I RECKON IT COMES AT A 'GOOD' TIME, SO HERE ARE POINTS TO PONDER, BUT BE AWARE, SOME LINKS TO SOME SITES MAY STILL BE "UNAVAILABLE/SITE NOT FOUND" BECAUSE THE CYBER-ATTACK IS ONGOING. .
IF OUR POWER GRID SUDDENLY WENT DOWN, IF AMERICANS WERE FACING A BLACKOUT THAT WE KNEW WOULD LAST FOR AT LEAST A YEAR AND POSSIBLY TEN TO TWENTY YEARS, WHAT DO YOU THINK MIGHT HAPPEN? .
BELOW IS A MAP OF AMERICA'S POWER GRID REGIONS....FAMILIARIZE YOURSELVES WITH IT, PLEASE.
IS THAT REALISTIC, THAT VIDEO ABOVE ABOUT HOW PEOPLE WOULD TURN ON ONE ANOTHER AND SOCIETY WOULD BREAK DOWN IF WE HAD GRID FAILURE?
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MADE THAT.
IS that what would life look like without any power for a long period of time?
NO, MY FRIENDS, IT WOULD BE MUCH WORSE THAN THAT.
AS ZEROHEDGE PUT IT:
-There would be no heat (or cooling, or anything electric) for your home.
-Water would no longer be pumped into most homes.
-Your computer would not work. There would be no Internet.
-Your phones would not work.
-There would be no television.
-There would be no radio.
-ATM machines would be shut down.
-There would be no banking.
-Your debit cards and credit cards would not work.
-Without electricity, gas stations would not be functioning.
-Most people would be unable to do their jobs without electricity and employment would collapse.
-Commerce would be brought to a standstill.
-Hospitals would not be able to function.
- [If you were dependent on life-saving medications] you would quickly start running out of medicine... no way to deliver them to pharmacies.
-All refrigeration would shut down and foods dependent on that in our homes and supermarkets would start to go bad.
[NOTE: WHILE MUCH OF THE ABOVE IS TRUE FOR AMERICA AND OTHER MODERNIZED NATIONS, THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES AND MANY INDIGENOUS CULTURES WHO DON'T HAVE ELECTRIC POWER OR EVEN RUNNING WATER IN THEIR HOMES MIGHT HARDLY NOTICE THE CHANGE.]
If you want to get an idea of how quickly society would descend into chaos, just watch the documentary "American Blackout" [the video shown at the top of this blog entry] some time. It will chill you to your bones.
The truth is that we live in an unprecedented time. We have become extremely dependent on technology, and that technology could be stripped away from us in an instant.
Right now, our power grid is exceedingly vulnerable, and all the experts know this, but very little is being done to actually protect it..."
AND THEN THERE'S THIS:
"New Obama Executive Order Hints At Devastating Space Event: Could Disable Large Portions Of The Electrical Power Grid… Cause Cascading Failures”
THOSE 'ALTERNATIVE NEWS SITES', ESPECIALLY THE 'CONSERVATIVE' ONES, GET SO 'CREATIVE' WITH FACTS, STRETCH THINGS SOOOOO FAR.
BUT, AS THE TEA ROOM WROTE A COUPLE OF BLOGS BACK, THIS IS A REALITY WE MUST ALL FACE, AND THE SOONER THE BETTER.
WE FRET ABOUT 'TERRORIST ATTACKS" ON THE GRID, AS THE ARTICLE BELOW SHOWS, AND WE SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT THAT, BUT MANY OTHER THINGS CAN SHUT DOWN NOT JUST AMERICA, BUT THE ENTIRE WORLD.
"Government Agency Warns If [JUST] 9 Substations Are Destroyed, The Power Grid Could Be Down For 18 Months"
March 19, 2014
"According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's latest report, all it would take to plunge the entire nation into darkness for more than a year would be to knock out a transformer manufacturer and just 9 of our 55,000 electrical substations on a really hot summer day. The reality of the matter is that our power grid is in desperate need of updating, and there is very little or no physical security at most of these substations."
IN 2013:
" The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Smith reports that a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is acknowledging for the first time that a group of snipers shot up a Silicon Valley substation for 19 minutes last year, knocking out 17 transformers before slipping away into the night.
The attack was “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the U.S., Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, told Smith."
"GROUP OF SNIPERS"?
