What will we face if all the power goes out?

There is a channel on television titled ‘Doomsday Preppers’.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, do yourself a favour and take a look.

The show chronicles the attempts of families in the US who take extra-ordinary measures to plan for something terrible, be it a nuclear war, a financial system collapse or a meteor hitting the Earth.

I love watching the show, and often-times my wife and I chuckle, shake our heads and wonder about the sanity of these families.

This all changed last week when I heard Eskom warning about the potential of a national electricity grid collapse. Now I think back to that show and wonder what tips I could gather.

You see, if the power goes out nationally, we are in for a tough time.

First off, the power will not be restored within a day or two. No sir, should there be a national collapse, you will be looking at nearly two to three weeks before the power returns.

The main problem with this comes from the sheer amount of power needed just to restart the system. Eskom may well be unable to generate enough power to restart the grid for some time. So the estimated two weeks before power returns is, in my opinion, a rather optimistic estimate. I would bank on it taking three to four weeks.

Do you understand how serious it is if we suffer a national grid failure? Allow me to elaborate.

For the first few hours you may well be able to still swipe your card. Otherwise cash will still work.

Most likely, we would not even realise the entire grid has collapsed for several hours.

But when the announcement comes, rest assured that panic-buying will set in. residents will flock to local stores and supermarkets, trying to get enough supplies.

Fights will break out, and the SAPS will battle to control this. There is a simple reason behind this – how are you going to call the police if all the cellular phone towers are offline? The same goes for landlines, as all the power will be out.

You may well be lucky and get enough food to last you for several weeks. But have you considered water? Most residents think back to past power failures and simply assume the water will still flow. That is because the reservoirs are still full and the water is gravity-fed into the pipes. But without power, the pumps cannot run. And the pumps are what refill the reservoirs. No power, no pumps. No pumps, no water. Granted, it will take some time to empty the reservoirs, but rest assured, they are not large enough to last several weeks without being refilled.

After the panic-buying, we will face looting. This will be especially worst at the supermarket depots. People will do anything for food in the best of circumstances. But when people are afraid, you better believe that law and order will go out the window.

All this will be faced within the first seven days of a national electricity grid failure. After that, well, things just get worse. Rioting, anarchy and a general breakdown of social cohesion.

I am unsure how large the fuel reserves are for the SAPS, so I do not know how long they will be able to patrol the suburbs. Likewise, I do not know how much diesel the SAPS has for generators, to recharge the two-way radios. One can probably assume a week or two (hopefully).

Yes the military will be mobilised and most likely the president will announce, from the safety of his bunker of course, that martial law is imposed. I would not be surprised if a curfew was also put in place. You know, don’t be on the streets after 7pm.

Once again, while the SANDF will be protecting National Key Points and assisting the SAPS, I do not think we have enough soldiers to patrol every suburb in every town in every province.

Armed gangs will strike and criminals will have a field-day.

I do not mean to scare or frighten, but it is my duty to inform my readers of everything I possibly can. If this worst-case scenario occurs, the best advice I can give you is to immediately go outside and hold a street-meeting. Form community patrol groups and start assisting the SAPS in keeping your area safe. Since all the power is out, nationally, we will be unable to go to work, so we may as well keep busy.

I can only hope the president has a plan for our country, especially if a national electricity grid failure were to occur. My biggest fear is that once the power is restored, it will still take weeks to get things running again, and to deliver food. I fear the impact this would have on our economy, which may not recover from such an event.