The store I work for actually has a massive back-up generator integrated into the store, installed when the place was built. It gets tested once a month. Not sure how long it can run before needing to be refueled.
Ours doesn’t. With Hurricane Isabel (or maybe Irene? - this was in 2003 or so) our house lost power for a few hours - but when we got power back on, we had no water, as half the county’s water supply was not working due to the pumps being without power.
A smaller town, with a nice tall water tower, might be in better shape for a day or two.
Yeah, the one for the city I work for doesn’t either. I mean, based on what I know (I work in IT, but with the Water dept) they could probably run some stuff for a while without power, like maybe some of the flood control stuff, and maybe some of the remotely controlled valves, but I’m pretty sure the pump stations run off of mains electricity. In fact, they were saying that random power loss to pump stations was a big factor in their challenges last February during the severe winter weather in Texas.
From my experience last year in Texas? The water stops in about 18-24 hours. Once the electricity, then the water, then finally the natural gas stop flowing, things go pear-shaped quickly.
It’s difficult to answer the OP’s question from a strict, FQ viewpoint. But my observations from two personal events lead me to question the “we’ll all come together and share while singing kum-ba-yah” narrative. My experience has been markedly different in such situations, and watching the proliferation of selfish, entitled assholes for the last few years hasn’t improved my outlook any.
The first problem is that most of the US population is thoroughly incompetent at any type of long-range planning. Not only does the average citizen live paycheck-to-paycheck, corporate yahoos do the same, but hide it behind clever names like “just-in-time” etc.
The second problem is that once stuff goes wrong, this same incompetent majority immediately expects their government “mommy” to force the rest of us to rescue them. Whether an airline CEO begging congress for a public bail-out, or a neighbor insisting others “distribute” their supplies, it’s the same old trope – “he planned ahead and has more – make him share!”
My personal experience is that the overwhelming majority of people have failed to prepare for even small-scale outages or shortages, and will be in dire straits within a few days. And as such, will begin looking at those who have planned ahead, with both jealousy and entitlement. It doesn’t take long.
Here are the observations from my journal during the Texas deep freeze last year, as I watched my neighborhood deteriorate via social media posts (collated into an email to a relative). Spoilered due to length.
My wife and I watched this disaster play out in our area (West edge of DFW), much like we watch all of them. We occasionally looked at neighborhood social media to get news updates, and got a look at the planning abilities of our neighbors and fellow citizens.
This is what we saw:
Many posted they were out of food and seeking information about open restaurants after only 48 hours.
We looked at our 2-month store of canned, frozen and freeze-dried food… and shook our heads in amazement.
Their water had stopped and they wanted info about buying some from the (now empty) stores.
We looked at our months+ storage of potable and non-potable water (375 gallons)… and shook our heads in amazement.
They couldn’t flush their toilets because there was no pressure, and no water in their houses to use.
We looked at the large non-potable water containers prepared and ready, with the battery powered pump I’d rigged up to refill and flush ours… and shook our heads in amazement.
They were desperate to drive somewhere and buy supplies, but couldn’t get up the hill on the ice.
We looked at the row of containers on the shelf, each with fitted tire chains (a set for every vehicle we own)… and shook our heads in amazement.
Their heat was off and their houses were freezing.
We looked at our primary and backup generators and associated fuel supplies… and shook our heads in amazement.
They were desperate for any firewood, from anywhere and would pay anything.
We looked at row after row of firewood stacks, chest high and 8 feet long, drying in the shed… and shook our heads in amazement.
They couldn’t light their fireplace because they didn’t have any starter/kindling materials.
We looked at the ammo boxes filled with firestarter logs in our shed… and shook our heads in amazement.
They couldn’t even cook on the grill, because they were out of propane, and none was available anywhere due to the shortage.
We looked at the row of propane tanks in the storage shed… and shook our heads in amazement.
Their houses had now gone below freezing and pipes were bursting, and “OMG, the plumber’s not answering his phone!”
We looked at our water shutoff valves, and the tools to operate them, and the row of pipe antifreeze bottles on the shelf (just in case)… and shook our heads in amazement.
They can’t get out of their garage, because the power’s off and the door won’t work. (Seriously?)
We looked at our solar-charged battery backups for garage and gate… and shook our heads in amazement.
They frantically messaged each other about where to buy gas, because their tanks were empty.
We looked at our store of diesel and gasoline… and shook our heads in amazement.
And on, and on, and on.
As in most disasters, we watched as the unprepared cried, begged, wailed about their predicament and hoped someone would help them. Us? We smoked some ribs on the patio, watched DVDs, and warmed ourselves by a roaring fire.
It did not take long during this to see posts about “Hey, someone on [road] has a generator! Maybe we can all go there to [get warm/charge phones/etc.].” This prompted me to re-plan in some ways for maintaining our house with fewer decibels for the next time. And there will be a next time.