IT COULD HAVE BEEN JUST A BUNCH OF KIDS OUT TO VANDALIZE, WHO KNOWS, BUT IT WAS EASY TO ACCOMPLISH BECAUSE THERE ARE NO GUARDS AT THOSE SUBSTATIONS.
IN OUR LIFETIMES, THE GRID WILL GO DOWN, MY FRIENDS, COUNT ON IT.
WHETHER BECAUSE OF SOME 'SOLAR WEATHER EVENT' OR SOME LUNATIC LIKE NORTH KOREA'S KIMMY , OR IRAN'S SUPER-NUTCASE THE OLD AYATOLLAH HAS A BAD DAY WITH A CHILD BRIDE AND CALLS FOR A 'JIHAD EMP ATTACK' TO ASSUAGE HIS RAGE, OR BECAUSE SOME OTHER "ACT OF NATURE" TAKES IT OUT, THE GRID WILL GO DOWN.
IT'S OLD, IT'S FAULTY, IT'S WEAK, ITS PAST DUE FOR FAILURE.
SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN WARNING US AND BEGGING CONGRESS TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO FIX THE MESS FOR OVER TWO DECADES NOW, OR MORE.
"Solar Storms and You: Human Impacts - Solar Physics at MSU" WAS A WARNING IN 1998 FROM A MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY STUDY.
THEN WE HAD THE NEAR-MISS SOLAR STORM IN 2003 WHOSE POWER WAS COMPLETELY OFF THE CHARTS, FOLLOWED BY MORE DESPERATE WARNINGS BY THOSE WHO SHOWED HOW LITTLE (IN COMPARISON TO SAY, PORK BARREL SPENDING) IT WOULD TAKE TO STRENGTHEN THE OLD GRID...AND CONGRESS DID NOTHING ABOUT THE AGED IT, AS USUAL.
ANOTHER HUGE 'CORONAL MASS EJECTION (CME) JUST BARELY MISSED EARTH IN 2012...CONGRESS WAS TOO BUSY APPROPRIATING FUNDS FOR OUR NEW INVASIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO NOTICE...STILL IGNORING THE WORN-OUT AMERICAN POWER GRID.
ONE OF THE MOST HONEST STATEMENTS I'VE READ ABOUT ALL THIS STILL FALLS SHORT OF THE REALITY OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THE GRID FAILS, FOR WHATEVER REASON:
"Despite our modern infrastructure and technological advancements, we are one catastrophe away from being thrown back into the stone age.
If the grid goes down the gas stops pumping, America’s trucks stop running, and grocery store shelves stop getting stocked.
Within three days of that all hell breaks loose.
We’re talking about nothing short of a total breakdown in law & order and tens of millions of people scavenging, looting and killing for food."
Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder recently completed analyzing data from a Coronal Mass Ejection that took place in the summer of 2012. The CME, which was reportedly the most powerful electrical discharge ever recorded from the sun, narrowly missed earth. It was not “earth directed,” meaning the electro-magnetic mass was ejected by the sun when it was facing away from our planet. However, had it occurred just a week prior, the highly charged particles would have struck earth and, according to CU-Boulder Professor Daniel Baker, would have led to nothing short of a technological disaster across the globe.
The CME itself was massive… and its speed was unprecedented, clocking in at 7 million miles per hour.
While typical coronal mass ejections from the sun take two or three days to reach Earth, the 2012 event traveled from the sun’s surface to Earth in just 18 hours.
“The speed of this event was as fast or faster than anything that has been seen in the modern space age,” said Baker.
While early warning systems are capable of detecting CME’s and solar flares ahead of time, this particular event happened so quickly that it is unclear if monitoring groups at NASA’s Solar Shield Project would have been able to send alerts to emergency services teams in time.
Had it struck earth, says Baker, it would have caused damage so significant that modern electrical systems would have been fried.
Had it hit Earth, the July 2012 event likely would have created a technological disaster by short-circuiting satellites, power grids, ground communication equipment and even threatening the health of astronauts and aircraft crews.
We have proposed that the 2012 event be adopted as the best estimate of the worst case space weather scenario…
We argue that this extreme event should be immediately employed by the space weather community to model severe space weather effects on technological systems such as the electrical power grid.
I liken it to war games — since we have the information about the event, let’s play it through our various models and see what happens.
If we do this, we would be a significant step closer to providing policymakers with real-world, concrete kinds of information that can be used to explore what would happen to various technologies on Earth and in orbit rather than waiting to be clobbered by a direct hit.
