What would you do if the electrical grid went down?

a reply to: Xtrozero

I've been teaching my fiance how to shoot. Our main course of meat would be wild game. Squirrels, turkeys, rabbits, deer, and hog.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: LSU0408

They'd probably look like the rebel groups on the walking dead. I'd hate to be there if/when it happens though. Phew.

My first experience with stores being empty was when I lived in San Antonio. A hurricane came up the Gulf and had a chance to San Antonio where it would be rather weak by then. The day they announced this might happen I went to the store and everything was sold out already, and people were panicking in an almost scary situation. I went home and filled up the bath tubs hoping nothing bad happen. Well that was a lesson for me and today I could not leave my house for 6 months if need be. If you do not already have what you need you will never get it if you do not want to battle a mob.

Was that Hurricane Rita? The after storms of that hurricane slaughtered us up here in NW Louisiana... If SHTF, I doubt many will know as soon as I do in that small town, so if I'm not prepared by then, I'll make haste to the little store a mile away.

a reply to: LSU0408
Having lived a good part of my life where electricity is iffy on a god day, I have no problem with having to go without it. That means I have to hand pump water from the well, or carry it from the pond, but as long as water is available, I'm okay with it.

I think it would be a good idea to teach your mate how to trap for food. Shooting small game is a waste of bullets, which will become a precious commodity, and it makes it easy for others to track you down. I would avoid any open fires, unless necessary, as they are also good location markers. Meat can be preserved by salting and drying. Doesn't require a fire.

Not quite as devastating as a hurricane - But I was living in one of the towns affected by the 2011 Queensland Floods. That was my personal eye-opener as an adult how people react when impending danger is at hand. We had the warning, basically, "Be aware. This town could be flooded. Prepare." And the masses of people! Fighting over the literal last loaf of bread! It was amazing. My family has always been pretty well-stocked, used to it, cyclone country though I've never personally experienced one. They always dwindle by the time they get to me.

Think that was my favourite time living in that town actually. The main "city" of the town was flooded, and my area over the bridge was quiet and peaceful, not a car nor soul around. Ahhh.

But it was that moment that I realised how insane people can be and to never let my pantry supply dwindle. So if SHTF for a short amount of time, we have a little over a month. As for a "forever" scenario, if that ever happens hopefully we'll be in our little middle-of-nowhere self-sustainable house living with barely any power and such anyway.

Reading on an "off the grid" site, I came across an article from August 2015 that spoke about a power grid failure and came across this comment. Interesting.

An EMP is far different than a CME. An Emp generated three phases of destruction. What is lacking in a CME if the first phase – the high energy pulse that is so quick, it destroys the insulation between the gate and channel within modern day semiconductors. The other two phases – much longer in duration but not so deadly to semiconductors – they tend to destroy things connected to the power grid because of the very long transmission lines.

An EMP is localized to a given region below the initial blast and might last for several minutes – maybe even a couple hours, before any residual artifacts dissipate. The entire continental U.S, Northern Mexico and Southern Canada would experience a permanent power outage. On the other hand, a CME is long in duration and, because the world turns, may well affect most of the planet.

In the end, from a personal perspective, how technology is killed, it’s still dead technology. Whether it was a false-flag by our own criminal regime up in the District of Corruption, a rogue state government, terrorist or a CME, once the event takes place, the world as you knew it will no longer exist.

As for the super transformers, it is said that it would take something like ten years to replace the first one and… get this, they seem to be only manufactured in China! How does that work for you?

If a double digit Mega-class CME event or a nuke was detonated about 300 miles over the state of Kansas, the U.S. would be without any meaningful energy for at least 10 years.

But it gets much worse! There are about 120 nuclear power plants distributed across the U.S. Without grid power or an abundance of Diesel fuel, much of the U.S. would become a nuclear waste land in less than 4 weeks. That is, the U.S. will have a catastrophic nuclear event, about 120 times worse than what Fulishima is today. Oh! And one other thing, about 30 of the U.S. nuclear reactors are of the same exact design as those at Fukishima!

Between the loss of gardening skills, use of hand tools, the 65% of the U.S. population on some form of emotion stabilizing drug, the welfare class, gangs, race and ethnic wars, 90% of the U.S. population would be dead within 12 months!

If you haven’t been preparing for such an event, your choices is beg, steel or starve!

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Trapping is a good idea. I have an abundance of .22 bullets and they wouldn't even penetrate the skin of a hog. My father-in-law killed a buck with a .22, but I'm not to sure I could with such a small bullet. It'd probably die on someone elses property.

You have to remember that this isn't just about living without electricity with the rest of your neighborhood, but instead the entire nation and there will be millions of desperate people. I wonder though, would natural gas lines still work? My stove is gas, but takes electric to light the pilot. So while I can't use my oven (which has digital buttons), I can still use my stove top as long as I have a match to light the gas when I turn it on when I have no electricity.

I know people would eventually find the neighborhood I live in, but it would take a long time. I'm on the outskirts of a 3 square mile town that's 25 miles away from the nearest big city.

originally posted by: kaelci
Not quite as devastating as a hurricane - But I was living in one of the towns affected by the 2011 Queensland Floods. That was my personal eye-opener as an adult how people react when impending danger is at hand. We had the warning, basically, "Be aware. This town could be flooded. Prepare." And the masses of people! Fighting over the literal last loaf of bread! It was amazing. My family has always been pretty well-stocked, used to it, cyclone country though I've never personally experienced one. They always dwindle by the time they get to me.

