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What type of catastrophic event do you think is necessary for 200 million Americans to die? A nuclear bomb? A pandemic? A series of unheard-of natural disasters? The answer actually is far simpler – and perhaps even more deadly.
It’s a nationwide blackout, and it’s the subject of this week’s edition of Off The Grid Radio, as Brigadier (ret.) General Ken Chrosniak – an expert on grid threats who served 36 years in the military and two years on the Joint Chiefs of Staff – pulls no punches in telling us why every American should be concerned about the nation’s aging infrastructure.
A long-term nationwide blackout, Chrosniak says, is a matter of “when,” not “if.” And during such a scenario, an estimated 200 million people will die, either from starvation or from lawlessness, with good people turning bad and with an overwhelmed government unable to help.
The general tells us, from experience and expertise:
- Why America’s grid is so vulnerable.
- Which threats to the grid we should be most concerned about.
- How a solar flare could send America back to the 1800s.
- Why the US has been lucky in recent years to avoid such a blackout, but why that luck soon could run out.
- What you can do to prepare for and survive a downed grid.
The US government, he says, isn’t being honest about the threats to the grid, and Congress has yet to take action despite understanding the threat. Additionally, some parts of the grid have no backup parts and take 18 or more months to reproduce – meaning if they’re taken down, the lights will be out … for a long time.
Chrosniak serves on the board of advisers with EMPact America, a bipartisan organization of concerned citizens focused on protecting the American power grid. Listen as he gives us a crash course on an under-the-radar story that deserves front-page attention.
