# If its TEOTWAWKI is it almost a Certainty There Will Be No Electricity?



## PeachesBackwards (Sep 8, 2015)

I'm trying to picture and End of the World As We Know It Scenario where there still will be electricity and I can't come up with that many cases. IE, if a huge percentage of the World dies from a Virus, there will be no one left to man the Power Grid, if there is a total Financial Crash no one will be working to maintain the Power Grid etc. Do you agree its a reasonable assumption that the Power Grids will no longer be working at the End of the World and hence no electricity so one needs to eventually prepare for that? I'm not talking short term disasters but decades long disasters.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

Get your self off the grid. That is what a lot of the folks here are doing. Problem solved.

Me? We still rent so going 100% off grid is not possible yet. I do try to find and prep sustainable option to not having electricity. Like the hand crank attachment for my Singer 99K and even my stand mixer. I try to plan for a time when even solar will not work (panels break etc).


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## PeachesBackwards (Sep 8, 2015)

Nah its not possible for me at this stage as I live in the City and honestly I love my electricity and City comfort life. That is not to say that I can't envision End of the World Scenarios and I just want to prepare for End of the World Scenarios which though I think they are slim do think they are possible and/or gather as much info as I can.


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## bigg777 (Mar 18, 2013)

For most people in this country, No electricity = TEOTWAWKI.

I can't think of any scenario that would be classified as "the end" that includes an electrified national grid.


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

PeachesBackwards said:


> ...Do you agree its a reasonable assumption that the Power Grids will no longer be working at the End of the World and hence no electricity so one needs to eventually prepare for that? ...


Yes I agree.

Once their standby generators run out of fuel sewerage treatment plant and lift station will stop, sewerage will backup into homes. Got a giant rubber cork to plug your line, or better yet install a backflow prevention device.

And municipal water wells will stop pumping water, water pressure will drop to zero. Some nut in the apartment below will start a fire in their oven for heat and burn your building to the ground. The building water sprinklers will not function.

All basements that rely on sump pumps to keep then dry will flood. Tenant's basement storage area (BOB supplies) is now under water.

Elevators will not work. You can either use the stairways with the exiting hordes or wait to be picked off later.

Building A/C will not work. Many modern apartments are built with permanently closed windows. Going to get a bit hot don't you think?

Got yourself a electric vehicle? Unless you can salvage solar panels and have the knowledge, it's now a boat anchor. At least you don't have to finish making the payments on it.

Got your money safely deposited in the bank? No power, no computers, no way for the Bank employee (if any show for work) to get you your money. Safe deposit box? You can come back later when it's safe to spend a day or two torching your way in.

Refrigeration at grocery stores and restaurants will fail. A lot of good meat will spoil.

Airports and docks will not be able to pump fuel from the underground tanks. No air flights and no ships unloading capabilities.

And it gets worse. The wife's hair dryer will not work.


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## Starcreek (Feb 4, 2015)

PeachesBackwards said:


> Nah its not possible for me at this stage as I live in the City and honestly I love my electricity and City comfort life. That is not to say that I can't envision End of the World Scenarios and I just want to prepare for End of the World Scenarios which though I think they are slim do think they are possible and/or gather as much info as I can.


I almost wrote, "Then you can't prep." But there are some things you can do to prepare. Camping on the weekends would help you see what it might be like. Put up some essential items you might need in a power outage -- oil lamps, alternative heat, bottles of water. Make sure your car is gassed up at all times and stay constantly abreast of the news. There will be a small window of opportunity in any disaster when people are glued to the TV or milling around wondering what to do, and that's your chance to GOOD....Get Out Of Dodge.


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## smaj100 (Oct 17, 2012)

Preparing now is the key to success, and like most on this site advocate you don't have to be rich or do it all at once. Start storing some fuel (especially with prices being low), kerosene / oil lamps (we've got 20 cause I oops'ed when I ordered them) still in boxes stored in the garage, get a small super efficient generator for running a fridge and charging batteries, add a couple solar panels to help charge things. look into getting some cheap 12v auto lights or led lights for cars or boats, they use very little power are sufficiently bright enough for reading or working at night when there are no lights. Don't forget one crucial thing SECURITY. If you are the only one with lights of any kind and in an urban type setting people will see that light and be coming to find out why you have lights and probably other things they don't......


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

If you live in the city supplies may not mean much, how do you get out or shelter without being raided. 

Skills are key, tough is key, can you make fire with a flint and steel in damp conditions with cold fingers? 

