Anyone here in it? I guess all those who were got a crash course in pioneer living. This is our most vulnerable area for terrorist attack. Please people, prepare, prepare. This is homesteading forum. Homesteading is all about preparation. However, it is easy to be sucked in to forgetting how tenuous things are in the post-industrial world we live in. Please pay attention to the pictures on the news. If this was not terrorist related, (and despite reports that has NOT been ruled out as they still do not know the cause) it does give the terrorists great ideas for truly crippling the US. It is something I had not only been thinking of previous to the blackout, but also talking about to people locally. It is also something I avoided directly talking about online, as I wasn't really interested in helping terrorists. However, given that my private fears have begun to be realized, I feel now is the time to seriously talk about what might happen if this starts happening again and again and again. Businesses, especially small busniess were affected by this blackout. This happening on multiple occasions would be disasterous. Every person in America, must look for alternatives to the grid.

Terror Question

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), August 18, 2003

Answers

the whole country has been built on shifting sand for awhile. Unfortunately there haven't been that many storms to test our fortification. I read an article that Al Quaida IS claiming responsibilty for the power outage. I really believe they would claim responsibilty for a blizzard if it hurt Americans, however the report I read says that they have the capability for a repeat performance. It is probably bunk, but folks I really believe that if they weren't interested in our power grid before, they are now. Al Quaida said they couldn't reveal how the outage was done, because they might have do it again. I'll find the link and post it.

Little bit Farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), August 22, 2003.

Claims about power outage here.

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), August 22, 2003.

I was struck by the stories I read about the amount of food that wasted, ruined and put out on the curb for the trash men to pick up. Our refrigerators and freezers are wonderful, but I think we rely to much on them. Heck, here in the Tabletops, we lose power regularly, so I just can't depend on a freezer for too much of my home food storage. Even a good root cellar here in the south will get up into the 70+ degree range in the summertime.

-- Tabletop Homestead (tabletophomestead@earthlink.net), August 18, 2003.

It only affected our part of Ohio for a few minutes in the form of a brown out and then the power was actually off for about four seconds. Had we made our trip to Maine a week later than we did, we would have been traveling right through all of that out East. That brought up a question for us that we have never before considered. How to be prepared if you are traveling for an extended amount of time?

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), August 18, 2003.

As long time preppers we were very little affected by the extended power outage, except I missed the internet!!! We have a generator and enough gas stored to run it until I can get all the meat canned if we get to TEOTWAWKI.........but found a major gap in our preps. All the radio stations within reach of our little antenna were transmitting on generator power and thus reduced signal. Phones out, both land lines and cell.........so NO NEWS!!!! Finally had to get in the truck and listen to the radio in there and found out what was going on. Next investment here is going to be a Ham radio.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), August 20, 2003.

if you plugged in one of those "old fashion" rotary phones. They still worked, in most areas. Though alot of the lines were jammed

-- stan (sopal@net-pert.com), August 20, 2003.

In Fort Worth Tx. today the (sobig) I think that's the name of it hit the city offices. I think they are still down, as I didn't get to watch local news tonight. But if the computers are that vulnerable, just imagine what they could do if they hit our water supply computers. We have community water, and every time the electric goes down in our area, so does the water. I want to get a cistern. 20 years ago we had one where we lived and had water hauled in. One thousand gal. lasted up a month. Of course then we had an out house and carried our water. Wasn't piped in. But in emergency could do it again.

-- Ruby (rubymcfay@yahoo.com), August 21, 2003.

My mail box at yahoo has been jammed every hour with that Sobig virus. What a mess!!! Stan..........we have the phones that don't need electricity to run.......the lines were just jammed I guess and what I was told was that the crash happened so fast that something happened with the cell phones.

I am beginning to think that the whole country is built on shifting sand now and we could find ourselves in a major pickle any day. Perhaps it is what needs to happen to wake people up??

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), August 22, 2003.

beleive it or not, Cell phones need power also. The phones themselves may be charged, but the towers dont have much of a backup.

-- stan (sopal@net-pert.com), August 22, 2003.

my server went down, right after the blackout, though we wernt effected by it. Couldnt get emails, could get online,, no emails. Ever since then, I have been getting virus alerts also,,, and returned mail, to emails that I dont know. I have checked for viruses,, nothing. I think that during that blackout time, the virus spread liek crazy, and is using others email addresses to spread more.

Just now,, I received 48 virus alerts. My server checks all emails before delivery,,, that means they found 48 viruses, in the last 1 hour

-- stan (sopal@net-pert.com), August 22, 2003.