# 6469
While we wait for the next flu to drop in the H3N2v swine flu story, a brief side trip this morning as we look at our nation’s resilience – or lack thereof – to disasters.
As most of you know, earlier this week India saw a 2-day blackout of their electrical grid that affected nearly 10% of the world’s population. While unprecedented in size, large scale electrical blackouts like this have occurred in many parts of the world before.
This week’s event inspired the CDC’s Public Health Matters Blog to publish a post called India in the Dark: A Call For Preparedness that asks:
What if the United States experienced a power outage all the way from Anchorage, Alaska to the sandy shores of South Beach, Florida? Even if it’s not to that extent, minor power outages are enough to inconvenience people and cause distress. And it doesn’t take much for a power outage to occur. Thunderstorms, snow storms, earthquakes, technical glitches or man-made disasters can all cause them.
It’s a serious question.
Here in Florida, it isn’t unusual to go a week, or even two, after a major hurricane without electrical power. Parts of New Orleans were still without electricity a month after Katrina.
While a prolonged national grid failure may seem an unlikely event, there are scenarios where it could happen.
In 2009 the National Academy of Sciences produced a 134 page report on the potential damage that a major solar flare could cause in Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts.
You can download the PDF for free from the National Academies Press at the above link.
In early 2010 FEMA held a major table-top exercise in anticipation of the upcoming solar maximum (expected in 2013), and they now include a solar weather update in their daily briefings.
A 30 page PDF file is available for download from the FEMA library on this exercise which envisioned a `near worst-case scenario’.
Managing Critical Disasters in the Transatlantic Domain - The Case of a Geomagnetic Storm
Their `near-worst-case’ scenario envisions much of North America without electrical power for weeks or even months following a severe geomagnetic storm.
But it doesn’t take anything as exotic and rare as a massive Coronal Mass Ejection from the sun to take down large parts of the electrical grid.
Natural disasters, like earthquakes and severe storms, can wreak havoc on the power grid, and prolonged heat waves and droughts can tax their capacity to the breaking point.
Add in terrorist attacks (including cyber attacks) and an ageing power delivery infrastructure, and the potential for seeing a major power disruption becomes more than trivial.
Despite concerted efforts by FEMA, Ready.gov, and other agencies to encourage individual and community preparedness, recent polls indicate that at least half of us are unprepared for even a small disaster.
In recent CDC Blog called Startling Facts You Should Know About Disaster Preparedness, out of 1,000 respondents to a national poll by Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation, 48% lacked even the basic emergency supplies they would need in the event of a disaster (flashlights, emergency radio, non-perishable food, water, first aid kit, etc.).
More than half did not have a designated rendezvous place for family members, nor had they made and safely stored copies of their important documents.
While emergency officials plan on a community, state, and national level to deal with disasters, what keeps many of them up at night is knowing how unprepared most individuals are to deal with a major disaster.
They know that after an earthquake, hurricane, or similar disaster that the 911 system may be down, emergency crews will be swamped, and many people will have to fend for themselves during the first few days.
In a truly epic disaster . . . even weeks.
Which is why every year September is designated National Preparedness Month, to encourage people to take disaster preparedness seriously. But no one should be waiting till then to prepare. Preparedness is a year-round endeavor, and the time to start is now.
If a disaster struck your region today, and the power went out, stores closed their doors, and water stopped flowing from your kitchen tap for the next 7 days . . . do you have:
- A battery operated NWS Emergency Radio to find out what was going on, and to get vital instructions from emergency officials?
- A decent first-aid kit, so that you can treat injuries?
- Enough non-perishable food and water on hand to feed and hydrate your family (including pets) for the duration?
- A way to provide light (and in cold climates, heat) for your family without electricity? And a way to cook? And to do this safely?
- An emergency plan, including meeting places, emergency out-of-state contact numbers, and in case you must evacuate, a bug-out bag?
- Spare supply of essential prescription medicines that you or your family may need?
If the answer to any of these questions is `no’, then you have a lot of work to do. A good place to get started is by visiting Ready.gov.
Because, whether you are ready or not.
Disasters can happen here.