Do you have foraging experience ??
Can you build force protection from what ever is around you??.
Can you move without leaving tracks ??


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

Some areas powered by hydro-electric dams might still have power (like Las Vegas). The turbines will continue to produce power even with no one watching them. For how long is debatable. Possibly nuke plants could continue to produce power maybe but at some point they will only produce radiation
Without power big cities will be a stinky, disease ridden, violent place in a relatively short time span. You might want to have an evacuation plan for yourself.


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## Tweto (Nov 26, 2011)

hiwall said:


> Some areas powered by hydro-electric dams might still have power (like Las Vegas). The turbines will continue to produce power even with no one watching them. For how long is debatable. Possibly nuke plants could continue to produce power maybe but at some point they will only produce radiation
> Without power big cities will be a stinky, disease ridden, violent place in a relatively short time span. You might want to have an evacuation plan for yourself.


If they can disconnect the hydro producing grid from all the other grids then hydro could operate for some time. If the hydro grid is still connected to a larger grid it will go down fast with the others. Even with men operating the grids we lost all the power in the Northwest portion of the country because a squirrel shorted out one sub station and all the other grids cascaded down.

BTW the squirrel could not be found for comment.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

PeachesBackwards said:


> Nah its not possible for me at this stage as I live in the City and honestly I love my electricity and City comfort life. That is not to say that I can't envision End of the World Scenarios and I just want to prepare for End of the World Scenarios which though I think they are slim do think they are possible and/or gather as much info as I can.


We use to live in the city. Then we rented a cabin in the mountains for a year. After that we moved down the mountain to the rural town in the foothills. We looked at a rental house out in the desert that had solar for both some of the lights and the water heater. (back up electric water heater for cloudy days). If it weren't for the dust storms we might have moved out there.

Off grid doesn't mean you lose the comforts. It just means no longer relying on the power company to give you electricity to watch TV or charge your cellphone. Just ask some of the more advanced preppers here on the forum. HECK! Ask Gypsy Sue or MMM! They are off grid and still have some more modern conveniences. Read MMM's book on solar power.

I'd love to be 100% off grid if for no other reason than to not have the electric bill every month!


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

A few of the posts leave me with the impression that some have a "have some substitutes until power is restore" mentality. 

IMHO. TEOTWAWKI, power grid down it will be years if not generations before it's restore. I plan according.


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

Ask yourself what you use power for in your life right now.
Lights
Cooking, maybe
Entertainment
Communication
Climate control
Water
Sewage

Then ask yourself if there viable substitutes.

Water- store as much as you can and have some sort of water filtration on standby.
Sewage- As long as you're not in a low spot, it generally won't backup through your drains. A 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat and some plastic garbage bags make a viable indoor alternative. Don't forget bleach or kitty litter (absorbent). An outhouse is a longer term solution.
Climate control- Wear more clothes if it's cold.
Cooking- I suggest some sort of solar oven. Besides cooking food, it can also be used to purify water. Downside is it takes hours instead of minutes.
Entertainment- Books, especially how to, engineering, and other types of self help books or magazines. You want to learn how to better your situation.
Lights/Communication- I'm grouping these together since portable thin film solar can handle some of your needs. What you can generate will dictate how much of each you can use. If you have enough power, you can use smartphones or tablets in airplane mode for entertainment. You're going to want LED lights due to power usage. Hand-cranked radios or generators are also a decent choice.

Being in a city, your limiting factor will probably be potable water. At some point, you're going to have to move to a more sustainable location for longer term survival. You, and however many of the other 10 million people who live in LA who survive will all pretty much head to the hills. Sure, some will take boats north, but will you be one? I hate to paint a bleak picture, but I'm not too sure more than a few hundred thousand would survive the first month. And that's not figuring in anything except the lights go out tomorrow and don't ever come back on. The reality is the land there can't support large numbers of people. So there will be conflicts until the population crashes. Are you prepared for that? It's better to move now to a sustainable location and start building in redundancies so you don't have to try and move your support system with you when you finally are forced to leave.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

Here is a typical larger city shortly after TEOTWAWKI. Is this where you want to live?


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

hiwall said:


> ...
> Without power big cities *will be* a stinky, disease ridden, violent place in a relatively short time span. ...


Wait, what do you mean "_Will _be"? 

As to the O.P; Electricity does NOT equal grid power. Electricity existed long before anything like a grid did, and will exist if the grid fails catastrophically.

