fiction: falling off the grid, part 1

   Since some time, I'm thinking about disaster preparedness, see [1]my
   earlier post. I did continue somewhat on that avenue, but I'm not yet
   where I want to be; to get a better image of what might happen, and at
   the same time have an incentive for more writing, I'm starting a
   fictitious diary of a prolonged power blackout in my area. I will
   partly assume having prepared differently than in reality, to explore
   ideas, and I reserve the right to assume improbable situations for the
   sake of "prepping viewpoint". Be warned though, it won't be a marvel in
   litterature...
     __________________________________________________________________

Sunday, the 14th

   During breakfast today, power failed; initially, we were not much
   alarmed, because tea and toast were already prepared... However, when
   it was still off after ten minutes, I became slightly uneasy, because
   that's totally not normal in our area. I checked radio: some of the
   private stations were offline as well as digital service, but the
   public (federal) FM stations were giving news about power failure in
   large swaths of the country, apparently due to heavy snow fall in the
   western parts and the Alps causing power line interruptions, combined
   with issues in two of our nuclear power plants. Trains mostly were
   running, thanks to their independent power network.

   Power in the area of my workplace seemed down as well, according to the
   news, and while I had some internet connectivity through mobile service
   (and could even reach SDF briefly, yay!) I did not succeed to get into
   contact with any machine there, nor with the security desk. Probably
   they were offline as well or overwhelmed with alarms. We have some
   machines requiring constant heating in one part and cooling in other
   parts, otherwise stuff worth a fortune will break. Sure we have
   uninterruptible power supplies, but these will not last forever: unless
   somebody can do a planned shutdown, the thing will wreck after two
   hours. Eventually I managed to call my colleague while she was en route
   to the lab, and because she's our expert on those systems, I did not
   worry about it much longer.

   When power was not restored after twenty minutes, I decided to fill
   buckets and our bathtub with tap water, after sealing the drain with
   several layers of tape and lining the tub with some large sheet of
   plastic, to make sure we had some clean water reserves. I also started
   recharging some of my power banks and portable devices on my solar
   panel battery. Mobile connectivity and data became flaky, therefore I
   shut down all internet devices and phones, except for my wife's and my
   work number, to save on batteries.

   Next we had a look through our food stock. We did not open the freezer,
   to keep it cold, as my wife already had a rough idea of what would need
   to be eaten quickest, if the power stayed out for much longer. There is
   still dry food and vegetable stock in the cellar for some more days.
   Cooking is another problem, but with a small camping-type gas stove, we
   should be independent for at least two days.

   We managed to contact our parents by SMS after some unsuccessful tries
   to call them: they were quite ok. I suggested they also store some
   water, just in case.

   The weather was nice with good forecast, so we took our bikes, packed
   some food, and went for a ride at noon: making the kids move is good in
   any case. After half an hour, we made lunch break on the hilltop, and I
   took out my handheld transceiver to check some amateur radio repeaters.
   Most of those I supposed to be reachable from my position were dead,
   but on the working ones (probably equipped with batteries), there was
   quite some activity, so I only listened. News said in some areas power
   had been restored, but in addition failed elsewhere, even in parts of
   southern Germany. We continued, and other than non-working traffic
   lights, there were no obvious indications of the power failure --
   except that we never heard any churchbells ringing, and there were
   quite some people with cars stranded at gas stations, which obviously
   did not work.

   When we returned in mid-afternoon, tap water was still running, so we
   decided to all take a shower to make use of the warm water in the
   boiler. A quick opening of the freezer provided us with some nice
   steaks which we fried in a small pan on the gas stove and ate with
   bread and raw vegetables.

   It started to get darker outside, and we lit some candles in addition
   to various LED lights. Temperatures in the house are slowly dropping: a
   full tank of oil (actually Diesel fuel) unfortunately is of not much
   use during a blackout, if the heater needs electrical power to work.
   And as our car runs on gasoline and not Diesel, all that fuel seems
   quite useless for the time being!

   My colleague told me by SMS she had managed to shutdown most of the
   critical stuff in time, so there was nothing important to do at work
   for the time being. Until power is back up, there is not much I could
   do in the lab.

   Later in the evening, tap water dried up, therefore I filled a bucket
   at our rainwater barrel and took it upstairs for flushing the toilet.
   Sleeping time for the kids arrived; it was not that easy to get them
   quiet, because they were rather anxious about the whole situation, even
   the younger one. I quickly tried our phone line while powering the
   router through the solar panel batteries (fortunately the same
   voltage), but the line was dead.

   Now I'm writing down these notes on my tablet. With the solar charged
   battery backup, it should remain operable for several days. I did not
   dare to use my laptop, because I want to keep its batteries available
   for possible later and more urgent needs.

   Now we'll try to get some sleep as well, and hope for tomorrow.

   .:.

References

   1. gopher://sdf.org/0/users/yargo/glog/./t17553.txt