Cartoon 836: All Our Eggs in…

A couple of years ago a storm came through and we lost electric power. On the other rare occasions of power failures, the longest was approximately 12 hours. The norm was about 4 hours. Therefore my expectations were in the 12 hour range for this storm. The temperatures during this period of time was in the 100 plus degree range. No air conditioning was a real hardship.

My telephone landline was a causality of the power failure because of lines down. Even FIOS was interrupted. The fiber trunk cables are aerial. People were fooled because all the distribution cable to the home is buried. The first thing to go next was my cell phone. I suspect my carrier’s local cell site did not have adequate backup power. Neighbors with other carriers had no problem. One neighbor loaned me a cell phone on one of their accounts.

The 12 hours went by with no indication of when repairs would be made. Naturally no power meant no internet, no television and no microwave. Schools and businesses were closed the first few days. Even service stations were closed.

I started to get concerned about the refrigerator and freezer. I drove to Wal-Mart to get ice. Traffic lights were out. Wal-Mart was closed. Someone out front said it was because of the power failure. A neighbor across the street knew of a location some miles away to get ice. Everyday they made the run. The ice was inadequate in maintaining refrigerator and freezer temperatures after several days.

By the 5^th day there was still no word. However there was hope. One block in the development got electricity back. A couple more days passed. Still no power. Things were very depressing.

Finally after seven days power returned. I discarded all the food in the refrigerator and freezer. My landline did not come back. A couple of days later, and lots of escalations, it came back. My telco provided internet was still out. I spend hours every day on the phone trying to get them to restore service [India tech support had no control over actual work performed in America]. It took another seven days. They had refused to contemplate multiple problems.

What did I learn? Everything depends on electricity in some way. Your psychology changes with the absence of the familiar. No electricity and our society as we know it fails. We need a civil defense program like that doing the Cold War to address an extended power outage emergency.

Everyone admits we are on borrowed time with the electric grid. When it fails, it will be catastrophic lasting months, if not years [solar flare].