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The catastrophe in collapsing Venezuela shows why everybody must prepare for grid failures.
Life without the grid is no picnic in collapsing Venezuela. Notably, a blackout is literally taking the country’s second largest city, Maracaibo, back to the dark ages.
Looting, lack of healthcare, battles between business owners and looters, food shortages, and empty store shelves are among the blackout effects Guardian reporter Sheyla Urdaneta found in Maracaibo [1]. Moreover, water lines, the Internet, wireless service, and telephone service no longer work in the city of 1.653 million people.
Maracaibo’s grid is collapsing because of a political crisis and the country’s failed socialist economic policies. Looting and violence are among the effects of grid collapse in Maracaibo.
Grid Failure Leads To Total Madness In Collapsing Venezuela
In fact, business owners and security guards are fighting gang members and looters in the cities. Additionally, hospitals lack medical supplies to treat people wounded in the fighting.
“It was total madness,” business association president Ricardo Acosta says of the situation in Maracaibo. For example, Urdaneta describes a Maracaibo emergency room as “like something from a war film. Dozens of patients and their families were crowded into the sweltering ward, a few lying on beds, others slumped on the bloodstained floor.”
In addition, only the hospital’s emergency room has electricity from a backup generator. The rest of University Hospital is dark because the grid is down.
Plus, Urdaneta saw doctors tell a heart-attack victim he will have to provide his own medicine – in the emergency room. To clarify, there is a shortage of medicine in Venezuela because the country’s economy is collapsing.
Grid Collapse Throws Country Into Chaos
The nightmare in Maracaibo began when the electricity went off in 18 of Venezuela’s 23 provinces on March 7. Chaos erupted because the blackout [2] lasted for several days.
Strangely, nobody knows the cause of the blackout. Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro blames a cyber attack by the U.S. military. However, opponents blame Maduro’s socialist economic policies and incompetence.
In addition, Maduro claims his rival Juan Guaidó is responsible for the power failure. To explain, both Maduro [3] and Guaidó claim to be the legal president of Venezuela.
Socialism Destroys Grid In Collapsing Venezuela
However, analysts blame Maduro’s decision to let the military rather than qualified technicians manage the electric system for the grid failure, The Guardian reports. For instance, Maduro is firing professional executives at the government electric company and replacing them with political hacks.
In addition, trained engineers and technicians who could fix the grid have left Venezuela. Hence, there is nobody to maintain Venezuela’s electric grid thanks to Maduro.
In detail, the grid failure began when a main power line between the San Gerónimo B and Malena substations, Caracas Chronicles reports. To clarify the line connects the gigantic Simon Bolivar hydroelectric plant and Venezuela’s cities. Specifically, the Simon Bolivar plant supplies 80% of Venezuela’s electricity [4].
Venezuela’s Grid Collapse Demonstrates The Need To Prep
Plus, Venezuela has very little backup power generation. Hence, if the grid goes down the lights go out throwing the country into chaos.
The catastrophe in collapsing Venezuela shows why everybody must prepare for grid collapse. Only those are prepared with backup power, weapons, and stockpiles of food and other supplies can comfortably survive grid collapse. Thus, Venezuela’s collapse should teach Americans to stop laughing at preppers.
You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: China’s EMP Threat To America Could End Modern Life As We Know It [5]
Or download our free 28-page report that discusses the top 9 threats to the power grid: Black Out [6]
What are your thoughts on the collapsing grid in Venezuela? Let us know in the comments below.
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