(INTELLIHUB) — The Chinese space station Tiangong-1 may come crashing down to Earth in the next week along with fireballs and a large swath of the planet is in the crosshairs.
Intellihub founder Shepard Ambellas gave the grim news on his radio show Tuesday, when he told the audience about the threat to human life.
“This Tiangong-1 is expected to crash into the Earth this week,” Ambellas said “It can reenter Earths atmosphere anywhere between 43°N longitude to 43°S longitude.”
You can listen to the entire broadcast about the falling space station here.
Featured Image: Tiangong-1 passing over moon, altitude 207 miles, range 600 miles. Faint, between aircraft and moon, over Lake Roosevelt. Saturn in lower right. (Rocky Raybell/Flickr)
There is no doubt that the United States has dedicated, well-trained first responders who bravely risk their own lives when disaster strikes. We have only to view images of the tragic events of 9/11 to realize how brave these men and women truly are.
Nonetheless, a disturbing study by researchers from the University of Georgiarecently found that the majority of U.S. first responders have received no training in how to deal with the aftereffects of a nuclear attack, and that many are so frightened of radiation that they would be unwilling to assist in the event of such a disaster.
News Wise reports that experts have warned that “a radiological or nuclear event is inevitable,” and as such, it is vitally important that emergency workers be trained and ready to deal with this when it happens.
The New Yorker recently warned that America’s relations with North Korea, which have never been particularly good, have been strained to breaking point in the past few months:
In the six years since Kim Jong Un assumed power, at the age of twenty-seven, he has tested eighty-four missiles—more than double the number that his father and grandfather tested. … On the Fourth of July, North Korea passed a major threshold: it launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile powerful enough to reach the mainland United States.
To test whether emergency personnel are prepared for such an eventuality, the research team surveyed over 400 first responders from across the U.S. and Asia. They wanted to determine two things:
1) Would emergency workers even be willing to show up at the site of a nuclear attack?
2) How prepared are they to handle this type of crisis?
Shockingly, more than 50 percent of the respondents admitted that they had never received any special training in how to deal with a nuclear crisis. As a result, many were poorly informed, for example, believing that the greatest need for treatment in the aftermath of a nuclear attack would be for thermal burns, when in reality, most injuries in this type of situation are lacerations.
This lack of knowledge would leave personnel ill-prepared and under-resourced in the event of a nuclear disaster.
Another disturbing truth revealed by the survey was that a nuclear bomb would make many respondents “unwilling to come to work.” Survey participants were more terrified of a nuclear disaster than any other crisis, including a chemical or biological disaster.
“I was not surprised that the responses from the emergency medical community were relatively poor in terms of knowledge and attitudes, because that’s what you get with radiation—myths versus reality,” said the study’s lead author, Professor Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Disaster Management at UGA’s College of Public Health.
It is important that emergency medical personnel be taught that they can confidently respond in a nuclear crisis situation. Historically, responding to such events has not presented any risk to first responders.
The research team believes that medical personnel are afraid of nuclear events because humans tend to fear what they do not know, and these types of events are incredibly rare.
Professor Dallas also pointed out that Hollywood’s portrayal of such events adds to the myth that nothing can be done in the face of a nuclear disaster, when this is really not the truth.
Irrespective, the study has highlighted the urgent need for the first responders that we all rely on to be trained and ready to deal with what is increasingly looking like an inevitable nuclear disaster.
Last night, authorities revealed that – contrary to initial reports that an object on the tracks might’ve caused the accident – Train 501 had been traveling 80 mph around a bend where the recommended speed was 30 mph. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating whether the engineer was distracted by another employee.
The excess speed is shown in this animated simulation released by ABC...
And, in another eerie clip, an NBC reporter covering the launch of the new high-speed train line has published footage recorded inside the train on the day of the accident. The reporter and his cameraman were spared when they got off at a stop just 10 minutes before the train tumbled onto Interstate I-5.
NEW: I shot this video on board the #Amtrak501 in the 6 o clock hour this morning. We got off after shooting the video. This specific car on the train derailed minutes after we shot this video. pic.twitter.com/3g25PvMAMe
The reporter later tweeted that he interviewed the same passenger both on the train and later in the hospital, where he was being treated for a broken back.
Just last month, the NTSB reported that Amtrak had a “weak safety culture,” according to the New York Times. That conclusion stemmed from the fatal accident outside Philadelphia in 2016 that killed eight people and seriously injured dozens more.
During a Tuesday news conference held by the NTSB, a member of the board said that a newer safety system was not in place during the deadly train crash near Seattle because of a Congressional extension.
Bella Dinh-Zarr spoke during a Tuesday news conference about the Monday derailment that killed at least three people, saying that Positive Train Control technology, which was mandated by a 2008 law and is supposed to prevent train-to-train collisions as well as slow and stop trains, was not yet installed on the train line.
There were plans to install the PTC system for the train, which had another safety system in place, but Congress extended a 2015 deadline to be met by the end of 2018, she said.
Sound Transit said Tuesday that the company was on track to have the system installed ahead of a December 2018 federal deadline, according to the local NBC affiliate.
To be sure, it clearly wasn’t installed quickly enough. What’s worse, the circumstances of the crash mirror those of the 2016 crash. In that instance, the train was traveling at 100 mph when it entered a bend in the track, and quickly derailed.
Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon papers which exposed the government’s lies during the Vietnam war is vocalizing a warning. He says the United States is really close to a nuclear Armageddon.
