So if the electricity went off for good ?

[NorthernRaider]

So if the electricity went off for good………………………
© 2011Northern Raider

Many people think, “Oh Well it will be like living in Upstairs / Downstairs type Victorian heaven” But what will it really mean.

Lets say you wake up in the morning at 9.20AM because your alarm did not go off, getting up you see you have found the first effect of a power cut, You get dressed but can only get a cold wash and no shave because the shower is off and the central heating which is electronically lit has not worked.

You can make a cup of tea and fry some bacon and eggs but as you try to heat up a pan of water to make washing up water the flame on the cooker gradually fades away as the electrically pumped gas supply fails. That is just for starters as you open the back door to let the cat out you notice two things, first the wail of multiple burglar alarms now running on only battery power as they activated as soon as the mains power failed, and you notice liquid seeping from under the manhole cover of the main drain in your back garden.

You can not get the TV to work nor the phones and though your cell phone is charged the local cell tower is not working……..because its power supply has failed.

You can listen to the radio as its solar powered and the news is not good, something has wrecked the electricity system, it could be an EMP burst or something else the cause is not certain but the effects are. Cars, trucks and Buses are still running for now because they still have fuel, but the petrol stations and fuel pumps in the bus depots and truck yards are not working. And all the traffic lights and cameras were out too leading to chaos at millions of road junctions.

The Train network and underground network are at a halt because not only are the signals and switches electrically operated but most locos are electric as well these days. But even if they could pump or siphon fuel up from the underground tanks it will only last a few days because as soon as the power failed the petrol refineries stopped working, blast furnaces started cooling down, within an hour of the outage every aluminium smelter in the country was reduced to a frozen lump of scrap metal.

Supermarkets and food distribution centres joined factory farms, battery chicken and rabbit producing units, bakeries, canneries, cold storage facilities and container yards into absolute chaos and anarchy as the nations three day lead supply of food started thawing and rotting and dying. As the machinery and heaters failed and the computers that kept the record of what was in each of the thousands of shipping containers died taking the priceless information with it.

Chaos ensued at the nations airports are runway lights, ground and approach radar died followed a few hours later by the ground to air radio system that had battery back up which only prolonged the misery that bit longer. Millions of travellers found themselves arriving at the nearest airport to which the planes were passing, with no way of moving on and no way of contacting friends and family. Stranded many hundreds of miles from their destination with no place to go, no other transport available, and no working phones and of course all the cash machines out of order misery followed shock. Have you ever considered walking from Durham Tees Valley Airport to Swindon on foot in high heels and wearing a business suit on a cold autumn day?

Back at your place the weak but still effective autumn sunlight has spent much of the morning doing its best to warm up your kitchen and it’s having an affect on both the fridge and freezer whose contents are now beginning to thaw. By tomorrow morning most of your freezer contents are ruined, your fridge contents may last a few days more if you are lucky.

After a fruitless walk to the local shopping mall which was partially open but unlit and no lifts or escalators were working you head back down the hill to your home and notice not only an unpleasant smell but a small but definitely expending blue black lagoon spreading across the road towards the houses. The powerless sewage system for that area was gravity fed to not far past your house where it gathered in a large subterranean chamber which was automatically pumped out by electrically operated pumps when the effluent rose to a certain height.

Sadly without power the sewage was still flowing in faster than the emergency overflow discharge pipe could carry it to the local river, and the sewage was now finding its own way out and that route was towards your house.

Whilst this noxious waste was creeping steadily towards the air bricks and under floor area of your house more of it was pouring into the local river from which much of the towns drinking water supply was drawn from, but not to worry to much because the water treatment works was also out and unbeknown to our unlucky home owner the only safe drinking water left to him was in the rapidly emptying cold water tank in his attack, which in turn was emptying fast as his family still flushed the toilet every time they went to the loo.

No phones, no TV, food spoiling, running out of water, no heat, no light, no shops, no cops, no hospitals, no mass produced affordable food , medicines or fuel, even the production of Insulin, Prescription Eye glasses, pain killers, antibiotics, cancer drugs, sterilisers, baby formula, nappies baby incubators etc lay still and silent.

No more batteries were being made, no more clothes were being made nor the fabrics and materials needed to make them, 99% of modern footwear has heat welded soles and those heat irons were now cold., No more brick ovens worked, no more care production lines, no more tractors, ploughs, backhoes were being made. Even the nuclear power stations were dead as they had to have independent power supplies from other power stations to operate their multiple fail safe systems, when that power failed the carbon rods were instantly driven into the core stopping the reaction.

Come evening came the dark because there is no more street lights, come the dark came the predators and the fear, and so ended the first day.

Cities are just Necropolis in waiting.

[uks]

Only thing i would really miss is talking to interesing people on this forum. I can keep my computer and printer going by solar power so i would be able to get file printed of. But other than that i would not miss the power going off for good.

I think that a clay oven in the garden would be a good idea.

[bigpaul]

i think we could manage for awhile, although our (H.A.)property is all electric we have got alternative heating, lighting & cooking. the one thing that worries me is human waste, just being the 2 of us we can compost it for awhile but its other people thats my worry, i can see huge plastic bags of human waste sprouting from the branches of trees like some people do with dog poo, or great heaps of it in lay by's. i think after a very short while we would Bug Out and opt for total isolation.

[NorthernRaider]

(28 March 2012, 09:11)uks Wrote: Only thing i would really miss is talking to interesing people on this forum.

Thats why myself SD, and others like BP etc and folks on other forums are keen to get at least twice yearly gatherings of preppers going at some event so we can meet, barter, share, gossip, trade etc.

[Nemesis]

Prep solar

[Prep Girl]

Good scenario NR, and I wish I could get my head round solar power but sadly not

[Nemesis]

(28 March 2012, 11:38)Prep Girl Wrote: Good scenario NR, and I wish I could get my head round solar power but sadly not

But you don't need to

[Scythe13]

Can I make one adjustment (more of an added paragraph) to NR's scenario?

All the banking records are held electronically. People no longer use their little bank books. It's all chip and pin now. Any money kept in the bank would be lost. The records of who owns what and who owes what would also disappear. Debts would be erased, but savings and retirement would too. The same goes for the stock-market, any stock-brokers, or anyone with a share focused pension plan......wiped from the face of the Earth.

[bigpaul]

(28 March 2012, 13:14)Scythe13 Wrote: Can I make one adjustment (more of an added paragraph) to NR's scenario?

All the banking records are held electronically. People no longer use their little bank books. It's all chip and pin now. Any money kept in the bank would be lost. The records of who owns what and who owes what would also disappear. Debts would be erased, but savings and retirement would too. The same goes for the stock-market, any stock-brokers, or anyone with a share focused pension plan......wiped from the face of the Earth.

we'd have paper records-called Bank Statements.

[mikebratcher69]

(28 March 2012, 09:30)bigpaul Wrote: i think we could manage for awhile, although our (H.A.)property is all electric we have got alternative heating, lighting & cooking. the one thing that worries me is human waste, just being the 2 of us we can compost it for awhile but its other people thats my worry, i can see huge plastic bags of human waste sprouting from the branches of trees like some people do with dog poo, or great heaps of it in lay by's. i think after a very short while we would Bug Out and opt for total isolation.

Yup thats about what we'd do, see how it went for a short while then maybe bug out somewhere cleaner away from folks...