The other scenario occurred several years ago, while stranded in a snow/ice storm on the interstate. The incompetent and unprepared (almost everyone) were there for around 18 hours and needed rescue via various agencies as they slowly ran out of fuel. We had taken the unprecedented step of checking the weather, and packing sufficient supplies to either hunker down and keep warm, or power our way out of it overland (we chose the latter).
A message I composed about it (also spoilered cuz length):
Heavy icing, blowing snow and highway shutdown (100+ miles from home). I was driving my pickup w extra portable fuel tanks and a variety of supplies beneath a camper shell over the truck’s bed. I had insulated winter clothes, a small generator and extension cords, a camp stove with soups, coffee and other foods. Also extra water, an electric blanket and a small chemical toilet, along with hiking boots, jacks, and winching equipment. We spent about 7 hours stuck with hundreds of other cars, and my family was warm, well-fed, able to pee/etc. and kept the engine warm with the block heater. We could have remained there for several days.
Eventually I noticed the other families weren’t too thrilled with “prepper-boy” and his advanced planning, so I decided to leave. I jacked up the truck, installed the tire chains I’d brought, and churned off the road in 4WD with the family. We used paper maps to find our way around the countryside and return to the freeway several miles past the 18-wheelers blocking everything – and continued our trip uneventfully on an icy, but empty road. We saw on the news the other people were there for 18 hours and had mostly exhausted their fuel tanks trying to keep warm, eventually needing rescue from the state police, etc.
I learned the dangers of being the only one who plans ahead, while others around are suffering. My travel preps now focus on remaining in motion at all costs, instead of being stranded with the “others” who will eventually become a threat. I can easily prepare to hunker down and camp out with my family for days should roads become impassable, but the unprepared are unlikely to tolerate such a lengthy reminder of their own inadequacies. My current truck has a long range auxiliary tank plumbed into the main system, and hidden beneath the bed cover. This ensures the “general population” never sees me adding fuel alongside the road, and we have an inverter to power some electrical items (like blankets) from inside the cab now.
Not only were there hostile stares (and some in-car arguments) watching us, a few ventured over wanting to use our toilet. I declined, of course, as a “few” would turn into a “lot” fairly quickly and I had no desire to clean up after a crowd (nor the capacity to hold all that waste).
In the last few years the US has experienced quite a few shocks, from recessions, to pipeline shutdowns, to power outages, to pandemics and supply shortages. And a huge portion of the country, at both the personal and political level is unprepared to handle even minor interrupts. From my POV, the idiocy of Abbot and Cruz-tello last year is the norm – not the exception.
So, to the OP’s question: Any medium or long term grid outage will result in a lot of suffering and death. Almost no one at any level is prepared for it.
It doesn’t occur to you to take anybody in?
I’ve told my neighbors about my hand pump. They’re welcome to come use it. If some of them need to come thaw out by the wood stove, they can do that too.
Admittedly, I wouldn’t be expecting to be descended on by hundreds of people; maybe you would. But are there none of your neighbors you’d extend such an invite to?
You’ve made a lot of preparations that require both considerable storage space and considerable expense. Are you surrounded only by people who have both plenty of storage space and plenty of funds?
Yes. I live a fairly affluent area. Everyone here is well off (or maybe seriously leveraged I guess). They have both space and funds to prepare for situations like this.
I checked on both of my elderly nearby neighbors. One was happily sitting in a warm house, having prepared much like us. The other is a retired rancher from Wyoming. His response was: “What cold?”
Reminded me of something that Robert Heinlein wrote during the cold war to the effect of “If all your neighbors are starving - take pains to not look well fed.”
There used to be a sporting goods store called Herters. The founder, George Herter, authored some cold war era cookbooks that included a lot of off-topic advice, including what to do in case of nuclear attack. He recommended having stockpiles of coffee, tobacco, matches, and aspirin.
Yeah, I’m always amazed at the news stories about empty shelves and people caught with their pants down by things like the minor ice storm a few days ago. I turned to my wife and asked “Are there really that many people whose fridges and pantries are so bare that a 3-4 day stretch without access to a grocery store or restaurants is going to make them go hungry?” I mean, we didn’t do anything different for this last tiny ice burst whatsoever. The main inconvenience was having our boys at home when we had been expecting the usual seven hours of quiet while they were at school.
We did go to the grocery before the previous one, but that was actually because we were having sewer line problems (they were busted and leaking under the house, so we couldn’t use the kitchen drains or washing machine), and needed to get a lot of paper plates, disposable utensils, and food that didn’t require a lot of pots and pans, in hopes of minimizing the bathtub hand-washing of dishes. And we did this like 2-3 days in advance of the ice storm; nobody was panic-buying then.
I think part of it may be that I’ve been without power for a while because of a previous ice storm, and have absorbed a lot of family hurricane lore (my family has in large part lived in the Galveston area (and then Houston later) since 1945 on one side, and since about 1900 on the other). So I’ve had some incentive to be at least nominally prepared for small outages and disruptions in service- probably up to a week. I’m not some kind of prepper who has everything ready to go for a fortnight without water or power though; I haven’t got that kind of money or storage space.