[ Source: Colorado.edu ]
Most policy makers have not taken the threat of an earth-directed solar flare seriously, even though a senior member of the Congressional Homeland Security Committee recently warned that there is a 100% Chance of a Severe Geo-Magnetic Event Capable of Crippling Our Electric Grid.
If such an event were to happen Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who has advised people to develop individual preparedness plans based on the threat of massive solar flares or electro-magnetic pulse detonations, says that it would take upwards of 18 months to bring the grid back online because of a decaying national infrastructure.
"We could have events in the future where the power grid will go down and it’s not, in any reasonable time, coming back up. For instance, if when the power grid went down some of our large transformers were destroyed, damaged beyond use, we don’t make any of those in this country. They’re made overseas and you order one and 18 months to two years later they will deliver it. Our power grid is very vulnerable. It’s very much on edge. Our military knows that.
There are a number of events that could create a situation in the cities where civil unrest would be a very high probability. And, I think that those who can, and those who understand, need to take advantage of the opportunity when these winds of strife are not blowing to move their families out of the city."
If a solar kill shot were to occur and short out the electrical power grid, it has been estimated that some nine out of ten Americans would be dead within one year as transportation systems broke down, food delivery ceased, commerce systems no longer functioned, communications equipment became inoperable and utilities, such as water treatment plants, were incapable of delivery services.
The ramifications would be serious and almost immediate according to a 132-page NASA funded report on Understanding the Economic and Societal Impacts of Severe Space Weather:
To estimate the scale of such a failure, report co-author John Kappenmann of the Metatech Corporation looked at the great geomagnetic storm of May 1921, which produced ground currents as much as ten times stronger than the 1989 Quebec storm, and modeled its effect on the modern power grid.
He found more than 350 transformers at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people without power.
The loss of electricity would ripple across the social infrastructure with “water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, fuel re-supply and so on.”
"ONE SECOND AFTER", the book mentioned and recommended on the floor of the U.S. Congress, has a list of things we can all do to TRY to prepare for such a thing.
You may read that list <HERE>.
We are only one act of madness away from a social cataclysm unlike anything our country has ever known. -Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ), Senior Member House Armed Service Committee
EMP is one of the small number of threats that could hold at risk the continued existence of U.S. civil society. -Dr. Robert Hermann, Commissioner US Congress EMP Commission
Just one violent active region on the sun can cause continent-wide, perhaps even planetary-scale impacts to our critical infrastructure. -John Kappenman, Principal Investigator US Congress EMP Commission
The Likelihood of a severe geo-magnetic event capable of crippling our electric grid is 100%. -Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Senior Member House Homeland Security Committee
A new report by Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) details widespread cybersecurity breaches in the federal government, despite billions in spending to secure the nation’s most sensitive information.
The report, released on Tuesday [NOTE: THIS WAS IN 2014], found that approximately 40 percent of breaches go undetected, and highlighted “serious vulnerabilities in the government’s efforts to protect its own civilian computers and networks.”
“In the past few years, we have seen significant breaches in cybersecurity which could affect critical U.S. infrastructure,” the report said.
“Data on the nation’s weakest dams, including those which could kill Americans if they failed, were stolen by a malicious intruder. Nuclear plants’ confidential cybersecurity plans have been left unprotected. Blueprints for the technology undergirding the New York Stock Exchange were exposed to hackers.”
UMMM, HELLO IN CONGRESS... IF AN EMP IS LAUNCHED AGAINST THE U.S., IF THE SUN UNLEASHES HELL ON OUR WEE PLANET, IF ONE OF THOSE 'MAGNETARS' SEND EARTH-RATTLING SHOCK WAVES AT US, IF ANYONE HACKS INTO OUR GRID IN A CYBER-ATTACK, GUESS WHAT?
ALL WE CAN DO IS "EAT IT AND SMILE", OR CRY, OR MAYBE START LEARNING HOW TO MAKE FIRE AND LIVE IN CAVES, IF ANY SURVIVE THE MAGNETAR WAVE.
BE HONEST, CROOKS AND LIARS ON THE HILL, YOU CAN'T DO JACK ABOUT ANY OF IT.
REMEMBER "GRID-EX II" , THE NATIONAL 'POWER GRID DOWN" DRILL WE SAW IN 2013?
