31–40 of 310 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the country it's also easier to be raided by people who know or suspect you have food and water. One house with nothing around it for miles vs an apartment in a huge building, is basically hiding in a crowd.
Yeah rural folk may last longer then city folk in the short term but then consolidation comes and there are very few winners
I'd be curious if it would be better to be in the city or the country. My hunch is that the city requires more "inputs" to stay survivable (fewer food/water stockpiles available), dependant on inputs. However cities would also be the focus for recovery efforts and disaster relief. On the flip side, the country has a greater store of natural resources per-capita (water, likely food, heat sources), however would be dep…
I also think defense is easier in the city as neighbors can band together for local policing, but I think farms would be at risk from criminals who have a gas tank and don’t mind murdering people with no one around to help.
A lot of old Cold War preparatory war game scenarios start with EMPs blanketing the continental US. It only takes a few (like 1) nuclear weapon detonations in thin atmosphere (a few dozen km up) where the primary heat transfer mechanism is radiative (vs. convective, conductive) to cause enough EMP to take out pretty much the entire continental US grid. The military is fully hardened against EMP. Civilian infrastructu…
But is the military hardened against deserters, starving soldiers, starving military families, and so forth caused by civilian infrastructure collapse? I doubt it. If you can’t feed or heat/cool people, alliances quickly change - especially if you have no way of tracking who becomes AWOL. As far as I know, military bases don’t have their own nuclear reactors or coal plants. EDIT: Apparently the DoD requires diesel ba…
I'd be curious if it would be better to be in the city or the country. My hunch is that the city requires more "inputs" to stay survivable (fewer food/water stockpiles available), dependant on inputs. However cities would also be the focus for recovery efforts and disaster relief. On the flip side, the country has a greater store of natural resources per-capita (water, likely food, heat sources), however would be dep…
But, assuming an extended outage, it'll also be safer, and easier in the country. Until of course the city folk get hungry.
It'll all be good-will and friendly neighbors in the city until the food runs out. Then lawlessness will go through the roof, and, I expect, the dystopian future of so many movies kicks in.
Assuming fuel is scarce, country areas near the city will be raided first. After the first wave of starvations all pretence at civilization ends.
For texas-grid failure, there's at least hope from outside. If the hunger can be averted, country-side remains safe.
But outside of texas is a whole-country grid. If that comes down hunger will kick in, and texas alone won't have the resources to help.
The situation will get _really_bad before it gets better.
Ideally the grid would have the ability to come up one station at a time, feeding, and being fed by, the immediate area. But its rarely going to be that simple.
During the 2019 hurricane here in Nova Scotia people stole the fuel (and even a few generators somehow), so don’t even count on that.
We had no internet, cellular, or landline service for days where I live as a result, much less power. The only reliable communication option in a true disaster is as it always has been, amateur radio.
I think everyone should turn off their power for a couple of hours (when convenient) just to see if and how well they'd manage. Because it's so easy to become reliant on something without realizing that it could go. Powers gone off? Guess I'll put the kettle on and make some tea while I wait - no power. It's got a bit dark - put the light on. Listen to spotify? No songs downloaded and no data etc etc. And that's not…
A lot of old Cold War preparatory war game scenarios start with EMPs blanketing the continental US. It only takes a few (like 1) nuclear weapon detonations in thin atmosphere (a few dozen km up) where the primary heat transfer mechanism is radiative (vs. convective, conductive) to cause enough EMP to take out pretty much the entire continental US grid. The military is fully hardened against EMP. Civilian infrastructu…
I just rounded off my most recent expansion to 120kw peak production with 500kwh storage, all EMP hardened to well above carrington event levels.
Most of you have a house full of IoT crap dependent on AWS (region) to function.
A power outage disaster-hardened country has a populace that's deeply knowledgeable about self-governance, organized combat, agriculture, medicine, sanitation, power generation, engineering, textiles, supply logistics, and construction. If the citizens of a western country like the US somehow earned the free time and energy to start regularly studying and executing these skills for themselves and their neighbors, it would be disastrous for the profit margins of most industries. People would necessarily have to spend fewer hours in the workforce (@David Graeber, "Bullshit Jobs") completing nothing worthwhile and more time running a nation-state without money changing hands at every transaction of labor.
I have given up any hope of "power-outage" hardening at a large scale and have resolved to stash my own house with supplies, although I'd be quite vulnerable to raids in the long term.
You don't realize how much of a luxury and a blessing it is to have clean running water until it's no longer available. You can't flush the toilet, freshen up, shower, wash your dishes, or wash your clothes.
If you don't have a backup power generator, all the food in your fridge starts rotting in a few days.
There are so many luxuries which we take for granted up until they're taken away from us. Nature is cruel and harsh.