How Long Would Society Last During a Total Grid Collapse?

[Neb]

whatever happens, once the power goes down and the lights go off that would be it for most of the population.
there arent many people these days who can live without electricity.

The great diing

Ben

 

[UrbanHunter]

I was told a long time ago if whatever took down the UK power grid took out the transformers there are no spare ones kept on the shelf, these have to be ordered, made and shipped from abroad-probably China.
it would take 2 years to replace every single one thats even if they can find enough engineers .
can you imagine the population sitting in the dark for 2 years? society would have collapsed long before 2 years, probably more like a few months.

Remember, if the grid is down so goes the internet, no way to order the transformers from China, except send them a letter? That would add 6 months to the already totally unacceptable delay!

 

[elkhound]

the question should be...what type of society? people assume society would collapse...but what they should be saying/asking is after modern society collapses then what type of society emerges..both during and afterwards. assuming all will die could get you killed or leave you unprepared..contemplate the unthinkable i say.

i think theres far more that will survive and or long term lingerers than we collectively think there will be.

there will be regions with power..like supervisor said isolated grids... our grid was built in isolated pattern before it was all hooked together.

my old family farm had electric before electric..had a windmill and battery bank and powered 12volt items. you were very modern at that time with it. logcabinlooms on youtube talks about the windmill set up you use to could buy..they came with windmill,batteries,lights and a radio.

everyone will not be in same situation.

 

[lonewolf]

Remember, if the grid is down so goes the internet, no way to order the transformers from China, except send them a letter? That would add 6 months to the already totally unacceptable delay!

your quite right there.

 

[lonewolf]

the question should be...what type of society? people assume society would collapse...but what they should be saying/asking is after modern society collapses then what type of society emerges..both during and afterwards. assuming all will die could get you killed or leave you unprepared..contemplate the unthinkable i say.

i think theres far more that will survive and or long term lingerers than we collectively think there will be.

there will be regions with power..like supervisor said isolated grids... our grid was built in isolated pattern before it was all hooked together.

my old family farm had electric before electric..had a windmill and battery bank and powered 12volt items. you were very modern at that time with it. logcabinlooms on youtube talks about the windmill set up you use to could buy..they came with windmill,batteries,lights and a radio.

everyone will not be in same situation.

not all will die over here, there are always a few left but most will not survive, they havent got the knowledge, skills or tools.

 

[Hardcalibres]

Remember, if the grid is down so goes the internet, no way to order the transformers from China, except send them a letter? That would add 6 months to the already totally unacceptable delay!

Agreed - but not just the internet.

People should understand the concept of cascading failure.

If the US grid went down, that would take down another bunch of very important systems.

Each of that bunch would take down a bunch more.

Each of that bigger bunch would take down yet another bunch more.

The much shorter list would be the systems that would not be taken down, directly or indirectly by a grid failure.

That would be an international phenomenon - so don't expect any replacement step up (or other) transformers to be coming from the outside.

A big CME would have effects all around the world.

An EMP would almost certainly be part of a wider military conflict.

If the ROL had failed in the US, how would anyone from the outside even get transformers into the US to install them?

What would be the point if failure of the ROL had led to mayhem, destruction and depopulation?

 

[lonewolf]

Agreed - but not just the internet.

People should understand the concept of cascading failure.

If the US grid went down, that would take down another bunch of very important systems.

Each of that bunch would take down a bunch more.

Each of that bigger bunch would take down yet another bunch more.

The much shorter list would be the systems that would not be taken down, directly or indirectly by a grid failure.

That would be an international phenomenon - so don't expect any replacement step up (or other) transformers to be coming from the outside.

A big CME would have effects all around the world.

An EMP would almost certainly be part of a wider military conflict.

If the ROL had failed in the US, how would anyone from the outside even get transformers into the US to install them?

What would be the point if failure of the ROL had led to mayhem, destruction and depopulation?

yes I have said as much on other forums , cascade or domino effect.
once the UK power grid went down a lot of other stuff would go down as well all linked to electricity.

 

[lonewolf]

I dont know how it is in America but in Britain more than 80% of the population live in big cities, some of the older houses have chimneys but the new ones do not they are all electric, some have gas fires but the controls are electric so it amounts to the same thing.
most people dont have a larder they shop about every 3 days if not sooner,
once TSHTF and the power goes off they will be in the dark with no way of lighting, cooking or heating.
the mains water is all pumped so that will stop as will the toilets, fuel stations will shut as you cant pump petrol without electric and the computers will shut down too, shop tills will stay shut as they are all electric and no one has a manual handle to open them anymore.
traffic lights and traffic signals will go blank too so expect more traffic accidents.