DID YOU KNOW WE HAD A GRID-EX III AND WILL HAVE GRID-EX IV NEXT MONTH?
http://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/CIPOutreach/Pages/GridEX.aspx
ON THE ABOVE LINKED WEBSITE, ONE CAN READ THE RESULTS OF GRD-EX II AND III IN PDF FORM.
YOU MAY WANT TO HAVE A LOOK AT THOSE.
FUNNY THING, THEY'RE ALL HELD DURING NOVEMBER, THE "ELECTION MONTH".
THE URL FOR GRID-EX II IS
http://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/CIPOutreach/GridEX/GridEx%20II%20Public%20Report.pdf
AND THE URL FOR GRID-EX III IS
http://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/CIPOutreach/GridEX/NERC%20GridEx%20III%20Report.pdf
AND WHAT ABOUT THE VERY FRIST GRID-EX, THE ONE IN 2011?
http://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/CIPOutreach/GridEX/NERC_GridEx_AAR_16Mar2012_Final.pdf
SINCE THESE DOCUMENTS ARE FOR PUBLIC VIEWING, PLEASE ASSUME THEY DO NOT REVEAL MUCH, BUT MAINLY STAND TO SHOW SOMEONE OUT THERE SEES A NEED TO ASSESS THE SITUATION, EVEN IF THERE IS BLOODY LITTLE THAT CAN BE DONE WHEN SUCH A CIRCUMSTANCE IS UPON US.
HOW MANY READERS HEARD OF OR FOLLOWED "CYBER STORM" DRILLS BY GOOD OLD 'HOMELAND SECURITY' (THE "SECURITY" BEING JOBS FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO PRETEND ALL AMERICANS ARE WOULD-BE 'TERRORISTS' AND ENJOY GROPING HUMAN BODIES?) ?
BEGINNING IN 2006, FRUITLESSLY, AIMLESSLY, CONGRESS GAVE THE NOD TO A 'STUDY' TO SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE TO KEEP US (MAINLY THE GOVERNMENT) FROM BEING HACKED.
THEY'VE JUST GOTTA SPEND OUR TAX DOLLARS SOMEHOW, FOLKS.
FROM 2006 UNTIL THIS YEAR, A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL.
CYBER STORM HAS BEEN SUCH A HIT, THEY'RE ON NUMBER FIVE.
I GUESS THEY JUST CAN'T FIGURE IT ALL OUT?
TRY, TRY AGAIN, BOYS!
TODAY'S CYBER-ATTACK SHOWS US YOU DO NOT MAKE MUCH PROGRESS!
"Cyber Storm, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) biennial exercise series, provides the framework for the most extensive government-sponsored cybersecurity exercise of its kind. Congress mandated the Cyber Storm exercise series to strengthen cyber preparedness in the public and private sectors. Securing cyber space is the DHS Office of Cybersecurity and Communications' top priority."
THAT HAS NOT WORKED OUT WELL AT ALL, HAS IT?
HOW MANY NATIONS AND 'WILD AND CRAZY' KIDS AND OTHER GROUPS HAVE HACKED AMERICA JUST SINCE THESE 'EXERCISES' BEGAN?
WE SEEM TO READ ABOUT CYBER ATTACKS EVERY DAY.
WE'RE READING ABOUT A MAJOR ATTACK RIGHT NOW, TODAY, OCT. 21, 2016.
SO, THE FOLLOWING WERE EXERCISES IN ABJECT FUTILITY, BUT AREN'T THEY ALL, IF WE GO BY WHAT WE'RE TOLD THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO, BUT JUST DON'T DO.
Cyber Storm I, https://www.dhs.gov/cyber-storm-i
Cyber Storm II, https://www.dhs.gov/cyber-storm-ii
Cyber Storm III, https://www.dhs.gov/cyber-storm-iii
Cyber Storm IV, https://www.dhs.gov/cyber-storm-iv
Cyber Storm V: National Cyber Exercise, https://www.dhs.gov/cyber-storm-v
NASA has already begun implementing plans to deal with large scale power failure from a space weather anomaly, and NASA head Charles Bolden recently issued a video alert through the NASA Headquarters of Emergency Operations in which he claimed he had “been made aware of some things” that prompted him to urge NASA employees and their families to prepare for an event that could come like 9/11.
This was recently echoed by outgoing DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who has said that a cyber attack or natural disaster on the U.S. power grid the likes of which we have never seen is imminent.