Ellsberg, now 86-years-old, leaked the Pentagon papers back in 1969 and he’s now got a new book out which serves a warning to those who care to listen. According to the Daily Mail, Ellsberg’s 7,000-page report was the WikiLeaks disclosure of its time, a sensational breach of government confidentiality that shook Richard Nixon’s presidency and prompted a Supreme Court fight that was supposed to advance press freedom.
North Korea then denounced Trump’s decision to relist it as a state sponsor of terrorism, calling the move a “serious provocation and violent infringement,” as the rogue nation sentenced the US president to death, saying he “hurt the dignity” of the “supreme leadership.” All of this is alarming, according to Ellsberg, who believes a nuclear war can be started simply by a false alarm.
Nuclear bombs “are susceptible to being triggered on a false alarm, a terrorist action, unauthorized launch or a desperate decision to escalate,” Ellsberg wrote in his book. “They would kill billions of humans, perhaps ending complex life on earth. This is true even though the Cold War that rationalized their existence and hair-trigger status — and their supposed necessity to national security — ended 30 years ago.”
Many US citizens falsely believe that only the US president, in this case, Donald Trump can order the use of nuclear weapons. But Trump isn’t the only military commander authorized to launch nuclear weapons, according to theNew York Post. “There has to be a delegation of authority and capability to launch retaliatory strikes, not only to officials outside the Oval Office but outside Washington too,” Ellsberg wrote.
Ellsberg says that the only way to avoid a nuclear holocaust is full disarmament by the United States and Russia. “The risk that one city will be destroyed by a single (perhaps terrorist) weapon in the next year or the next decade cannot, unfortunately, be reduced to zero,” Ellsberg writes. “But the danger of near-extinction of humanity — a continuous possibility for the past 65 years — can be reduced to zero by the dismantlement of most existing weapons in both the United States and Russia.”
Update: At least three people have been killed in today"s train derailment, according to the Seattle Times.
Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told news media that there were fatalities on the train and that motorists had been injured, but not killed. The full extent of the injuries is not yet known.
Amtrak has also released this statement about service disruptions due to the accident:
Amtrak is aware of an incident with Train 501, Cascades service from Seattle to Portland. Emergency services are on the scene and Amtrak management is responding. Some injuries are reported. Amtrak service south of Seattle is temporarily suspended. Service from Seattle to points north and east is continuing to operate.
Amtrak regrets any inconvenience. This information is correct as of the above time and date. Information is subject to change as conditions warrant.
Anyone can subscribe to automated email or text message notifications if Amtrak trains are behind schedule at specific stations. Notifications can be given for up to six trains and stations by either text or email and delivered when you choose - on a single day, every day, or just certain days of the week. Create a subscription at Amtrak.com/delayalerts.
Passengers with travel plans also can confirm their train"s status, change their plans or review refund information using a range of tools – including Amtrak.com, smartphone apps or by calling 800-USA-RAIL. Service Alerts, Passenger Notices and other announcements are posted at Amtrak.com/alerts.
* * *
A day after a power failure at Atlanta"s Hartsfield Jackson Airport - the busiest terminal in the world - left thousands of passengers stranded with flights only just beginning to resume, America"s crumbling infrastructure was on display yet again on Monday, but this time, the failure looks much more severe.
To wit, Amtrak train 501 derailed in Pierce County, about 40 miles south of Seattle, according to media reports and images showing the train tumbling off the tracks and on to the freeway below. The derailment happened at around 8 am local time - or 11 am Eastern.
Images of the mangled wreckage flooded social media...
Interstate 5 is completely closed in both directions and dozens of first responders are heading to the scene, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), as the Seattle Times pointed out.
***DRIVER AlERT*** All lanes of SB I-5 at Mounts Road closed
Here"s a livefeed of the scene, courtesy of CBS...
The accident caused “massive damage” and “people are hurt,” according to Chris Karnes, the chairman of Pierce Transit’s advisory board. Police said information about injuries would be forthcoming.
PRELIMINARY INFO - Derailed Amtrak passenger train was heading south bound. Injuries and casualties reported, numbers to come. Media staging area at Eagles Pride Golf Course. #PCSD PIO Troyer enroute, will not answer his cell while driving priority.
“We don’t have any information at the moment, we’re gathering it,” said Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.
"I was just shocked," said Peter Zimmerman of Olympia. "I couldn"t believe it. It was like something out of a movie." According to the local TV station, the train was traveling along a new high speed route from Seattle to Portland that had just opened Monday.
According to WSDOT, the train was running down a new bypass created to avoid slow curves and “single track tunnels on the BNSF Railway main line tracks near Point Defiance and along southern Puget Sound."
The project rerouted passenger trains to an inland route on an existing rail line that runs along the west side of I-5 through south Tacoma, Lakewood and DuPont and then reconnects back to the BNSF Railway main line near Nisqually on the east side of I-5.
The traffic back up is now three miles and growing.
Update: Delta has canceled all remaining Sunday flights ”to allow the operation to best reset for Monday,” it said in a statement on its website. The company now anticipates a near-full schedule Monday in Atlanta ”pending full resumption of power”; adding that some delays and cancellations can be expected. Delta noted that it has canceled approx. 900 mainline and Delta Connection flights Sunday as a result of the outage. Full Delta statement below:
The Atlanta airport lost power Sunday across concourses and terminals affecting all airlines. As a result of the ongoing outage, Delta will cancel its remaining Sunday domestic schedule to allow the operation to reset for Monday. The airline has canceled approximately 900 mainline and Delta Connection flights Sunday as a result of the outage and 48 flights have diverted to alternate airports due to a nationwide groundstop for Atlanta-bound flights.
Pending full resumption of power, Delta anticipates a near-full schedule Monday in Atlanta, though some delays and cancellations can be expected.
