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Food Security
Food supplies are likely to become limited in the event of a major pandemic. Storing a supply of canned meat and fish, dried beans, and rice is a prudent consideration. Consider basics like salt, sugar, cooking oil, and multiple vitamins as well. If food shipments are interrupted to the urban centers, it won’t be very long before food is gone from the grocery shelves. If you have any doubt about this, think back to what happens when there is a threat of an ice or snowstorm.
Electricity Service
The power grid is fragile in the US, especially on the east and west coasts. Despite the brown and black outs of 2003, not much has been done to reduce the vulnerability of the power grid, the energy bill passage in July 2005 notwithstanding. The grid is literally interconnected such that what happens in one part has an impact in another. While the grid has some built-in automatic circuit breakers designed to isolate a power overload condition before it spreads and causes a widespread blackout, for the most part, the system is operator dependent.
Much of the power production in the US is coal fired and these units depend upon regular delivery of coal by rail. Power industry guidelines call for the plants to keep at least a 25-day coal stockpile to ensure uninterrupted power production in the event of a coal supply disruption. If a critical number of system engineers employed by the plant, the railroad, or the coalmine become ill, die, or are otherwise absent as a result of the pandemic this would result in the shutting down of that plant if coal supplies run out. Nuclear plants could be shut down if the number of plant personnel fell below a predefined threshold for safe operation of the plant.
Since plant and grid repair and restart crews would also be affected in a similar manner to the engineers, the time to bring the shutdown system back up will also be more prolonged than under normal conditions. If enough plants are affected, this raises the chances of brownouts or blackouts affecting large regions of the US that could be quite prolonged.
The interruption in electric power service could last a month or two at most. One way to cope with this is by having a small number of key battery operated devices like lighting, flashlights, and a radio. Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries are now available that are a much-improved rechargeable battery compared with what was available in the past. Good selections of excellent battery chargers that use solar power for energy are now available. These
chargers can be coupled with a photovoltaic (solar power) module that will reliably and quickly (if big enough) charge your NiMH batteries over and over again. Good NiMH batteries, various chargers, and a selection of small PV modules suitable for this purpose can be purchased from Real Goods at www.realgoods.com.
Water Service
Public water systems employ a host of professional and operational staff that would be expected to experience illness at the average rate of the community as a whole. So, absenteeism could affect service reliability, as would loss of electric power, as these utilities use electric pumps to pressurize their systems. If water service is interrupted for a time, remember to wait a while before drinking the water once service is restored because it may be contaminated with bacteria initially.
It would be prudent to have some potable water available for use in an emergency. Tap water can be stored in 55-gallon drums. Make sure the drum you purchase is new or if not, that it is OK for storage of potable (drinkable) water rather than one that held toxic chemicals. You might also consider how you could divert rainwater from your downspouts for storage and drinking. Water collected from the roof will need to be purified before drinking because it could be contaminated. I found several helpful water purification suggestions on the US Federal Emergency Management Administration’s web site.9
Communications Services
Local TV and Radio broadcasts will probably cease if there is a regional power failure in your area as will cable TV. Satellite TV may remain active but you will need an alternative source of power to operate your system to view it since your power will be out. Landline telephone systems have an excellent record of remaining operational even during power failures. In the event of a widespread prolonged blackout, they will not be able to continue to function for very long. Cell phone towers have a small backup power capability but this won’t last long. So if the grid fails, all phone service will as well.
A good quality battery operated radio capable of receiving AM, FM, and Short Wave stations would be a smart way to keep up with local and world events in the event that the usual methods were impaired. Even if there are no operative local or regional news broadcasts, someone somewhere will be on the air reporting the news and providing information of interest to flu survivors. It will be comforting having access to this information should a major pandemic come to pass.
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