Following Napolitano’s comments it was revealed that the United States, Canada, Mexico and hundreds of private companies were planning a massive power grid down drill to simulate what an EMP attack or solar flare might look like.
The disaster drill is being described as a crisis practice unlike anything the real power grid has ever experienced.
The GridEX II drill Nov. 13-14 will focus primarily on how governments will react if the electrical grid fails and, for instance, the food supply chain collapses.
As we saw in limited grid-down scenarios like those following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, when the grid goes down you better be ready. Within 72 hours of such an event taking place the supply chain infrastructure in affected regions will undoubtedly collapse. This is a certainty, as evidenced by what we played out within a few days of Hurricane Sandy hitting the east coast.
"SHOCK: 72 Hours After Grid-Down: Starvation, Supply Shortages, Food Lines, No Clean Water, No Gas, Transportation Standstill
For tens of thousands of east coast residents that worst case scenario is now playing out in real-time. No longer are images of starving people waiting for government handouts restricted to just the third-world.
In the midst of crisis, once civilized societies will very rapidly descend into chaos when essential infrastructure systems collapse.
Though the National Guard was deployed before the storm even hit, there is simply no way for the government to coordinate a response requiring millions of servings of food, water and medical supplies
Many east coast residents who failed to evacuate or prepare reserve supplies ahead of the storm are being forced to fend for themselves.
Frustration and anger have taken hold, as residents have no means of acquiring food or gas and thousands of trucks across the region remain stuck in limbo."
[ I FOUND IT BOTH AMUSING AND INTERESTING THAT THERE IS "ANOTHER GRID"
Global Resource Information Database (GRID)
THAT "GRID" IS A UNITED NATIONS EARTHWATCH" SITE.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE U.N. IS WATCHING, GIRD YOUR LOINS AND GO READ ALL ABOUT IT. IT'S VERY HARD TO IGNORE WHAT THOSE WHO WOULD RULE THE WORLD ARE UP TO...ALMOST SCARY.]
WARNINGS OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS:
Space Weather Monitoring and Prediction for Aviation Operations
www.swpc.noaa.gov/
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE THREATS TO U.S. MILITARY
www.futurescience.com/emp/has280010_0.html
Oct 7, 1999
"Effects of an EMP Event on the U.S. Petroleum and Natural Gas"
JUNE 12, 2002
AND FROM THE GOVERNMENT'S SECRETIVE BROOKINGS INSTITUTE!
"Terrorism and Nuclear Energy: Understanding the Risks | Brookings
https://www.brookings.edu/.../terrorism-and-nuclear...
Brookings Institution
Mar 1, 2002 - Could nuclear waste dumps or power plants be transformed into atomic weapons?
COMING QUICKLY ON THE HEELS OF OBAMA'S EXEC ORDER REGARDING "POSSIBLE CHAOS CAUSED FROM SPACE WEATHER EVENTS" GOOD OLD NOAA STEPPED UP AND ANNOUNCED IT HAS A NEW "EARLY WARNING SYSTEM" IN MIND.
IF WE KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT NOAA, IT'S THAT IT WILL TAKE THEM YEARS TO DO NOT MUCH OF ANYTHING.
EVEN IF THEY COULD GIVE US THAT MYTHICAL 12 HOURS' WARNING, THE FACT REMAINS THERE ARE FEW OF US PREPARED TO LIVE IN A WORLD DEVOID OF ELECTRICAL POWER, AND AS EACH NATION SCRAMBLES TO TAKE CARE OF ITS OWN PEOPLE, WE JUST WON'T BE SEEING NECESSARY PARTS IMPORTED/EXPORTED BETWEEN NATIONS AS WE MIGHT SEE SANS DISASTER.
IT'S BEST WE COUNT ON OURSELVES AND DO ALL WE CAN TO AT LEAST PREPARE OUR MINDS.
SITING HERE THIS MORNING, WONDERING "WHAT THE HELL...?", I THOUGHT HOW MUCH I'D MISS CONTACT WITH FAR AWAY FAMILY, HOW TROUBLING IT WOULD BE TO NOT HAVE COMMUNICATION WITH THOSE I LOVE.
IF THIS WERE NOT A SERIOUS MATTER, MY FRIENDS, I SURELY WOULD NOT WASTE MY TIME MENTIONING IT.
READ, THINK, PLAN.
AND MAY YOU ALWAYS BE WELL... AND FREE!
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