Well, here is some interesting news: In this past spring, someone gained access to fiber optic cables in San Jose, California and cut four or five of them. The cut was made on cables 8-10 feet underground in an unsecured manhole and as a result, terminated service to cell phone customers, internet access and only 52,000 residential telephone customers. The outage also disrupted 911 service and it took 15 hours to get that part of the system working again.
One day before that happened, the Wall street Journal reported that intruders had gained ‘administrative’ access (in other words, they can do anything they want to the programs and operations) of the United States electrical grid. These intruders reported to be from China, Russia and other countries have embedded software into these power systems which could insure their access to the systems even if the software engineers found and secured access in the ways that the intruders were originally able to enter the systems. What bothers me is that they haven’t tried to do anything yet, just secure an option to enter later if they ‘needed’ to infiltrate it for reasons of sabatouge or war.
I have to tell you that I usually turn a skeptical ear to this kind of stuff, but I made my living working on computer systems and managing their operations. I was the Director of Information systems for the City of Flagstaff and had direct access to all of their computerized systems. I know that we then, and to some degree now, are not ready for sophisticated intruders into our essential services. You will notice that most cities are gradually building enclosed water storage reservoirs and you may suspect that there is a program of water quality testing going on almost around the clock. But, it is my strong conviction that we are not prepared for a planned and carefully executed attack on any of our essential services that we take for granted. Be it water, power, communications, and even natural gas, we are going to be in trouble. We are trusting and naive and we leave everything open!
It wouldn’t take very many well placed subversives to disrupt these services for essentially the whole country and we would not have any way to communicate except by short wave radio and that would be overtaxed in such a condition. All air travel would cease and flights in progress could be compromised.
Brothers and sisters, maybe none of this will happen but we do know that BIG disruptions can happen and do happen. The communications problem in San Jose did happen. A few years ago much of the North East United
States and South Eastern Canada went without power for days. If we were to have an Earthquake, it could be months before water lines and gas lines could be repaired. You think that this is a California problem? Get online to the internet and look at the State of Utah geological reports on the number of active faults in the Washington County area. This is real stuff!
I was at the Dry Pack Cannery of the church last Saturday and the missionary couple in charge of the operation said that interest in food storage and preparedness has significantly dropped off lately. Many canning dates had not been honored and many more cancelled. We had the canner in the ward and had announced it in this bulletin and only 3 people used it.
What are we thinking?! Have we figured out how nothing is going to happen so we have more time? When I went on my mission in 1961, then Elder Joseph Feilding Smith stood up and said that anything that hadn’t happened that needed to happen before the Second Coming, could happen in 2 weeks! I say that any disaster that hasn’t happened could happen within the hour. Don’t get complaisent. Get it done! Then enjoy the serenity of knowing you are prepared.
One of the things we have not discussed yet is the need to have clean clothes. Laundry detergent will last almost indefinately if kept dry and sealed. This will sound funny but you can make a clothes washer by having a (new – do you think) toiled plunger and one of the orange buckets from Home Depot with a lid. Make a hole in the lid the size of the plunger handle and put clothes, water and a small amount of soap in the bucket, put the plunger in the bucket and the lid threaded down over the handle and seal it. Then, simply push and pull the plunger up and down to wash and rinse the clothes!
Yea, it was a close one, but we did talk of one technique. The thing is, each one of us has different levels of need for each of the services that could be disrupted. That means that each one of us needs to sit down as a family, or? (home or visiting teacher), and make a plan of what we will do if any of our services fail – For whatever reason.
Be sure to be thorough: if you have gas for water heating and cooking, do they require electricity to ignite and keep the valves open? Could that be a ‘gottcha’? Think carefully of everything.
If you have a medical need for electricity, make sure the City has you on their list. They may be able to deliver a short term power supply for you. JUST GET PREPARED. Try to think of everything. THIS IS REAL; GET TO IT!
gv3grant@gmail.com 435 628-2739 http://rupreparedgv3.blogspot.com
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