News roundup for Tue, Dec 05, 2022

Carlotta SusannaStaff - December 5, 2022

In short: Major supply chain disruptions avoided as diesel shortages are easing. Lake Powell could reach ‘minimum power pool’ status as early as July.
[See the full post at: News roundup for Tue, Dec 05, 2022]

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I’m currently in NC on a travel work assignment.  Fortunately, I’m not in Moore county.  The power outage has pretty well brought that county to a standstill.   All schools are closed, working from home is impossible (unless you are one of the few with a generator) and even then your Internet provider is down as well.  Multiple accidents as all traffic signals are inoperable.  One of my co-workers has a husband that works for a local electric company & his best guess is that a disgruntled current or former employee did the damage.   The equipment damaged required some fairly detailed knowledge of it to get the most “bang for the buck” with rifle fire.  Some of the delay in getting the power back on is that some of the pieces have to be replaced & tested before they can go back online.  

The NCBI & the FBI are looking hard for the person(s) responsible.  

I am chagrined to say that we didn’t bring along much in the way of supplies to cover us for this sort of issue.  We got lucky this time.  One local woman that was interviewed related that with a winter storm you have advance warning & can go out and get some supplies before the storm arrives.  

The fragility of the grid is brought into sharp relief once again.  Redouble your efforts friends.

 

Yes, I have to say that this situation brought into focus how grateful I am for The Prepared. I have plenty of water. I have multiple heat sources. I have plenty of battery-powered lights and enough Jackeries to keep my various devices going for many days, plus solar backups.  I’ve been coming through the Moore County interviews for insights to things I might not have thought of should the grid go down in my state, but so far I’m pretty confident that I’d be quite comfortable at home for a while (though I would lose the food in my freezer, a risk I’m taking consciously)

I am constantly surprised when I hear about situations like this when they interview the people who say, “I had no water in the house!”  Having a MINIMUM of three days’ of drinking water in a house should be just as normal as having a toothbrush.  Though the Moore County situation makes me angry (so many lives disrupted – for what?), I hope it will stimulate preparedness thinking in many others.  This situation also highlighted for me why I never let my gas tank go below half full. What if you had no water in the house AND no way to drive to a neighboring county to get what you need?

 

“The equipment damaged required some fairly detailed knowledge of it to get the most “bang for the buck” with rifle fire.”

I’m surprised by this. The substations have non-obvious weak points that were targeted? Did this require confidential company information or are the relevant “death star schematics” publicly available?

 

That new iPhone 14 satellite feature is so cool!

 

It is, but it is important to be aware of the shortcomings. I hope The Prepared will do an evaluation or writeup of it at some point? I was about to order one but after thoroughly evaluating it decided that it is not quite ready for “prime time” emergency service. Here is what I remember uncovering – not revalidated as I write this comment: I travel a lot internationally and it will not provide satellite emergency services outside North America (largely due to legal, not technical, constraints). This would be a major issue for me as it would be tempting to get dependent on it and then WHOOPS. You’re in the middle of Morocco or something and need help and didn’t think to bring a Garmin inReach. The satellite service is initially free but they won’t tell you how much it will cost later.  And the communications capabilities were very minimal compared to other options.  Is it better than nothing? Sure – as evidenced by that Alaska story. But for my part I’m waiting for the next release before spending my $$$ to upgrade my phone. 

 

Good job with your investigation; that’s good to know.  Also given that it’s new I wouldn’t stop carrying my PLB until the Apple systems has matured through several generations and addressed all of your concerns.