Think that was my favourite time living in that town actually. The main "city" of the town was flooded, and my area over the bridge was quiet and peaceful, not a car nor soul around. Ahhh.

But it was that moment that I realised how insane people can be and to never let my pantry supply dwindle. So if SHTF for a short amount of time, we have a little over a month. As for a "forever" scenario, if that ever happens hopefully we'll be in our little middle-of-nowhere self-sustainable house living with barely any power and such anyway.

They say 18 months minimum. But since you're in Australia, if a big enough CME hit us, the way the Earth spins, if the CME was long enough, it would effect most of the world.

In Oct 2012, my little town was rocked by an explosion on the old Army ammo plant. Matter of fact, that's when I joined here because we were getting lies from the feds and I was looking to expose the real truth, but they evacuated the whole town because during investigations, they found 10 million pounds of exposed explosives and gun powder. We didn't have to leave since we were on the outskirts, but I remember most of us stayed home instead of going to the store or anything because we knew that people would try to break in our homes since we were supposed to evacuate. A house down the road and around the corner belonged to an elderly couple in their 80's. Around 2am they heard a knock on their front door. The elderly lady got up out of bed and saw three people on the outside. Since nobody came to the door (she was too slow), they assumed noone was home and ran around to the back door. She shot one in the neck, the other two ran. Other than that, everything was pretty peaceful. Moreso than normal.

Rollover and go back to bed,

play with my phone till it died. then id go for the 357 and start makin moves.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: LSU0408

If that did happen i imagine we should be more worried about the numerous nuclear reactors located throughout the globe that would melt down due to there being no working backup power generation for the cooling systems.

The reactor I worked on, a long time ago, had Cadmium vanes to lower into the core to stop high levels of reaction taking place, for work on the reactor and as a fail safe, I presume all reactors have some sort of fail safe?

originally posted by: pikestaff

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: LSU0408

If that did happen i imagine we should be more worried about the numerous nuclear reactors located throughout the globe that would melt down due to there being no working backup power generation for the cooling systems.

The reactor I worked on, a long time ago, had Cadmium vanes to lower into the core to stop high levels of reaction taking place, for work on the reactor and as a fail safe, I presume all reactors have some sort of fail safe?

There was a thread on here yesterday about some suspicious guys in MO wanting to go look at the Bagnell Dam Power Plant...

As for your post, I've read that there are rods that can be lowered into a nuclear reactor in case something like this happens. It's supposed to suck in all the atoms or whatever it is that makes these things heat up so much. Is that what you're talking about?

a reply to: LSU0408

Plenty of wild hogs where you're at.

originally posted by: Signals
a reply to: LSU0408

Plenty of wild hogs where you're at.

Absolutely... What region of LA are you in? I'm in the NW. Two parishes east of bordering TX and my parish borders AR.

a reply to: pikestaff

Those fail safes require power and more than lightly do not fall into place on there own or even have a mechanical release I imagine. And what's the bet they are insufficiently shielded regarding any significant emp burst or Carrington event?

My crash plan for 'if the electrical grid goes down' is like this, in no particular order:

1) Immediately stop drinking alcohol ... as it would be needed for other purposes, like sterilizing things, and *Hopefully not but possibly* anesthesia. I am a functional alcoholic ... so that is #1 for me to do first, but I can do it, especially if the grid goes down, because I'll be too busy crapping my pants!

2) Save and protect all potable water, and get water filters out for later

3) Take stock of all survival supplies, food, and medicines (including protecting insulin from freezing or getting too warm for my diabetic family members, depending on the time of the year)

4) Check on immediate neighbors pretty fast ... and get on the same page with those folks about what we all have and/or need

5) Join a neighborhood 'watch', and put up a guard at home, for safety

6) Make sure members of the family are all armed with weapons they can handle, at all times if possible

7) Listen to the hand crank radio intermittently for any 'news'

8) Get prepared for the electricity to be out for a long time .... and try not to freak out too much

originally posted by: LSU0408
There was a thread on here yesterday about some suspicious guys in MO wanting to go look at the Bagnell Dam Power Plant...

As for your post, I've read that there are rods that can be lowered into a nuclear reactor in case something like this happens. It's supposed to suck in all the atoms or whatever it is that makes these things heat up so much. Is that what you're talking about?

Nuclear reactor design going back to I think even first generation reactors use a system for the control rods where they're lowered in from the top, that way even if something goes critically wrong they can be gravity fed into the reactor to shut down the chain reaction.

The big issue with Nuclear Power Plants though is that that failsafe doesn't do everything, and in order to maintain other safety devices the power plants require a certain level of electrical input. They normally use some of the electricity they create with a diesel generator for backup. With no electricity there would be a few issues because the reactions can't be fully stopped, only slowed down.

a reply to: LSU0408

Just south of Shreveport...my family owns some land close to Spearsville / Lockhart. It's overrun with hogs.

a reply to: Fowlerstoad

Not bad...

a reply to: Signals

Wow, what a small world. I'm 25 miles east of Shreveport.

The security of our power grid and the serious threat of a terrorist attack on it was asked in the GOP debate last night.

I've been hearing more and more about the threat of a PG failure lately. Is this something we need to start thinking about and preparing for on a serious note?

I live 5 houses down from my parent's in the country. My sister is about 3 miles south. I texted her last night to make a plan. I told her if her power ever goes out and her phone doesn't work, car doesn't start, to stay put. Told her I'd go round my parents up and we'd head her way.

Is it stupid to make a plan just in case for this?

*Will add to my OP.

Edit: Never mind, I won't add to my OP.