital and rarely went without power, for 13 years. Once we were without power for maybe 3 hrs. Don't live there anymore.
Having a battery operated radio would be a way to find out if the zombies were on the move. I suppose most folks don't use those anymore (radios).
Winter ice storms and blizzards frequently knock out power for millions of homes and businesses. I can't imagine not having a fireplace and firewood in a situation like that.

 

It was off for 15 minutes. (Sorry, just now read your linked story). FIFTEEN MINUTES. I imagine there's a bit of wariness that it would stay on. Honey, did you pay the electric bill? Remember landlines? They'd still work here, but not many use them.

 

One million is very much a minority. Don't read into the situation stuff thats not there. Just an awkward couple of hours. The grid system did its job well, shut down some sectors to maintain power to the majority. My nephew phoned me this morning, he lives in West Central London, he did the sensible thing and went for a pint then a curry

The rail network did NOT grind to a nation wide scale.

 

I agree LW, millennials were upset by it all

 

I can't speak about the UK but in the US, we are running on borrowed time. One of the flaws of Democracy and American Style Capitalism is that both the government and the big corporations are to some extent ruled by people that are only interested in THEIR individual benefits. Voters and stockholders are totally focused on getting as much as they can for themselves. That means that the Government and the Board of directors, if they want to stay in office, will have to balance what is needed by the company to operate successfully and what the stockholders and voters will pay for and allow.

This means that all decisions are based on a short-term basis. If you plan too far into the future at the cost of today’s gratification, then you won't BE THERE in that future because if the voters don't like the price that they personally have to pay, they will vote you out.

The infrastructure in the US is getting old. We have hundreds of bridges that need to be replaced. The power grid was never intended to carry the load that it is carrying now as it was originally designed, and it is more fragile that you can imagine. The cost to bring it up to date would be enormous and in order to do it the price for power would possibly double. and the profits for the stockholders while this was being done would plummet. Now also understand that what the utility companies can charge is regulated by the state governments. If they were to let the price of power double how do you think that they would do in the next election?

We have a problem. It isn't new. In the past what usually happened is before things reached a cataclysmic end the federal government would step in and finance the absolutely necessary work. They did it by printing money and not by doing it with real money. Basically they "borrowed" the money. We now have a trillion-dollar national debt and the interest on that loan is unbelievable. If we had to deal with a nationwide repair and update it would bankrupt us.

I expect to see the government starting to find ways to make us use less power. As long as they do it in small initial things over time, they can get away with it just as they have done with the cars we drive. the problem is that we are RACING towards a problem and I'm not sure that we have the time for gentle slowing down. If you are diving a car real fast and see that a wall is across the road, what happens if you break gently because if you make the passengers spill their drinks you will be fired. On the other hand, if you don't stomp on the breaks you are going to crash.

We in the US are nearing this sort of problem is SEVERAL areas. The power grid needs massive updating, our communication systems are over their designed capacity. The bridges, levies and our rail system all are old and will become an increasing problem. The taxpayers and stockholders are NOT going to want to pay for fixing the problem and anyone that tries to make them will be tossed out in the street ASAP.

????? What are or CAN we do? What WILL we do? Probably nothing is my guess. We are going to hit the wall eventually...

 

American city dwellers are a tough breed. When the power goes out, they drop what ever they are doing and start looting. Get the new big screen TV.

 

Good morning all,

I thought that about a third of the UK national grad was owned by CK Holdings of Hong Kong.

 

I really doubt that, unless you mean some sort of HAM radio, and even then you'd be dependent on someone else in your area having one and using the same frequency to relay reports.

Commercial radio stations aren't much help during widespread power outages.

 

Good afternoon Snyper,

You've got a good point.

There are plans with tests for some commercial radio stations to broadcast. It's the contemporary version of the old Civil Defense 640 and 1240 "Conalrad" (forgot what this means/stands for) stations marked on the radio's selection band by the 2 triangles.

I'm told that the only broadcasts that are reliable will be shortwave.

 

Remembering the power black outs and brown outs in the U.S. back in...2005?

My power company rep told me the more I use the cheaper my rate.

 

Check list for what you will need for a permanent power grid down _ Natural and reliable water source , natural and reliable food source , year around shelter , cooking and heating ability , way to procure fuel for heating and cooking , motorized equipment and transportation not needed . Fail to cover these basics and a person is set up for survival failure .