 

[elkhound]

wide range of thoughts and more....

Look at Haiti...giant earth quake and i know its dangerous and more....yet majority of population is still alive and doing daily grind...whatever that looks like for each person or group etc. babies still being born and death happening both natural and violent acts...but yet they remain as a society.

Through my hiking i learned a bunch this year or more details i should say about various infrastructure of local villages and towns. All are very old and established long ago. They have water available to anyone with a bucket and can walk any distance. One has gravity fed water that a huge portion will keep flowing to customers and water flowing through center of village in a giant year round creek. Another has ability to pump off grid for extended amount of time if need be and was set up to function with no grid.Because of way locality was set up pre electric theres water from various springs to roadsides. Even in my life people hauled their drinking water from springs and i see a few still do.

Rural agriculture folks will continue in some form or fashion as long as possible.The way they do so will change but they will do something on smaller scale.People will be outside much more doing various tasks. Tending herds and flocks will be one activity for sure.Bring them in at night and taking back out next morning for daily grazing.Backpacks and bottle to hold drinking water will be standard daily carry for many folks.C-19 changed people fast here...they went into instant ag-production mode and have never looked back from smallest of acreage to largest. One guy is adding 100's of head of cattle to his holding in last year as example..I know lots of folks with 3 digits number of head.

blah blah blah....

 

[Mountain trapper]

We live 100% off grid now, and wouldn't know it, or care, if other parts of the country lost power. We barely get phone/internet service here now so it wouldn't be a big deal if the internet went down. We have over a year supply of propane for cooking, laundry and the water heater, and if we conserved a little, a year of diesel and gasoline stored. We've got a lifetime supply of firewood around us for heating the house and shop. Not much would change for us for at least a year. After that, we'd manage just fine. We store a lot of our food "on the hoof", beef, chickens, hogs and an abundance of wild game. And horses for transportation.
The way I see it, all of us on sites like this could/should be well prepared for any situation that may come along. The city is the last place that a real prepper should be, they could be in for some serious hard times. Move out of the city.

 

[lonewolf]

We live 100% off grid now, and wouldn't know it, or care, if other parts of the country lost power. We barely get phone/internet service here now so it wouldn't be a big deal if the internet went down. We have over a year supply of propane for cooking, laundry and the water heater, and if we conserved a little, a year of diesel and gasoline stored. We've got a lifetime supply of firewood around us for heating the house and shop. Not much would change for us for at least a year. After that, we'd manage just fine. We store a lot of our food "on the hoof", beef, chickens, hogs and an abundance of wild game. And horses for transportation.
The way I see it, all of us on sites like this could/should be well prepared for any situation that may come along. The city is the last place that a real prepper should be, they could be in for some serious hard times. Move out of the city.

your right that a city is no place for a real prepper amongst all those sheeple.

 

[Weedygarden]

......and if your water supply becomes suspect for any reason, the ability to boil your drinking water in bulk, becomes the difference between life and death.

When I travel around the third world dumps, the richest guy in town is the guy with a donkey cart and an IBC to cart water for all the villagers. He makes a pretty good living carting water from where it naturally is (which varies at different times of the year) to where people live.

I often wonder how the places without wells have never done what it takes to get one or to figure out how to make water available to them. Poverty, yes. But poor people can dig holes in the ground. Does a hole in the ground make a well? Not usually, but it does sometimes.

We know how essential water is. So why not get on getting water? Maybe they haven't even thought that it is a possibility?

In my research of my family history in Europe, I found out that water was sometimes transported via hollow logs. How to hollow out a log? I have no idea, but somehow it happened.

 

[lonewolf]

some of the more remoter areas over here use spring fed water. have seen a few places like that.

 

[montanabill]

I often wonder how the places without wells have never done what it takes to get one or to figure out how to make water available to them. Poverty, yes. But poor people can dig holes in the ground. Does a hole in the ground make a well? Not usually, but it does sometimes.

We know how essential water is. So why not get on getting water? Maybe they haven't even thought that it is a possibility?

In my research of my family history in Europe, I found out that water was sometimes transported via hollow logs. How to hollow out a log? I have no idea, but somehow it happened.

 

[Mountain trapper]

I often wonder how the places without wells have never done what it takes to get one or to figure out how to make water available to them. Poverty, yes. But poor people can dig holes in the ground. Does a hole in the ground make a well? Not usually, but it does sometimes.

