fiction: falling off the grid, part 1
_Since some time, I'm thinking about disaster preparedness, see [1]my
earlier post._ _I did continue somewhat on that avenue, but I'm not yet
where I want to be; to get a better image of what might happen, and at
the same time have an incentive for more writing, I'm starting a
fictitious diary of a prolonged power blackout in my area._ _I will
partly assume having prepared differently than in reality, to explore
ideas, and I reserve the right to assume improbable situations for the
sake of "prepping viewpoint"._ _Be warned though, it won't be a marvel
in litterature..._
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Sunday, the 14th
During breakfast today, power failed; initially, we were not much
alarmed, because tea and toast were already prepared... However, when
it was still off after ten minutes, I became slightly uneasy, because
that's totally not normal in our area. I checked radio: some of the
private stations were offline as well as digital service, but the
public (federal) FM stations were giving news about power failure in
large swaths of the country, apparently due to heavy snow fall in the
western parts and the Alps causing power line interruptions, combined
with issues in two of our nuclear power plants. Trains mostly were
running, thanks to their independent power network.
Power in the area of my workplace seemed down as well, according to the
news, and while I had some internet connectivity through mobile service
(and could even reach SDF briefly, yay!) I did not succeed to get into
contact with any machine there, nor with the security desk. Probably
they were offline as well or overwhelmed with alarms. We have some
machines requiring constant heating in one part and cooling in other
parts, otherwise stuff worth a fortune will break. Sure we have
uninterruptible power supplies, but these will not last forever: unless
somebody can do a planned shutdown, the thing will wreck after two
hours. Eventually I managed to call my colleague while she was en route
to the lab, and because she's our expert on those systems, I did not
worry about it much longer.
When power was not restored after twenty minutes, I decided to fill
buckets and our bathtub with tap water, after sealing the drain with
several layers of tape and lining the tub with some large sheet of
plastic, to make sure we had some clean water reserves. I also started
recharging some of my power banks and portable devices on my solar
panel battery. Mobile connectivity and data became flaky, therefore I
shut down all internet devices and phones, except for my wife's and my
work number, to save on batteries.
Next we had a look through our food stock. We did not open the freezer,
to keep it cold, as my wife already had a rough idea of what would need
to be eaten quickest, if the power stayed out for much longer. There is
still dry food and vegetable stock in the cellar for some more days.
Cooking is another problem, but with a small camping-type gas stove, we
should be independent for at least two days.
We managed to contact our parents by SMS after some unsuccessful tries
to call them: they were quite ok. I suggested they also store some
water, just in case.
The weather was nice with good forecast, so we took our bikes, packed
some food, and went for a ride at noon: making the kids move is good in
any case. After half an hour, we made lunch break on the hilltop, and I
took out my handheld transceiver to check some amateur radio repeaters.
Most of those I supposed to be reachable from my position were dead,
but on the working ones (probably equipped with batteries), there was
quite some activity, so I only listened. News said in some areas power
had been restored, but in addition failed elsewhere, even in parts of
southern Germany. We continued, and other than non-working traffic
lights, there were no obvious indications of the power failure --
except that we never heard any churchbells ringing, and there were
quite some people with cars stranded at gas stations, which obviously
did not work.
When we returned in mid-afternoon, tap water was still running, so we
decided to all take a shower to make use of the warm water in the
boiler. A quick opening of the freezer provided us with some nice
steaks which we fried in a small pan on the gas stove and ate with
bread and raw vegetables.
It started to get darker outside, and we lit some candles in addition
to various LED lights. Temperatures in the house are slowly dropping: a
full tank of oil (actually Diesel fuel) unfortunately is of not much
use during a blackout, if the heater needs electrical power to work.
And as our car runs on gasoline and not Diesel, all that fuel seems
quite useless for the time being!
My colleague told me by SMS she had managed to shutdown most of the
critical stuff in time, so there was nothing important to do at work
for the time being. Until power is back up, there is not much I could
do in the lab.
Later in the evening, tap water dried up, therefore I filled a bucket
at our rainwater barrel and took it upstairs for flushing the toilet.
Sleeping time for the kids arrived; it was not that easy to get them
quiet, because they were rather anxious about the whole situation, even
the younger one. I quickly tried our phone line while powering the
router through the solar panel batteries (fortunately the same
voltage), but the line was dead.
Now I'm writing down these notes on my tablet. With the solar charged
battery backup, it should remain operable for several days. I did not
dare to use my laptop, because I want to keep its batteries available
for possible later and more urgent needs.
Now we'll try to get some sleep as well, and hope for tomorrow.
.:.
References
1.
gopher://sdf.org/0/users/yargo/glog/./t17553.txt
