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Life after Losing the Electric Grid
The severity of what life would look like after a grid-down scenario depends on which scenario was the culprit. A cyber attack or physical attack on our infrastructure could leave the electric grid down for months and in some rural locations, years. A massive solar storm or small EMP would leave the grid down for six to eighteen months in most locations, but a Super EMP could cripple the grid for many years and fry most of the electronics we depend on. When dealing with a Super EMP attack, scientists have varying views on what percentage of small electronics would be affected. Either way, any national blackout, regardless of the reason for it, lasting for more than a week will result in major metropolitan areas descending into utter chaos and total anarchy. Anything longer than a few weeks and, in my opinion, this country will never fully recover. It will be survival of the fittest from that point forward.
Before we get into how losing the grid would affect you personally, let’s consider how it would affect the country as a whole. Today, America is the richest country in the world and every other industrialized nation leans on the US for our buying power. Since 1944, the US Dollar has been the world’s reserve currency and is what the central banks use to set exchange rates and the price of oil and other commodities. In recent years (due to irresponsible financial policies by our government) countries like China, Russia, and others have been working to replace the dollar on the world stage, which would have disastrous consequences for the US. The only reason they haven’t been successful to date is because they can’t offer a more viable alternative.
I believe the US Dollar would be replaced as the world’s currency very soon if not immediately following a national grid-down scenario. Think about it: no American has the ability to buy anything from stores or the internet without their credit cards and the stores can’t be restocked due to lack of transportation. Essentially, this shuts down all our imports from overseas. Our Stock Market would unofficially crash (unofficially because it would be closed for business without electricity). This would crash every other market around the globe, and Asian countries would especially nose dive without Americans being able to buy their exports for the foreseeable future. Many overseas factories would be forced to shut down, putting their employees out on the street without jobs, further exacerbating their own countries' woes. Mere weeks after the grid goes down, your dollar bills won’t be worth the paper they are printed on.
In contrast to other “experts” who have written about the aftermath of a SHTF scenario in America, I believe the ensuing global financial collapse would seriously hamper the ability of our UN partners from coming to our aid in the aftermath. I’m sure some European countries and maybe even Russia and China would pitch in for a short while, sending us some cargo ships with food...but for how long? They are going to be experiencing their own financial collapses, record unemployment, and likely social unrest. They are going to need to focus their resources on helping their own populace. Even if they did send large amounts of food for an extended period of time, how would that food get distributed? We would have 300+ MILLION starving Americans scattered across an enormous land mass with no infrastructure or way to transport food throughout the country! You’ve seen the movies and videos depicting when we deliver food to starving refugees in developing nations. It’s total mayhem with the stronger men beating up women and children to get a small bag of rice. Could you imagine a container ship of food arriving in New York City’s harbor with TEN MILLION angry and starving people stampeding the docks? Again, it would be total mayhem, and my suggestion is to stay far away from these types of scenarios because they will be absolutely deadly environments!
In a nutshell, I believe our country would cease to exist in any realistic fashion shortly after losing the grid. The EMP Commission Report and Lloyd’s of London talk about how it would cause trillions of dollars in damage to our economy. With half the US population dead from starvation, sickness and murder after six months and eighty to ninety percent dead after the first year, why would you even fix the grid? And who’s going to accept our worthless dollars? EMP Commissioner Lowell Wood calls an EMP attack a “giant continental time machine that would move us back more than a century in technology to the late 1800s.” The problem is that is our infrastructure is completely different than it was in the 1800’s. We aren’t set up to live like the people did 150 years ago. It’s not like you could open up a Sears and Roebuck catalog and order a horse drawn plow from your local general store like they do in Western movies. Today, it’s nearly impossible to find the tools and supplies that were needed to live before electricity! In fact, most of those pre-electric tools aren’t even in circulation anymore.
Most people expect to see the US government step in during a national crisis like this, but don’t hedge your bets on that because it CAN’T happen. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for taking control in the case of national disasters. They have plans in place for all types of scenarios; however, as of today, they have not put together a plan for feeding 300+ million starving Americans following an EMP attack, solar flare, or long-term loss of the electric grid. I predict they never will put forth a plan because it is an impossible undertaking. What you have to realize is that FEMA was only designed for localized tragedies and disasters like hurricanes, not for a national scenario like a grid-down event. Right now the US government only has 6 million MREs (emergency meals) stockpiled for just such emergencies. Now here is a simple math question for you: How long do you think 6 million MREs are going to feed a country of over 300 million people? Not even a single day. “What about the military?” you ask. Most people are unaware that 99% of the US military is completely reliant on the civilian electric grid. Most bases have diesel generators for backup that would only last a few hours to a day at most. Please read the Department of Defense report titled “Small Nuclear Reactors for Military Installations: Capabilities, Costs, and Technological Implications” in which the US military is trying to get mini nuclear reactors for each base to make themselves self-reliant. Hint: it’s not going to happen in the next decade at best. In fact, the report states:
“DOD is unable to provide its bases with electricity when the civilian electrical grid is offline for an extended period of time. Currently, domestic military installations receive 99 percent of their electricity from the civilian power grid.... Most military bases currently have backup power that allows them to function for a period of hours or, at most, a few days on their own. If power were not restored after this amount of time, the results could be disastrous. First, military assets taken offline by the crisis would not be available to help with disaster relief. Second, during an extended blackout, global military operations could be seriously compromised.... During the Cold War, this type of event was far less likely because the United States and Soviet Union shared the common understanding that blinding an opponent with a grid blackout could escalate to nuclear war. America’s current opponents, however, may not share this fear or be deterred by this possibility.... Even with massive investment in efficiency and renewables, most bases would not be able to function for more than a few days after the civilian grid went offline.”
So you think the US government is going to step in and save you? They are not going to help you in a grid-down scenario because they are in the same boat as you. The government CAN NOT feed 300+ million Americans without our critical infrastructure intact. Please realize right now that you are on your own! My bet is that politicians will be shipped to some underground mountain to ride out the storm while you and I figure out how to survive on our own. When the grid goes dark and you start picking up government reports on your battery-powered radio telling you that all is well and help is on the way, do not believe them! I have just given you the concrete evidence that they can’t help and they are lying to you. Those messages will be designed to try and keep people calm and they will lie as long as they can to prevent panic.
Lastly, if you have any survival skills whatsoever, the absolute WORST thing you can do is go to a government camp or specific location where they promise food and safety. These “Green Zones” will quickly become overcrowded and rife with disease and violence. If you have no other options, then go ahead and roll the dice, but when the people there start to starve and realize the government lied to them and can’t feed them, it’s going to get really ugly at those locations. Look at the Super Dome after Hurricane Katrina with the violence, theft, rapes, murders, and overflowing unsanitary conditions. It’s an ugly scenario but one that was only a localized disaster and it only lasted for a few days! Could you imagine weeks and months of living like that? Most people who go there will eventually die or flee the horrible living conditions and disease.