We know how essential water is. So why not get on getting water? Maybe they haven't even thought that it is a possibility?

In my research of my family history in Europe, I found out that water was sometimes transported via hollow logs. How to hollow out a log? I have no idea, but somehow it happened.

I've often wondered how people can be starving when their country is surrounded by ocean, or at least has long coast lines, rivers or lakes.
I've drove in sandpoints by hand for water in a few places I've lived. The old homesteaders around here dug wells by hand, some 100 feet or more deep. A lot of water used to be transported by wooden pipe or flumes for mining or irrigation. Hard working intelligent people can overcome just about anything. The lazy and ignorant do nothing and starve.

 

[Weedygarden]

View attachment 120236

What an important job or thing to do!

It made me wonder when running water became a thing. I know that I was born into a family without running water, but it became available when I was young, maybe 3 or 4.

https://www.tomorrowsworldtoday.com/manufacturing/history-of-running-water/"
Archaeologists discovered the first water pipes in palace ruins of India’s Indus River Valley dating back to 4000-3000 B.C. These pipes were copper, and there were also earthen plumbing pipes dating around 2700 found in their ancient urban settlement.

Pipes were also discovered in Egyptian ruins, dating around 2500 B.C. They were first made out of clay and were later upgraded to copper. The pipes helped move water from the Nile River to help people water their crops and provide running water. The pipes were also found in intricately designed bathrooms inside of the great pyramids.

Furthermore, around 500 B.C., the Chinese used crude bamboo “pipes” to transport gas that seeped to the surface to boil seawater to get drinkable water."

More to this article.

 

[TENNGRIZZ]

About 28 days

 

[Old Whatshisname]

I've often wondered how people can be starving when their country is surrounded by ocean, or at least has long coast lines, rivers or lakes.
I've drove in sandpoints by hand for water in a few places I've lived. The old homesteaders around here dug wells by hand, some 100 feet or more deep. A lot of water used to be transported by wooden pipe or flumes for mining or irrigation. Hard working intelligent people can overcome just about anything. The lazy and ignorant do nothing and starve.

Isn't that what Laura's father did in "Little House on the Prairie"?

 

[Weedygarden]

I've often wondered how people can be starving when their country is surrounded by ocean, or at least has long coast lines, rivers or lakes.

This reminds me of California, with that vast ocean, and they keep looking east for water. For the love of God, they need to think again!

 

[Mountain trapper]

This reminds me of California, with that vast ocean, and they keep looking east for water. For the love of God, they need to think again!

For years there was talk in California about piping water from the Columbia River to Southern California. There are a couple things California could do to help their water problems, 1). start building desalination plants, 2). Deport the millions of illegal aliens in California, 3). Put a moratorium on new water projects until they have enough water to fill their needs, without draining their aquifers or stealing water from other states.
Probably the best idea would be to give the southern half of California back to Mexico, if they'd take it.

 

[lonewolf]

I lived off grid for 12 years without power of any kind, everything done by hand.
unless British people can learn to do the same the survival rate here is going to be very low.

 

[sonya123]

some of the more remoter areas over here use spring fed water. have seen a few places like that.

Thats what we have here. Our entire neighborhood ( 7 families and livestock ) use that as water. It's not always super clean and if someone forgets to turn off a hydrant or leaves something running the tank gets empty and we have no water until we figure it out
( we do store enough for that) . I tested our spring once and it runs around 15000 gallons a day in summer.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Thats what we have here. Our entire neighborhood ( 7 families and livestock ) use that as water. It's not always super clean and if someone forgets to turn off a hydrant or leaves something running the tank gets empty and we have no water until we figure it out
( we do store enough for that) . I tested our spring once and it runs around 15000 gallons a day in summer.

That's a good spring. It figures out to about 10 gpm. We have a spring fed pond in on our place, in a dry summer it drops about 6 feet. We have several creeks that get their start on our property, but they all go dry by July. We get our water from a deep well, 650 feet deep, and pump it to the house and several livestock tanks. We've got about a half mile of buried water lines from the well with several freeze proof water hydrants.
Water is the most important thing that a person can have on their property.