Delta continues to deplane the remaining customers from aircraft that have not been able to park at terminal gates that require power to operate. The airline will also work to reunify customers with their luggage once power is restored.
The Atlanta Airport, along with Atlanta Police Department, are restricting the vehicles allowed to the terminal drop-off and pick-up area due to congestion. Delta customers are encouraged to check the status of their flight via the Fly Delta mobile app or delta.com before heading to the airport. A travel waiver has been issued for Delta customers flying to, from or through Atlanta allowing customers to make one-time changes to their travel plans. Details are available at delta.com.
Delta has temporarily embargoed unaccompanied minors from traveling Monday due to the power outage. Unaccompanied minors who already began their travel Sunday may continue.
Earlier:
A total power outage at the nation"s busiest airport traced to “a fire which caused extensive damage in a Georgia Power underground electrical facility” has grounded flights and trapped people inside terminals on Sunday.
Justin L / Instagram
Stranded holiday travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport found themselves facing a travel nightmare as authorities prepared to evacuate dark terminals. Smoke was reported filling the airport"s Concourse D terminal, while passengers were forced to sit on the tarmac for hours.
BREAKING: @atlairport closed. All passengers evacuated as terminals fill with smoke, firefighters come in. Still no official comm from ATL. pic.twitter.com/GiUinOtYEO
No less than 928 flights have been canceled so far, according to FlightAware.com
Some planes moving around us, but pilot says they are just being repositioned because there are about 80 more planes in route already that will need to land and wait for gates. This is just the beginning! Everything will be a nightmare once we deplane #Help
Georgia Power has issued a statement on the cause "which may have involved a fire which caused extensive damage in a Georgia Power underground electrical facility" and expects to have power restored by midnight.
One woman tweeted "Literal pandemonium at the @ATLairport with power completely out and electric exit doors unable to open. Baggage claim stuck, passengers can go no where!"
Literal pandemonium at the @ATLairport with power completely out and electric exit doors unable to open. Baggage claim stuck, passengers can go no where! Which means traffic can’t either. GBI and other law enforcement on site now. Talk about delays! #atlanta
Anybody in @ATLairport actually deplaned from the tarmac? Pilot keeps saying it’s happening but no movement and we’re going on 5 hours. #atlair#atlpoweroutage#delta
A post shared by Diana (@dcanelo) on Dec 17, 2017 at 10:51am PST
US Customs and Border Protection tweeted that it has enacted its diversion plan - meaning all inbound international flights are diverted to other airports:
Due to #PowerOutage at @ATLairport diversion plan for International arriving flights continues. This means diverted International flights will land at other airports. #Atlairport
Burning question: How does the busiest airport in the world NOT have a backup generator? And if they do, why wouldn"t there be steps in place to make sure it works?#ATL#ATLairport#poweroutage#Atlanta
Now the third-largest wildfire in California history, the Thomas Fire has blazed through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties since it exploded into existence two weeks ago under mysterious circumstances.
With Cal Fire ordering thousands more people in Santa Barbara to evacuate as dry conditions and powerful winds help feed the flames, which were barely 40% contained as of Sunday.Twelve thousand people were evacuated in Santa Barbara County, with animals at the local zoo threatened as well. Santa Barbara Zoo closed Saturday and many animals were placed into cages in case of possible evacuations, zoo officials said.
Meanwhile, residents who had evacuated their homes in Ventura County, where the fire began, were allowed to return Saturday.
#ThomasFire- Dozens of Fire engines staged and await orders at the corner of Sycamore Cyn Rd and Cold Springs Road in Montecito Sunday morning. pic.twitter.com/J65JnyaluR
The fire is so massive that more than 8,400 firefighters are working around the clock to save lives and contain it. It"s bigger in acreage than New York City, and has turned neighborhoods to piles of soot and concrete as it churns through the area.
#ThomasFire- Smoke drifts towards Santa Barbara Airport in the distance while a wind driven spot fire burns on the west side and below Gibraltar Road. pic.twitter.com/9i7PYHWGYW
At least five of the six wildfires that ignited two weeks ago were still active as of Sunday, according to CNN. But the Thomas Fire is by far the biggest, as the map below illustrates.
Here’s a roundup of the latest developments from CNN and Cal Fire:
Cause of death: Firefighter Cory David Iverson, 32, died of "thermal injuries and smoke inhalation," according to autopsy results from the Ventura County medical examiner"s office. Iverson lost his life battling the Thomas Fire on Thursday. A total of two people have been killed since the fire started.
Hefty price tag: About $110 million has been spent fighting the massive blaze, fire officials said. It was 40% contained Saturday night.
Improving weather conditions: Santa Ana winds did not immediately materialize on Sunday morning, though firefighters had been expecting the worst. Red-flag warnings were in effect for a large swath of Southern California through late Sunday, with wind gusts of up to 55 mph expected overnight, according to CNN meteorologist Gene Norman.
In the record books: The blaze has charred 267,500 acres and is now the third-largest wildfire in modern California history.
Residents who spoke with CNN described being taken by surprise, as the wildfires spread faster than many expected. Residents described being awoken in the middle of the night by fire and police officials assisting in evacuation efforts.
Jeannette Frescas was not concerned about the Thomas Fire until the massive blaze reached her neighborhood in Ventura, California.
"At midnight, I woke up with a flashlight in my face," Frescas told CNN affiliate KEYT. "I looked out my window and there were flames that were like, a hundred feet, all around us."