What was the purpose of blurring half this post? Using the spoiler tags doesn’t make a post shorter.
An answer to the question is that I know a lot of younger co-workers who DON’T eat at home - they cannot / do not cook, although a few of them learned some basics during the lockdowns. Most though just bought handfuls of lean cuisine / frozen pizza and that was it. They eat ready made food from the grocery store from the expansive deli case or the like, or eat out.
So, now that things are mostly open, they’re back to having little in the fridge but condiments, drinks, and a couple of ‘backup’ meals for when they don’t feel like going out. 2-3 days is about it. And that’s leaving out those who just don’t have the budget for a lot of extra at-home meals: another co-worker is a single mother of 3, and she depends on the school lunch program for their ‘big’ meal of the day, breakfast is normally cereal and dinner is pasta or something other inexpensive and filling, but without a lot of extra to go with.
Well there is always THIS cookbook:
He forgot vodka/whiskey in that advice.
When COVID struck, I bought 5 bottles of good whiskey. Sadly, it’s somehow gone missing.
In many message board softwares spoiler tags do shorten the message. Maybe the poster assumed they worked that way here?
You apparently do not realize that many millions of people live in apartments, where there is literally NO PHYSICAL ROOM to store such quantities of supplies.
Ed Begley had the right solution. We won’t be short of that when the world goes to shit.
Just one minor question with that long post - I live in a relatively flat area. How long can you keep flushing the toilet (let’s say, even with melted water) before there’s nowhere for it to go with a municipal sewer? yes there will be a lot less flushes, but I assume the sewer system runs on (grid-powered) pumps too?
Electric garage door openers have an emergency release cable, for if the opener fails. I had to use it when my chain-drive broke, until the replacement was installed. Surely everyone knows that? (“Don’t call me Shirley!”)
In fact, there was a warning on social media a few years ago - thieves in a neighbourhood where nobody was home during the day (or overnight) could fashion a hook from a coat hanger that would be inserted through the gap at the top of the door and snag the handle of the manual release. they pull to release the latch, and then the garage door could be lifted up manually. If you’re like me, the door from the garage into the house is not locked. (But in my case, they’d set off the alarm)
I knew my post was on the long side, and assumed some would want to “cut to the chase” and scroll to the conclusion. I guess I could’ve put a tldr of a few sentences at the top though. I like to read long, detailed posts, but many do not.
I pointed out a few posts later that I was grousing about my neighborhood. They’re pretty well heeled, and until the city stopped it, a few even commuted to their jobs via private helicopters from their own helipad. Unless I’m missing something, these idiots could easily set aside substantial stores in order to keep their sorry asses out of the safety nets that others may desperately need. Sorry, but it’s one of my pet peeves that well-off people blow their money on fancy shit and then expect the rest of the country to bail them out or rescue them. I guess I’m letting my irritation at this show through.
When I was setting up our preparedness shed/storage, I asked our plumber to take me completely through the process of our water supply. Where did it originate? where were the pipelines? And where did it flow to next? He explained that it leaves our house(s) and goes to a local sewage pumping station. According to him, during a grid failure the lack of water for the tower on the hill would preclude most sewer backups into the neighborhood (assuming the pumping stations was idled too.). He also pointed out we’re at roughly the 95th percentile for the service area’s elevations, and didn’t need a backflow preventer or any other modifications to avoid a disaster in our house.
I became aware of this watching one of my kids who worked at a property management firm. I went with her to check out an empty apartment where they had somehow lost the keys. She did this trick expertly and in a few minutes was inside the unit. I’ve since removed my opener and reversed/modified the shuttle so it can’t be manipulated from the outside. Now you can only release the door manually by grasping a line (with no handle) and pulling mostly to the rear of the garage. I assume this makes it impossible to employ this method of entry now. In addition, I added a backup battery that can operate the opener when the power’s out.
I was as stumped as you that people exist who actually don’t know how to release a garage door, or even turn off their home’s water system in an emergency. One of our friends is still living in a hotel today awaiting the repairs from frozen lines thawing and flooding her house. This was a disaster for the unprepared.
The last major power outage around here lasted ~3 days. We used our fireplace for heat, candles for light, melted snow to flush toilets, and a hand cranked generator to keep our phones and kindles charged. It was a “fun” adventure.
Afterwards, a friend was complaining about the horrible timing of the storm. She had just stocked up on meat, and ended up throwing out the contents of her freezer.
I was puzzled. It was in the low teens the entire time. I told her our freezer contents did just fine in coolers on our patio. She had never thought things through.
What happens if there’s a long-term electricity outage that covers a large area?
- Attack power grid
- ???
- Race war
That reminds me during the last blizzard that knocked out power for days for me in NH I put all my frozen food in the trunk of my car.