The Grid 101-Bronx Tornado Update

Posted by LK on 7/27/10 • Categorized as Blog, Environment, Featured, Personal, Psychology, survival

note from LK: my internet, VOIP, and cable TV were just restored after being down for a day and a half following the Bronx Tornado, whose 100mph winds came within 100 yards of my building. Rather than close the blinds and head for the basement, I stood still and watched, mesmerized by the sight of trees being uprooted and branches swirling in the air.

Admittedly not a terribly bright choice on my part. but a sight I clearly, without thinking, deemed not to be missed.

Thankfully it missed me, and, to my knowledge, no one was seriously injured. I’ve got new material coming, but felt it timely to make a few changes to, and re-post, the following piece, which hit a little too close to home.

During the past 6 months we northeastern media elites have learned a thing or two about the kind of wrath Mother Nature dishes out with regularity to the rest of our country, and to the world.

From the comfort of our modestly variable four seasons, we read about mudslides, and wildfires nursed by blazing temperatures; about tornadoes that throw buildings around, and hurricanes that drown cities. Internationally, we read about tsunamis and earthquakes that kill hundreds of thousands of strangers. We sigh in sympathy, and we turn the page, to read on about droughts that bring farmers to their knees.

But few of us know any farmers, and, although we’ve donated to Katrina victims, few of us have invited any of them up north for an extended stay. Nor were we able to take time out from our pressing engagements, like pitching reality shows and cajoling chirping superstars to record duets, to go down there and lend a hand rather than a tax deduction.

But with the snowstorms of the past winter, the March nor’easter, and Sunday’s Tornado in the Bronx, we’ve had a taste of how tenuous the assumptions that lie at the foundation of our daily lives are.

Assumptions like the multiple ways we have of getting in touch with one another, and how alone and even helpless we feel when the cable feeding us our broadband, our telephone line, and our television signal go down. Cell towers get knocked out by 70 mph wind gusts, and, my God, we can’t text. Power’s out, and suburbanite upper-crusters, who think survivalists are contestants in some reality show, have not a clue what to do, except maybe find a relative who escaped the brunt of the storm and go crash at their place.

We learn that what we, just yesterday, considered our high tech birthright can be lost to the elements, disrupted by hackers, or frazzled by solar flares.

The grid we live in and on is way more fragile than we care to think about. Yet thinking about our dependence on it is precisely the first step we’ve got to take, in order, if needs be, to cope without it.