Like many residents, Frescas was caught off guard by the fire that has roared across Southern California for 13 days. She"s one of tens of thousands of residents who piled into cars and fled as ferocious winds drove the third-largest blaze in modern state history through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
"What was once a paradise was like a war zone," Frescas said of her apartment complex, which was destroyed by the blaze. "It"s the scariest thing I"ve been through in my entire life."
One resident described being woken up by her son in law and told that she needed to grab her stuff and go - immediately.
Ventura resident Patricia Rye woke up to her son-in-law pounding on her door. She didn"t get a chance to pack any valuables, and fled her home of 17 years in the dead of the night.
"I didn"t have time to take anything," Rye told the affiliate. "My wallet, or any of my personal things. I literally left with the clothes on my back. If I had been thinking I would have got into my car, but I wasn"t thinking so my car was there."
The Thomas fire alone has caused well over $100 million in damage, though authorities likely won’t have a final figure for weeks, if not months. An extended stretch without rain has allowed the fires to burn without any significant natural impediments.
In Puerto Rico, everything has changed since Hurricane Maria struck nearly 3 months ago.
Many people have no running water. And if they do, it can’t be consumed without boiling.
There’s no electricity in many regions.
Supplies are scarce.
I’ve written about the SHTF aftermath in Puerto Rico, both the day after the storm, a week after, and a couple of months later. But while there is a lot of good information in all those articles, it’s just words on a page.
The video below brings it to life. This is what life looks like for people who have just watched everything be turned upside down by Mother Nature.
Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.
Images of charred palm trees and the burnt-out husks of multi-million-dollar homes flooded social media for a fifth day Friday as the SoCal wildfires that exploded into life at the beginning of the week showed no signs of slowing.
Instead, some of the largest fires have entered the heart of Los Angeles – America’s second largest city – and are menacing some of the most expensive homes in the country.
To date, six large wildfires have scorched 141,000 acres in the state, with the flames spreading as far south as San Diego, Cal Fire officials said.At least 5,700 firefighters from several agencies and at least nine states are working to contain the massive walls of flames. The fires have forced 190,000 people out of their homes in a hurry. Many took only their pets and a few choice mementos.
The Skirball fire that’s terrorizing Bel Air isn’t nearly as large as some of the other fires raging in Ventura and LA counties, but it has had an outsize impact in terms of cost. Two days ago, local media reported that the fire had torched a mansion owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Though Murdoch later clarified that the property was (mostly) intact, other homes in the area are at risk of being reduced to cinders.
So far, the fire has damaged many homes in the hills of Bel Air, Los Angeles’ most expensive neighborhood according to Zillow. At least six of those, which Zillow estimates to be worth around $20 million, were completely destroyed on Wednesday.
According to the Wall Street Journal, about 1,700 homes were in mandatory evacuation zones from the Skirball Fire. The company estimates the homes’ values totaled $6.4 billion, where the median home value is just under $3 million.
Beyond Bel Air, there are 86,242 homes in Ventura and Los Angeles counties that are at "some level of risk" from the Thomas, Rye and Creek Wildfires, according to CoreLogic. The combined reconstruction cost value of these properties is $27.7 billion – nearly triple the $10 billion in damages caused by the NorCal fires.
In Ventura County alone, 14,300 homes valued at a total of $10.4 billion were in mandatory evacuation zones, according to Zillow.
Just like with the fires that devastated California’s wine country two months ago, the powerful Santa Ana winds have exacerbated the devastation. After a brief lull on Tuesday, the winds picked back up again Wednesday. And though they’re expected to taper off again – albeit briefly – late Friday, winds of up to 80 mph are expected to continue through Sunday, making it difficult for firefighters to tame the blazes.
“We are in the beginning of a protracted wind event,” Ken Pimlott, the director of the California department of forestry and fire protection, told the Los Angeles Times. “There will be no ability to fight fire in these kinds of winds."
All together, the four fires in Southern California – possibly the most destructive in the state’s history - have scorched more than 116,000 acres so far, and despite the round-the-clock work of thousands of firefighters since Tuesday, they are still burning ferociously with little to no containment. For example, the Thomas fire northwest of Ventura is barely 5% contained.
All around the region, people encountered nightmarish conditions as flames seemed to come from everywhere. Patricia Hampton, 48, said she and her boyfriend woke up at her house in Ventura on Tuesday night to the sound of helicopters. Outside, the ground was covered in ash, the air so smoky it was hard to breathe as they hopped on bicycles and tried to flee, according to the Washington Post.
“We didn’t know what had happened. We rode down into town trying to make sense of what we were seeing — police everywhere, firetrucks, helicopters,” she said at a temporary shelter at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. “It was like a war zone. You could hear transformers blowing up.”
Authorities are warning residents in nearby communities to prepare to evacuate, even if they aren’t directly impacted by the fire. Residents should be ready to evacuate even if they don"t live in areas immediately affected by flames, Cal Fire Division Chief Nick Schuler said Thursday night. Families should have an escape plan ready to go just in case, he said.
A post shared by LA County Fire Air Operations (@lacofireairops) on
"They need to prepare as if they will be impacted. Where are they gonna go? What are their escape routes? What is their communication to their families?" he said.
Adding to the devastation in the region, the Lilac Fire in San Diego County started Thursday and grew to 4,100 acres in a few hours, leading to new evacuation orders. Evacuation centers have been set up in affected areas.
The Lilac Fire has left three people with burn injuries and two firefighters hurt. One firefighter suffered smoke inhalation while the second one had a dislocated shoulder. The latter popped it back into place and continued working, Schuler said. According to CNN, school boards have shut down schools spanning at least 16 districts.
