Urban Survivalist August 15 2010

We have become totally dependent upon electricity in ways we don’t understand until it is gone. Power for our phones, cell phones, iPads, iPhones, Blackberries, lights, refrigeration, safety, comfort. Our social infrastructure which supports this pipeline is rapidly deteriorating. Utilities charge higher and higher rates to and are unable to keep service at a status quo. Storms should be expected. Winds blow branches onto lines, trees are uprooted, machinery fails. All these are anticipated problems but as they occur in locations where populations have become more densely compacted and where connections have aged without being maintained or technologically updated, the stresses upon the system become greater and greater until it crumbles. That has happened in our nation’s capital.

I live in a 5,600 square foot home built in 1991. My wife has diligently seen that all possible maintenance has been performed. We have a geothermal heating and cooling system. We have storm surge protectors on the fuse boxes. We have battery backups (two hours) on the servers and phone system. The appliances are all energy star certified. But……

We didn’t count on the local power company monopoly to not be able to promptly return current to our home after a power outage, nor did we anticipate that there could be some many outages in one year.

Last Thursday morning, August 12, 2010, there was a severe local thunderstorm which woke me up at about 6 am. The power went out. It has happened so many time before, I did not realize that this would become a catastrophe. Our own minor version of the BP oil spill, not even close to the horror that Louisiana and its sister states are suffering, but in its own way, a wakeup call to the reality of our lives in America in the 21^st century and how close to the precipice above the abyss of becoming a third world country we have become.

Because this type of outage has happened on a regular basis, we believe that there is something flawed about the design of the grid, feeder or connections at our home or that something has deteriorated and is no longer sufficient to prevent minor storms from shutting down our power. However, when we called our power company, which has a monopoly in this area, Pepco, we got quite a different message. First it was our fault for not letting them cut the trees back from the above ground lines. I said, I don’t have any above ground lines. So next it was that we didn’t have our home fused properly. Sorry again there, madame, but we have two industrial strength fuse boxes and a surge protector in between us and you. Next it we were told that it had been fixed hours ago. I asked, “why then would I be calling you?” Silence. Then came a river of excuses about too many customers, we had been put on the wrong grid by our contractor and we weren’t enough people to be concerned about because people in apartment houses should be fixed first. OK, I said, when do we get fixed. By 6 pm on Sunday I was told but check back for updates. Total to date. 7 apologies, more excuses and no service.

Lesson learned from all this is that the Pepco has a standard set of responses and if you call enough they will start over again at the top of the list. Next their complaint unit is really not connected to the field and they are not trained to listen but rather to attack the customer and blame external forces for everything. Maybe that is true. There are external forces at work. We have given up the right as a society to expect to have first class service and robust infrastructure. We have sold our consumerist soul to China and over spent on our national credit card. We have to face the harsh reality. Our currency is becoming worthless. Our infrastructure is rotting. Our leaders are constantly bickering instead of leading. Blame is the occupation of most. The solutions are not apparent. We have dug a hole from which we cannot climb only to find it is a foxhole and we are at war with ourselves.

So what to do?

Move to the woods. Get a generator. Learn to smoke and preserve meat and grow vegetables. Store up some small gold coins and other supplies with which to barter. Buy an axe and figure out how to defend your property and install solar panels and a wind generator. Get a lot of books. Don’t depend on power. Learn to survive. “There is a beauty underneath the gold and silver in my teeth that preserves us, not for specialists.” WD Snodgrass April Inventory.

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