Your thoughts please

[JagFarlane]

Hmmmm lets see, all things considered...there would be more problems than are being brought up.

1) Its all fine and dandy to suggest generators, but how are you going to feed said generators? Most gas stations these days make use of electronic pumps, which will most likely be fried out. Doubtful that there is a backup system to pump the fuel out, particularly during the post-EMP panic. On top of that, how many generators these days are electrically started? Those would most likely be useless.

2) What about the need for electricity to prevent dangerous gasses and such from escaping? Consider how many places store toxic gas by keeping it at sub-zero temperatures, that now would no longer have electricity to power the refrigerant systems. The History Channel did a series, where they investigated this, and found it would only be a matter of hours before the gasses started to escape, killing whatever they found in their path.

3) EMP suddenly occurs, without warning, thus that means that hundreds if not thousands of planes are in flight. Many of todays modern planes rely heavily on electronics, as well as communications to be able to land. While it wouldn't surprise me that a few skilled pilots could safely land, the vast majority of these will probably be headed straight at the ground.

 

[oggbashan]

Locally we have several manic steam engine collectors.

Their steam engines and attached 19th/early20th century generators could provide basic power supplies from burning wood.

It is the electronics that are at risk, not more the more basic electrical systems.

When we have power outages, which occur once every couple of years of so, most of our community can survive for a day or two until power is restored. Our landline telephone system has standby batteries and generator back-up and still works when mains power doesn't. Depending on the size of the telephone exchange the batteries can supply for 6, 12 or 24 hours before an engineer is required to start a generator.

Our water supply uses ancient diesel and electric pumping machines. In some places the old steam engines are still in place, kept in working order by old machinery enthusiasts, and could supply water until electrical supplies are restored.

It is an interesting premise for a science fiction/fantasy story but unlikely to occur in real life except in a limited area.

Og

 

[Lee Chambers]

1) Its all fine and dandy to suggest generators, but how are you going to feed said generators? Most gas stations these days make use of electronic pumps, which will most likely be fried out. Doubtful that there is a backup system to pump the fuel out, particularly during the post-EMP panic. On top of that, how many generators these days are electrically started? Those would most likely be useless.

You might be able to use some kind of manual pump to siphon the gas out, if you get get into the storage tanks where the gas is. Of course, you'd better be ready to fight for it.

 

[JagFarlane]

You might be able to use some kind of manual pump to siphon the gas out, if you get get into the storage tanks where the gas is. Of course, you'd better be ready to fight for it.

Yup, thus the mention of the panic. Manual pump should work, just access the tanks from where the semi's pump the fuel in. Just gotta find one that will go deep enough.

 

[oggbashan]

You might be able to use some kind of manual pump to siphon the gas out, if you get get into the storage tanks where the gas is. Of course, you'd better be ready to fight for it.

Back in the 1970s when we in the UK had rolling power outages across the country, some gas (petrol) stations were able to pump gas by attaching a manual handle to one of the pulleys inside the gas pump header. The older gas stations were better equipped to continue without electricity. One village garage still had an old hand-operated pump that they reconnected to the underground tank. Their sales rose 500% over their norm.

Og

 

[Lee Chambers]

Show and Tell:All members of the AH who value intellectual honesty and freedom of speech should check out the thread "Uncloaking Lib., Christians, and Atheist" It tells the story of who the real trolls are and is a list of the real hypocrites in the AH who really do not favor free speech and really do spread hate on this forum. It will be interesting to know just how many of the members do support freedom of speech and intellectual honesty.

 

[cloudy]

http://cekirdek.pardus.org.tr/~caglar/DontFeedTheTroll.jpg

 

[JackLuis]

With the Electricity out for three weeks, You'd have to be an NRA life member to get a drink!

Canibals would stalk the streets of New York and in Detroit it would be chaos!

It would be worse in the civilized areas of the country.

 

[SlickTony]

That one must have gone directly to DVD...I don't remember it.

A very good apocalyptic novel is 'Alas Babylon' by Pat Frank. It was in paperback when I bought it in 1975...I still have it. It's how a small town in Florida survives a post-nuclear war. It's a good survival manual.

I read that book when I was young (earlier than '75) and it blew me away, even though it was kind of dated by subsequent events.

It amuses me greatly that, living in north Florida and working in a job where I access the county public records, I run across the name Peyton, Bragg, Henry, and Settle all the time. A lady who was in my church, her husband had the same name as one of the villains in the book--and another guy in my Sunday school class has the same middle and last name as that banker who shot himself when he realized that there wasn't going to be any money anymore. I have run across the name Malachi Henry several times in public records. I am in awe of the book's sense of authenticity.

I have a friend who said he read it at a young age and it had a similar effect on him, and he came up in the same area depicted in the book.

 

[amicus]

Read a lot of those stories over the years, just about every post apocalyptic scenario one can imagine.

An EMP, cause by a Nuclear Detonation, would be of limited effect and duration, yes, but as the Canadians felt the effects of a powerful solar flare. The cycle will be max in 2011/2012, if I recall and could affect the northern tier of States. The magnetic flux is the same as an EMP.

The magnetic north pole is also shifting and from geological records, actually reverses itself over long periods of time.

The Yellowstone Super Volcano is several tens of thousands of years overdue, so the scientists' say, and they also say that would create a nuclear winter, which would be a near extinction level event.

I suspect that if the idiocy of the environmentalists continues, that a shortage of electricity is close at hand, and closer as existing nuclear plants reach their decommissioning date.

The most believable scenario's I have read predict the cities will die and the people left, will go out into the countryside. And yes, those countryfolk will have guns and defend their livilhood.

Won't be pretty in any event.

Amicus