maciver6969 t1_ixl27zj wrote
After Y2K, several groups got together and made a if the shit hits the fan file that had 99% of the important infrastructure repair and operation manuals that you could put on optical media easily and can be accessed with any hardened pc. The US Military has hardened pc equipment, and most commercial laptops should be ok if not plugged in, inside a modern home or office. Also to mention we will still have libraries that contain all our information, including massive ones like the library of congress.
Also most microwaves are essentially faraday cages, unplug it and put your electronics in the micro and they will be safe in most cases.
Transformers will be a pain in the ass, but most electric companies have a fuckton of them stored all over their regions, but it is the bigger stations that will be harder to replace. Most are custom ordered so no one has a supply on hand. They could be done manually but it will take months vs weeks. People who live in regions that have nasty weather will have generators out the wazoo, as will heavy equipment rental places, government offices, not to mention hospitals who have generators too. In a worst case many cell towers have emergency generators too that could be re-purposed to power factories to rebuild power.
The real issue is lack of transportation and refrigeration, without those none of the goods made everywhere else can make it to the cities like NYC or LA and the population of these cities are so large they have no way to feed them all. No trucks, no rail, no ship deliveries. GPS is how almost all modern ship traffic is controlled, so no navigation slows down the ships that didnt have major electronics controlling it. Tankers require computers to control the safety features like not having the correct air mix in the tanks to prevent explosions, control transferring from tanks to keep the ship stable in foul weather and more.
The real threat is the power grid failing in major cities causing fires that cannot be fought since the water is all computerized pumps, the firetrucks are electronic, so imagine drought filled california going up like a torch without air dropped firefighting since they would be fried. Rebuilding an entire state will be difficult, now imagine that on a global scale. Ever single major city in the world on fire, no way to fight it and without food.
People who have skills like food preservation skill such as canning, drying, and preserving food will go waaaaay up in demand. Farmers will be shooting looters day and night. I would think we would have a very difficult 7 or so years before things start normalizing. Local libraries have gardening books, how to do this and that books, so the smart ones will get secure then get the books they need right away. I already do a lot of canning, but never tried doing it to meat before, since that is PRESSURE canning, but I used to hunt and fish so dried a ton of meat and fish in the past, and took a class oh shit back in 97 on smoking, drying, and salting foods for preservation. Salt preservation is almost fool proof, and salt is easy to get in a lot of places, and if on the coast it is abundant and is a byproduct of making fresh water from salt water.
I suspect that most of the at least semi-intelligent people out there will do just fine, while the paste eaters will die. Global warming will be over, and the populations IQ would raise at least 30 points when the internet trolls and general morons die off. Our satellites would be a different story, since they are hardened but not in our protective bubble almost all would be gone. Now here is the issue, without control they will be like a billard table bouncing off each other leaving a massive debris cloud. The debris will take YEARS to burn up and not be a danger to the replacements we would need to send up. That could take an uncomfortably long time.
GorillaP1mp t1_iy44qqg wrote
Those transformers for substations take a few weeks to replace when circumstances are business as usual, which means a slow but steady replacement of equipment as it fails. Not in a situation where exponentially more need replacement all at once. Under those conditions, combined with the transportation issues you correctly point out, those months could become years. That puts a huge burden on those generators that keep critical services running. Fortunately, any planning for that is unnecessary since those generators will be dead within a week after using up the accessible reserves of fuel. Realistically, plan on no more then 3 days of emergency power backup…all reserved for critical systems like hospitals, fire services (which will be working overtime), water treatment, etc. Which brings up another issue, water supply is regulated and kept separate from waste water systems through large electric pumps. Once those pumps stop, the water supply becomes contaminated. We would see some pretty horrible diseases resurface quickly. Finally refrigeration loss for more then a month is a death sentence for diabetics, measured by the number of bottles they have of penicillin and the drastically reduced shelf life. 90 days would be generous if it happened during the winter. Much, much less time if it’s during the summer. Along with no food, after the initial neighborhood bbq, no water, no gas, no electricity, and limited to no communication with anyone beyond walking distance, things would get very bad very quickly. You paint an accurate picture, but I can’t see how an event like this wouldn’t come close to extinction level for the affected area.
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