The number of machines and devices that can produce power and are dispersed throughout the world, coupled with the availability of knowledge on how to use them is truly incredible. Every household has dozens or hundreds of electric motors, many of which can be modified to produce small amounts of power. Many households have dozens of solar powered appliances like solar yardlights, etc. Every vehicle and gasoline engine produces electricity. There are millions of batteries in N.America alone.

Electricity is not going anywhere, but there are countless ways that power grids can and are disrupted. In N.America in present times these disruptions are typically short term, in the future and in other countries that need not be the case. For example, all it would take is a few co-ordinated and determined people to make a modern grid either untenable, or extremely unreliable and expensive. To in any way "secure" anything like a modern power grid from physical damage would be nearly impossible.


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

You have set off a gloom and doom situation here, but the reality is that there are two very real possibilities that could happen, first is the potential of an extreme solar event such as the Carrington Event of 1859 caused by a major solar flare, we are still having an active solar cycle with a potential of large CME's which could lead to a total breakdown of power grids around the world and then there is the second potential, a nuke generated EMP, if set off high above the midpoint of the U.S., that could do extreme damage to all electical/electronic systems, the potential for people dying from this, from the things I've studied has a figure of possibly 93% of our population. Electric power and electronic devices have become a total crutch to most of people here and around the world and I suspect most won't know what to do if the light switch doesn't produce lights or the hot water valve doesn't provide hot water or perhaps no water at all and then there is that cell phone that has become nearly an appendage of the body. Of course this is the extreme situation, but many other things that go on naturally are very good causes for prepping, such as floods, fires, tornadoes and snow storms, just to think of a few in which prepping would pay off. From what I've seen over the years, most people don't have more than a few days of food in their homes and probably less so living in apartments. Being prepared, for us, is just common sense and it has paid off a few times, during the forest fire we had here in 2013, we didn't have to go out for food and a few years before that, snow took out a powerline and we couldn't get by that area for a number of days, didn't have to and I appreciate that these situations gave us small tests of our preparedness, it certainly proved that we are on the right track.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

Two other possible (maybe likely?) scenarios would be- -
a hacker attack on our power grid that could conceivably take it down(though likely that would be for a relatively short term?)
terrorist physical attacks on switching stations and sub-stations which could result in a longer term grid down situation. 
I believe neither of these two scenarios is very far fetched in our current situation. Actually I am rather surprised they have not yet been attempted.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

hiwall said:


> Two other possible (maybe likely?) scenarios would be- -
> a hacker attack on our power grid that could conceivably take it down(though likely that would be for a relatively short term?)
> terrorist physical attacks on switching stations and sub-stations which could result in a longer term grid down situation.
> I believe neither of these two scenarios is very far fetched in our current situation. Actually I am rather surprised they have not yet been attempted.


We don't know that they haven't been attempted already, just that the people haven't been *told.*


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## bigg777 (Mar 18, 2013)

Speaking of "grid down", I learned that William Fortchen's sequel to One Second After was released yesterday on Amazon, the title is One Year After. I'm in the middle of a re-read on One Second After, I know what my next book purchase is!


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

Electricity--yes
Grid=Mass production of power via power plants--no

Certainly electricity will exist as long as the know how exists. But the grid, no way. The grid is the GLUE that holds together the world as we know it.


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

Marcus said:


> Ask yourself what you use power for in your life right now.
> Lights
> Cooking, maybe
> Entertainment
> ...


This is a good list. I would add sanitation as a separate category. How to safely prepare food, how to keep prepared food safe to eat, the importance of washing hands and body (lice?) as well as clothes, disposal of waste products, and toilet safety would be just some of the things to consider. IMHO.


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## Genevieve (Sep 21, 2009)

yep sanitation is the big one imo. thats why I like those bleach tabs. one gallon of water and one tab and you have bleach water for disinfecting things and cleaning up areas

not real sure how long the bleach water will stay effective tho. have to look into that maybe and write the company and ask. hmmm


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

Genevieve said:


> yep sanitation is the big one imo. thats why I like those bleach tabs. one gallon of water and one tab and you have bleach water for disinfecting things and cleaning up areas
> 
> not real sure how long the bleach water will stay effective tho. have to look into that maybe and write the company and ask. hmmm


There is always vinegar which is also a very good disinfectant and it can be stored or you can make your own.


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## kinda (Sep 8, 2015)

Hardwood ashes suffice for washing utensils or yourself. they are harsh, tho, so it's good to have some sort of veggie oil for skin treatment.


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