Grid Down, 4 Months, 250 million dead
The following is comment and opinion from a reader, ‘TripodXL’, regarding the dire scenario of a long term wide spread power outage. This scenario is one of the few that I respect the most when it comes to ‘real’.
Given that modern society is entirely dependent upon electricity to the point of not having ‘manual’ backup systems, and given that there are a number of events that could eliminate that electricity – potentially for a substantial period of time, and given that supply chains of all sorts are of very short duration and extremely interdependent, this should inspire the thinking person to stock up and think this one through…
In a true SHTF that involves loss of the grid even for say 2-3 months, the death toll would be staggering.
The fact that Just In Time delivery of all inventory at EVERY store in the nation guarantees millions will die. The average grocery store has 3 days of inventory, max. The average home has 3-7 days supply of food. All reorders in national and regional grocery chains is all done by computers over phone lines. There isn’t even a mechanism in place to do manual ordering, it doesn’t exist!!!
I live not too far from two large box grocery store distribution centers and one regional distribution center. I would just about bet the county commission and the sheriff’s dept will lock them down. All orders to food producers will not be made. Most of the food in the modern part of the world will ROT.
So with the numbers quoted above most everyone in the city will be out of food in 10-14 days and water before that. Say a CME hit the earth and there isn’t 2% of the world’s lights on and those only on generators that need fuel, ordered by computers. If you live in the metro area post 2 weeks TSHTF and you do not have an impregnable concrete bunker or are well hidden in some odd magical place that won’t be found and you have food, guess what? Hope you don’t have any daughters and your wife is really ugly. You, you’re gonna be a slave or dead and your son will be somebody’s little puppy or a slave.
If this came to pass it isn’t just wait till they get the lights back on. The lights wouldn’t be on for years in the cities and decades outside the cities. My conservative estimate is that 80-100 million people will die in the U.S. by the end of 60 days having starved or dehydrated to death or was murdered.
The thing about it is that people will wait until it is too late to bug out cuz the gubment is gonna fix it. Until they come to the oh shite moment that they realize that the cavalry isn’t coming. When they do try to bug out it will probably be too late. They will be half starved to death, subject to now rampant disease and fetid rotting bodies and hordes of gangs in as bad shape as they are except they are going to kill them and take what little they might have. That’s also why I think that roving bands from the cities will be scarce outside of metro areas.
By the end of 3-4 months I think 150 to 250 million people could be dead and that’s just here. Those that manage to feed themselves and survive and come out to the country to look for easy pickens will not live too long. If we wind up with 60-80 million left, which would be the population level of 1880-1910, we would have a lot of room to grow, a new point of view and perhaps we could get it right this time. Who knows?
As an idealist and a romantic patriot I would like to think that the U.S.A. would survive. Unless there is some dynamic true leadership at the helm and lot of luck, I’m not sure how it will turn out. My grandaddy told me one time some gubment man came around Flora, Mississippi in the late 30s and asked how much better things were getting from the depression years and grandaddy said “what depression”? There will be areas even in our country like that, some continents, Africa, a lot of the South American interior, Siberia, rural China. India will suck as they are actually a modern country. Hopefully we will not repeat the early and mid 20th centuries in the coming decades.
Source: modernsurvivalblog.com
Given that modern society is entirely dependent upon electricity to the point of not having ‘manual’ backup systems, and given that there are a number of events that could eliminate that electricity – potentially for a substantial period of time, and given that supply chains of all sorts are of very short duration and extremely interdependent, this should inspire the thinking person to stock up and think this one through…
In a true SHTF that involves loss of the grid even for say 2-3 months, the death toll would be staggering.
The fact that Just In Time delivery of all inventory at EVERY store in the nation guarantees millions will die. The average grocery store has 3 days of inventory, max. The average home has 3-7 days supply of food. All reorders in national and regional grocery chains is all done by computers over phone lines. There isn’t even a mechanism in place to do manual ordering, it doesn’t exist!!!
I live not too far from two large box grocery store distribution centers and one regional distribution center. I would just about bet the county commission and the sheriff’s dept will lock them down. All orders to food producers will not be made. Most of the food in the modern part of the world will ROT.
So with the numbers quoted above most everyone in the city will be out of food in 10-14 days and water before that. Say a CME hit the earth and there isn’t 2% of the world’s lights on and those only on generators that need fuel, ordered by computers. If you live in the metro area post 2 weeks TSHTF and you do not have an impregnable concrete bunker or are well hidden in some odd magical place that won’t be found and you have food, guess what? Hope you don’t have any daughters and your wife is really ugly. You, you’re gonna be a slave or dead and your son will be somebody’s little puppy or a slave.
If this came to pass it isn’t just wait till they get the lights back on. The lights wouldn’t be on for years in the cities and decades outside the cities. My conservative estimate is that 80-100 million people will die in the U.S. by the end of 60 days having starved or dehydrated to death or was murdered.
The thing about it is that people will wait until it is too late to bug out cuz the gubment is gonna fix it. Until they come to the oh shite moment that they realize that the cavalry isn’t coming. When they do try to bug out it will probably be too late. They will be half starved to death, subject to now rampant disease and fetid rotting bodies and hordes of gangs in as bad shape as they are except they are going to kill them and take what little they might have. That’s also why I think that roving bands from the cities will be scarce outside of metro areas.
By the end of 3-4 months I think 150 to 250 million people could be dead and that’s just here. Those that manage to feed themselves and survive and come out to the country to look for easy pickens will not live too long. If we wind up with 60-80 million left, which would be the population level of 1880-1910, we would have a lot of room to grow, a new point of view and perhaps we could get it right this time. Who knows?
As an idealist and a romantic patriot I would like to think that the U.S.A. would survive. Unless there is some dynamic true leadership at the helm and lot of luck, I’m not sure how it will turn out. My grandaddy told me one time some gubment man came around Flora, Mississippi in the late 30s and asked how much better things were getting from the depression years and grandaddy said “what depression”? There will be areas even in our country like that, some continents, Africa, a lot of the South American interior, Siberia, rural China. India will suck as they are actually a modern country. Hopefully we will not repeat the early and mid 20th centuries in the coming decades.
Source: modernsurvivalblog.com
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