Gov. Jerry Brown issued an emergency proclamation for Santa Barbara and San Diego counties. The declarations free state resources such as the National Guard to support response efforts. He"s also requested federal assistance to supplement state and local emergency response.
Per CNN, here’s a quick summary of the six largest fires.
Thomas Fire: The largest of the six blazes started Monday in Ventura County, and has scorched 115,000 acres. It"s only 5% contained, and has destroyed at least 150 homes and threatening thousands more in Ventura, about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of Los Angeles.
Creek Fire: The second-largest fire is in neighboring Los Angeles County, and ignited a day later. It has burned 15,323 acres and is 20% contained.
Rye Fire: It broke out Tuesday in Los Angeles County and has burned 7,000 acres. Firefighters are making progress, with 25% of the blaze contained.
Lilac Fire: This fast-moving fire erupted Thursday in San Diego County, and has consumed 4,100 acres in just a few hours. It"s unclear what percentage of it is contained.
Skirball Fire: It started Wednesday as a brush fire in Los Angeles County, and is now 30% contained.
Liberty Fire: The blaze in Riverside County has burned 300 acres since it ignited Thursday. It"s 5% contained.
While no deaths have been reported so far as a direct result of the flames, three residents have been burned while trying to flee. And one woman was found dead after a car crash in an area under an evacuation order, the authorities said on Thursday, according to the GuardianWith 2017 on track to be the most destructive year for wildfires in California history, experts are warning that this could be the new status quo, given dry conditions across the state.
The Santa Ana winds are an entirely natural phenomenon of course, and they usually peak during the month of December. What is unusual is that wildfires peak during the autumn period. But because of the ongoing drought across California and the very dry weather during October and November, the conditions have been ripe for the wildfire outbreak we are now witnessing.
The current weather pattern is consistent with what climatologists refer to as the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" which has become more prevalent in recent years. This results in cold weather across eastern parts of US, and unseasonably warm weather in western areas that we are seeing this month.
As this weather pattern intensifies, expect deadly blazes to become a perennial concern, Al Jazeera reported.
Large numbers of North Korean fishing boats are washing up along the Japanese coast, some of which have contained decaying corpses.
Winds and water currents push dozens of boats onto Japan"s northern coasts annually. Rickety North Korean fishing boats are particularly vulnerable because they lack the sturdiness and equipment to return home.
But the alarming pace over the past few weeks has prompted Japanese authorities to step up patrols.
In November of this year alone, 28 of the so-called "ghost ships" were discovered by Japanese authorities with 42 people who claim to be fishermen found alive.
So far this year, 64 "ghost ships" have washed up along the Japanese coast and last year, the number was 66. 2013 was a particularly bad year with 80 vessels discovered by Japanese authorities.
If you ever wondered what it would look like if the grid collapsed here on the mainland, the island of Puerto Rico is a tragic, real-life case study.
These stories show us what life is like for more than a million people who STILL don’t have power and running water nearly 3 months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated their communities.
According to a website showing the status of utilities on the island, four months after two hurricanes wrought havoc, 32% of Puerto Ricans are still without power and nearly 10% are still without running water. However, even those who have running water must boil it.
But statistics don’t tell the real story.
At first, it was a war zone.
In the first days after the grid went down, chaos ruled. I vetted as many of the stories as I could and concluded:
…there is very little food, no fresh water, 97% are still without power, limited cell signals have stymied communications, and hospitals are struggling to keep people alive. There is no 911. Help is not on the way. If you have no cash, you can’t buy anything. As people get more desperate, violence increases. (source)
A friend wrote this post about her family on Puerto Rico:
“My family has lost everything. My uncle with stage 4 cancer is in so much pain and stuck in the hospital. However, conditions in the island are far worse than we imagined and my greatest fear has been made reality. The chaos has begun. The mosquitos have multiplied like the plague. Dead livestock are all over the island including in whatever fresh water supplies they have.
My family has been robbed and have lost whatever little they had left. The gang members are robbing people at gunpoint and the island is in desperation. People are shooting each other at gas stations to get fuel.
They’re telling us to rescue them and get them out of the island because they are scared for their lives. We’re talking about 3.5 million people on an island, with no food, no drinking water, no electricity, homes are gone. Family if you have the means to get your people out, do it. This is just the first week. Imagine the days and weeks to come. These are bad people doing bad things to our most vulnerable.
Imagine a few weeks with no resources and the most vulnerable become desperate. What are you capable of doing if your children are sick and hungry? We have to help.” (source)
Other outlets told the same stories. Jeffrey Holsman wrote a guest post for USA Today, sharing what he was witnessing.
The sounds of automatic weapons firing were audible Tuesday evening in San Juan. We were told the National Guard had arrived, but I hadn’t personally seen a Jeep or uniform in the streets yet.
Total darkness has swallowed Puerto Rico, as it has every night since the 12-hour monster Hurricane Maria roared across the island with more than 20 inches of rain and 155 mph winds. I’ve never experienced anything like it: wind and rain from every direction, pounding continuously.
Now, a war zone best describes what’s left of what was once an emerald green gem in the Caribbean…
…after Maria, we face hours upon hours of waiting in lines for gas that might not be there; hours waiting in bank and ATM lines for money that might not be there; hours waiting in grocery store lines for food that might not be there. (source)
It only took a few days before people began to become ill from the tainted water. There were many injuries related to the storm, as well as the aftermath, and these crises were compounded by the lack of medical assistance.