 

[montanabill]

Our mountain property had a spring that only ran in the summer. Made a nice little pond. Just across the county road was a year round small stream...
Our driled well was 285 feet deep and tasted like the best mountain melted snow water, I had it witched and since the site was below the cabin I dug 400 ft of six foot deep trench to run the line. Just a note, after pumping the water up out of the well and uphill to the cabin, which worked......one day I ran a hose up the hill from the cabin and the pump would not push the water another fifty feet uphill.
We shared water with two mountain women who lived really far back in the woods. They would fill their truck bed tank every once in a while.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Our mountain property had a spring that only ran in the summer. Made a nice little pond. Just across the county road was a year round small stream...
Our driled well was 285 feet deep and tasted like the best mountain melted snow water, I had it witched and since the site was below the cabin I dug 400 ft of six foot deep trench to run the line. Just a note, after pumping the water up out of the well and uphill to the cabin, which worked......one day I ran a hose up the hill from the cabin and the pump would not push the water another fifty feet uphill.
We shared water with two mountain women who lived really far back in the woods. They would fill their truck bed tank every once in a while.

Our well is a quarter mile below our house and over a low ridge. I put in a 5 hp 15 gpm well pump down at the 625 foot level. We get good water pressure out of all of our hydrants. It's also the best tasting water I've ever had.
Sounds like you may need to install a larger horsepower pump in your well.

 

[sonya123]

That's a good spring. It figures out to about 10 gpm. We have a spring fed pond in on our place, in a dry summer it drops about 6 feet. We have several creeks that get their start on our property, but they all go dry by July. We get our water from a deep well, 650 feet deep, and pump it to the house and several livestock tanks. We've got about a half mile of buried water lines from the well with several freeze proof water hydrants.
Water is the most important thing that a person can have on their property.

Yes!! It took quite a bit of doing to get legal part ownership of the spring when we bought the property. It was THE biggest issue in the real estate deal. The actual spring is on our property ( I am pretty sure but it is not surveyed . The catch box is probably on our property too, but the concrete tank is definitely on our neighbors property. We are the first on the line, so if we shut off our water, nobody else has water either. On the other hand, if the valve controlling flow to the lower houses is wide open, we have no water pressure and the higher neighbor has no water at all. We all own the spring and the water system. There are 5 Amish families, us, and a woman living by herself on the line. It's quite complicated but in the 7 years we have lived here there hasn't been any huge issues.
But free water.....

 

[montanabill]

Sounds like you may need to install a larger horsepower pump in your well.
The well worked quite well since any irrigating or critters were below the house. it worked well enough to keep the cabin wetted down when a 74, 000 acre forest fire ripped thu and burned all the trees off the land. No chance of trees growing back in our lifetime so we walked away from that one. Now we are on less land with a well we can solar pump and are a bicycle ride from the upper missouri river. I make these bicycles which can carry quit a bit of water in 5 gallon containers......till the wheels collapse.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Yes!! It took quite a bit of doing to get legal part ownership of the spring when we bought the property. It was THE biggest issue in the real estate deal. The actual spring is on our property ( I am pretty sure but it is not surveyed . The catch box is probably on our property too, but the concrete tank is definitely on our neighbors property. We are the first on the line, so if we shut off our water, nobody else has water either. On the other hand, if the valve controlling flow to the lower houses is wide open, we have no water pressure and the higher neighbor has no water at all. We all own the spring and the water system. There are 5 Amish families, us, and a woman living by herself on the line. It's quite complicated but in the 7 years we have lived here there hasn't been any huge issues.
But free water.....

Can you install a pressure pump on the system to increase the pressure? They aren't too expensive and are easy to install. Maybe the neighbors would pitch in too, since it would benefit everyone.
Years ago I filed for water rights to our pond. Historically our pond was used by the range cows in the area. When I completed the miles of fencing here I cut off their water supply. Technically someone could have filed for water rights to our pond. There's another spring just off our property on Forest Service land. I've fenced down to it and there's a water trough there. I'm going to look in to filing water rights on it too. I don't think anyone els has filed on it.
Eventually I'd like to drill a new well up by the house and use our current well for irrigation, which will mean filing for another water right for the amount of land I plan to irrigate.
Water, and water rights are a big deal out west. Just because you have water on, or flowing through, your property doesn't necessarily mean that you have a right to use that water. When buying property, always do a through title search. Also check to see who owns the minerals rights. There have been dozens of mining claims filed around our property in the last couple of years, but since we own the mineral rights they can't access our land. Of course I could sell an easement to the mining company for big $$...

 

[Mountain trapper]

.

 

[sonya123]

Can you install a pressure pump on the system to increase the pressure? They aren't too expensive and are easy to install. Maybe the neighbors would pitch in too, since it would benefit everyone.

Why would I do that? The system is gravity fed. It costs nothing. A pump and the fuel to run it does.
The whole goal is to be as self sufficient as possible, not as convenient as possible. If I wanted convenient and perfect water pressure and other stuff, I wouldn't live here