Only 11 of 69 hospitals on Puerto Rico have power or are running on generators, FEMA reports. That means there’s limited access to X-ray machines and other diagnostic and life-saving equipment. Few operating rooms are open, which is scary, considering an influx of patients with storm-related injuries. (source)
A month after Hurricane Maria, the situation was still very grim. Three million residents were still without electricity and one million were without running water. (source) Officials reported 54 deaths attributed to the hurricane but many said that the number was far higher. The mayor of San Juan said that the number of cremations had doubled and put the actual casualties at closer to 500 people.
She said: “It appears, for whatever reason, that the death toll is much higher than what has been reported. What we do know for sure is that people are being catalogued as dying…natural deaths”.
She explained that some of the deaths relating to the hurricane were being reported as “natural causes” because the storm was the secondary factor in their death.
For example, some people reportedly suffocated after their respirators stopped due to the power cut…
…The bodies were cremated before the medical examiner could determine whether they should have been included in the official death toll.
Accurate information about the figure is particularly important in the US because if a person dies in a natural disaster, their family has the right to claim federal aid. (source)
Evelyn Milagros Rodriguez, a librarian at the University of Puerto Rico wrote a first-person account of the aftermath during the first month post-Maria. She reported that the books, computers, and furniture at the library were mostly ruined and that mold had invaded the building. Here’s an excerpt from her story:
What outsiders are unable to see, perhaps, is that an entire culture has arisen around the catastrophe caused by Hurricane Maria – one with typically catastrophic traits: material scarcity, emotional trauma, economic catastrophe, environmental devastation.
Nothing about life resembles anything close to normal. An estimated 100,000 homes and buildings were demolished in the storm, and 90 percent of the island’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed. Not only are there shortages of water and electricity but also of food, highways, bridges, security forces and medical facilities.
It’s dangerous to venture outside at night. An island-wide curfew was lifted last week, but without streetlights, stoplights or police, driving and walking are dangerous after dark.
Leyla Santiago, a CNN journalist who had been born in Puerto Rico and still has family there, echoed the librarian’s story in her own report.
Puerto Rico has also changed forever.
The struggles are everywhere. And where there is help or supplies, there are lines, always lines.
Some days, it would be people lining up for gas. And then for food at the supermarket. The longest lines were now to use the ATM.
I became numb to the lines quickly.
When we passed another long one at the port, I didn’t think anything of it. Until it hit me.
Thousands were lining up to leave Puerto Rico. I watched as an old man dragged an oxygen tank, while pleading with organizers to let him on that massive cruise ship now acting as a refugee transport. Another man lifted his shirt to show the scars from an operation, hoping it would convince the right people that he needed to get off the island. (source)
Although unthinkable, it’s even worse in more remote areas of Puerto Rico. Despite their preparations, Rosana Aviles Marin’s elderly parents’ lives were devastated in their central mountain village.
The winds of up to 155 miles per hour that roared across the island buckled the house’s walls and tore holes in the ceiling, letting in water that destroyed furniture, framed photos of Marin and her siblings, and brightly colored ceramic statues of Jesus.
That wasn’t all it destroyed. The storm also downed power lines throughout the area, and Marin and her parents have been entirely without electricity for weeks. Much of their food went bad, they have no cellphone service, and local markets and restaurants remain closed. Her parents use a small diesel generator to power lights and, for a few hours per day, a small refrigerator. The rest of the time, she tells me during a recent trip to the area, “my parents live in darkness.” (source)
The island’s major source of revenue has been tourism, and that has all but stopped since the hurricane. Considering how badly they were struggling economically before, that is just another blow to a place driven to its knees.
The narrow blue cobblestone streets of Old San Juan are deserted. Cigar shops are boarded up. Boutiques in bright colonial buildings are closed...
...About a third of the hotels in Puerto Rico remain shuttered. Restaurants and shops are still without power. Beaches are closed for swimming because of possible water contamination.
The high season begins in December, and tourism officials are hoping to lure some visitors, but that depends on when power is fully restored and how quickly hotels and attractions can repair the catastrophic damage. (source)
It’s a Catch-22. Until the tourists return, many won’t be able to afford to restore their businesses. But until they restore their businesses, the tourists won’t return.
Two months after…
Two months to the date after Maria struck with a vengeance, only half of the residents of the island had power. The return of infrastructure began in the cities and wealthier areas. Those in poor or remote areas are still waiting.
Here’s a video of what it looks like in Puerto Rico right now as people struggle to restore electricity.
Billions of dollars were allocated by the government and millions has come in from private donors.
Politicians have been in and out of the island and that has led to a spending law that provides $5 billion for Puerto Rico’s recovery and billions for government agencies providing disaster assistance. Projections are that a lot more will be needed.
On top of that, millions has been raised and contributed by private groups and foundations and individuals.
Cruz (the mayor of San Juan) said people from around the United States have been sending small donations, money orders, $50 or $10 attached to cards or pieces of paper. Some gave as much as $300 to $500.
“We’re going to use it to rebuild homes, to make sure people have good drinking water, because even if it comes out of a faucet it has to be drinkable, to schools for children. Some of the schools have been in really bad shape. Twenty-five percent of what comes into the foundation goes to other towns outside of San Juan,” she said. (source)
At two and a half months post-hurricane,PBS reported the following statistics:
66 percent of power on the island has been restored
93 percent of the island has access to water, but it remains on a boil advisory
73 percent of cell sites are up and running
982 survivors remain in 41 shelters across the island
The island still looks like a war zone.
Trash and debris from the storm remain a rampant problem. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported it has removed more than 639,000 cubic yards of debris. But it is still tasked with removing at least 2.7 million remaining cubic yards. (source)
Residents of the island are without resources and are at the mercy of FEMA…and government funding.
Democratic Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren unveiled a bill that would provide $114 billion in aid to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands…
[But] the package is unlikely to get a vote, analysts say
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people from Puerto Rico have arrived in Florida since Maria hit, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
FEMA is now moving from response to recovery mode. FEMA is still providing daily food, fuel, and water to survivors of Maria, the longest such sustained distribution after a disaster in FEMA history. (source)
And now, the return of electricity has been further delayed.
Previously, Puerto Rican officials estimated that the island would have electricity again by December? It turns out they were wrong. Now it looks like everyone in Puerto Rico won’t have power until February… at the earliest.
PREPA acting Director Justo Gonzalez cited “natural” and hurricane damage to the power grid that was initially unidentified as the reason for the delay of power generation.
Others have said full power and other utilities will not be completely restored until March. (source)
Between Puerto Rico’s economic problems and an aging grid, this isn’t a speedy process.
Before the storm hit, I wrote an article predicting at least a 6-month wait before power was restored, and this was for a variety of reasons. I cited Philipe Schoene Roura, the editor of a San Juan, Puerto Rico-based newspaper, Caribbean Business, who wrote of the many reasons that it would take so long:
“The lifespan of most of Prepa’s equipment has expired. There is a risk that in light of this dismal infrastructure situation, a large atmospheric event hitting Puerto Rico could wreak havoc because we are talking about a very vulnerable and fragile system at the moment,” Ramos added…
…Francisco Guerrero (a fictitious name to protect his identity), a Prepa field worker for 23 years, said it would take months for Prepa to bring up Puerto Rico’s power system should a hurricane like Harvey strike the island.
The lack of linemen and other technical personnel, as well as a lack of equipment—including replacement utility poles for powerlines and replacement parts—are the issues of greatest concern among public corporation employees, who say they risk their lives working with equipment in poor condition that provides them with little safety.
Guerrero said that today only 580 linemen remain out of the 1,300 who were part of the workforce in previous years—and that’s not counting the upcoming retirement of another 90 linemen. Likewise, he said there are only 300 electrical line testers to serve the entire island.
The source also said that much of Prepa’s equipment dates back to the 1950s—and the more “modern” equipment that is still functional dates from the 1990s; in other words, it’s from the past century.
“If a hurricane like this one [Harvey] hits us, the system is not going to come online, I’d say, in over six months. Right now, the warehouses don’t even have materials. I’m talking about utility poles and other stuff,” Guerrero explained. (source)
It turns out that Rora was not exaggerating. But money and a dilapidated system aren’t the only problems. There is an issue of geography as well.
Puerto Rico’s biggest power generators are on the south of the island, but most of its inhabitants live on the north side, primarily in San Juan. There are four high-capacity transmission lines that carry power from the south to the north, and they pass through the center part of the island, the region Marin calls home. The problem is that central Puerto Rico is mountainous, full of huge swaths of thick forest, and mainly reachable only by driving on terrifyingly narrow dirt roads.
That makes it hard to reach those four vital lines even in the best of circumstances. In post-Maria Puerto Rico it’s even harder, because the center of the island was the region hardest hit by the hurricane. Since the government is trying to get power to San Juan first, that means those in the regions devastated most by the hurricane will be waiting the longest for power to be restored. Sánchez, the engineer, says workers would need to be flown in by helicopter to clear debris before repairs could even begin. (source)
Would you be prepared for something like this?
If you think something like this couldn’t happen to us on the mainland, you’re deluding yourself.
Few people would be ready for an event that took out the entire infrastructure for an extended period of time. I personally lean toward a more low-tech plan for long-term scenarios like this. (For one reason, look how difficult fuel is to come by in Puerto Rico right now.)
Learning from the real-life experience of others give us just a glimpse of what we could expect.
Scientists are sounding the alarm about a volcano eruption in Antartica that could cause global health problems. The ash from this eruption could encircle the globe, affecting millions of people.
Deception Island, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, is a hotbed of volcanic activity with at least 50 craters spread across the region. A recent study done in the area by scientists has found evidence that an eruption on the island could disrupt air traffic on continents in the Southern Hemisphere, including South America and Africa. It could also cause some major health concerns for the whole globe.
The findings of the research show that Antarctica’s volcanoes can have an effect across the world, says Charles Connor, a geoscientist at the University of South Florida in Tampa not involved in the research. “We have to reassess the potential hazards for global transportation networks posed by even these remote volcanoes.”
“Ash emitted during explosive volcanic eruptions may disperse over vast areas of the globe posing a threat to human health and infrastructures and causing significant disruption to air traffic,” scientists warned in their report.
“Volcanic ash emitted from Antarctic volcanoes could potentially encircle the globe, leading to significant consequences for global aviation safety.”
The study revealed the “significant consequences to global aviation” after reviewing computer models of ash flows from different types of eruption during different seasons.The research is the first of its kind investigating the horrifying impact of ash from an Antarctic volcano on the rest of the word. “No attention has been paid to the potential socio-economic and environmental consequences of an ash-forming eruption occurring at high southern latitudes,” the study declared.
Adelina Geyer, a geologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera in Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues focused on Deception Island because of its history of eruptions—30 or so in the past 10,000 years, and one as recently as 1970. It is also a popular destination: Both Argentina and Spain manage scientific research bases on the island, and tourists come to admire the world’s largest colony of chinstrap penguins and the rusted boilers and tanks that are relics of the early 20th century whaling industry there.
Geyer’s team modeled an eruption on Deception Island by simulating different column heights for volcanic ash: 5, 10, and 15 kilometers. (Indonesia’s Mount Agung, when it erupted last month, sent ash billowing up 9 kilometers.) The height of the plume determines which wind patterns it encounters, which, in turn, affects its dispersal. The researchers used an atmospheric transport model to track the way ash would disperse on regional and global scales and assess its possible effect on air travel.
Planes are under threat because the ash can clog engines and fuel lines causing them to stall and potentially fall out of the sky.
“We demonstrate here that ash from high southern latitude volcanoes may pose a threat higher than previously believed,” the study concluded.
But the health effects of an eruption on Deception Island could be even more horrific than the economic impact. Volcanic ash distributed globally could cause health issues worldwide.
This is why North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile is so important. North Korea had test fired a total of 22 missiles so far this year, but this latest one showed that nobody on the globe is out of their reach. In fact, General Mattis is now admitting that “North Korea can basically threaten everywhere in the world”, and that includes the entire continental United States. In addition to hitting individual cities with nukes, there is also the possibility that someday North Korea could try to take down the entire country with an EMP attack. If the North Koreans detonated a single nuclear warhead several hundred miles above the center of the country, it would destroy the power grid and fry electronics from coast to coast.
I would like you to think about what that would mean for a few moments. Suddenly there would be no power at home, at work or at school. Since nearly all of our vehicles rely on computerized systems, you wouldn’t be able to go anywhere and nobody would be able to get to you. And you wouldn’t be able to contact anyone because all phones would be dead. Basically, pretty much everything electronic would be dead. I am talking about computers, televisions, GPS devices, ATMs, heating and cooling systems, refrigerators, credit card readers, gas pumps, cash registers, hospital equipment, traffic lights, etc.
For the first couple of days life would continue somewhat normally, but then people would soon start to realize that the power isn’t coming back on and panic would begin to erupt.
The intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea just launched traveled almost 1,000 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of 4,500 kilometers. We have been told for decades that this would never be allowed to happen, but now it has happened…
This is concerning for one big reason: according to General Mattis, the North Korean ICBM “went higher, frankly, than any previous” and “North Korea can basically threaten everywhere in the world.” This was confirmed by North Korea missile analyst, Shea Cotton, who cited Allthingsnuclear author David Wright, and who told the BBC that the initial estimates of the ICBM test mean that North Korea can now reach New York and Washington DC.
If we had been working hard to develop our anti-missile technology all these years, this wouldn’t be a problem.
But at this point we are way behind the Russians in this regard, and there is a very real possibility that a missile launched by the North Koreans could make it through the very limited anti-missile defenses that we do have.
Once upon a time, discussions about a North Korean EMP threat were mostly hypothetical, but now that has completely changed. North Korea has clearly demonstrated that they are able to deliver such an attack, and last September Kim Jong Un publicly admitted that North Korea intended to develop this capability…
But most reporters missed a key threat that appeared at the bottom of Kim’s public statement, when he bragged that North Korea had harnessed “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack according to strategic goals.”
So now we know. Launching an electromagnetic pulse attacks against its enemies is one of North Korea’s strategic goals. And for North Korea, the United States is the top enemy.
And like I said earlier, all it would take would be a single well placed nuclear detonation to fry electronics from coast to coast. The following comes from the Daily Mail…
Theoretically, a sufficiently powerful bomb detonated at an altitude of 249 miles would wipe out all electronics in the US, save the southernmost top of Florida and the easternmost states – as well as affecting Canada and Mexico.
Without power, nothing would get distributed. That means that very rapidly there would be no food, no water and no medicine available in your community. An article posted by Fox News this week used the term “post-apocalyptic” to describe what we would be facing…
It all starts to sound very post-apocalyptic when you realize this means no lights or other electric-powered devices in homes and businesses, no water filtration, no regional food hubs, no transportation grid – none of the things we take for granted in modern civilization.
Like I stated earlier, things would be relatively fine for a few days, but then once everyone realizes that the power isn’t coming back on there would be chaos on a scale unlike anything we have ever seen before. The following comes from an article by Mac Slavo…
The first 24 – 48 hours after such an occurrence will lead to confusion among the general population as traditional news acquisition sources like television, radio and cell phone networks will be non-functional.
Within a matter of days, once people realize the power might not be coming back on and grocery store shelves start emptying, the entire system will begin to delve into chaos.
Within 30 days a mass die off will have begun as food supplies dwindle, looters and gangs turn to violent extremes, medicine can’t be restocked and water pump stations fail.
So what kind of a “mass die off” would we be talking about?
Well, some of the top experts in the field believe that “up to 90 percent of all Americans” could end up dead if the power outage lasted long enough…
William Graham, chairman of the former EMP commission and its former chief of staff, Peter Vincent Pry, warned the hearing that such an attack could “shut down the US electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans.“
Others believe that the figure would be lower, but pretty much everyone agrees that the death toll would be in the millions.
This is one of our greatest strategic vulnerabilities, and our power grid could be hardened against an EMP attack for just a few billion dollars. This is something that I am pushing very hard for, but right now it is just not a priority for our leaders in Washington.
In fact, they have actually pulled funding from the commission that was looking into the EMP threat…
On Sept. 30, the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse to the United States of America shut its doors after a failure to secure funding from Congress.
Sometimes I find it difficult to come up with the words to describe how incredibly foolish Congress is being.
An EMP attack is a greater threat than ever before, and yet Congress didn’t even want to come up with a little bit of funding for the commission that was working on a plan to protect us.
This is yet another example that shows that we need new leadership on Capitol Hill, because right now the people that we have “representing” us in Washington seem to be completely and utterly clueless about almost everything.
