This morning I decided to watch the National Geographic special American Blackout. For those who haven't seen it or heard of it, it is a movie about what would happen if a catastrophic blackout left America without power for ten days. It's a rather chilling and disheartening look at what could happen. Parts of it were like watching a bad horror movie. There were times when I just wanted to yell at the characters to "stay inside!" or "don't go down the stairs!" Those parts were really quite stupid. But the movie got me thinking about a lot of things.
First, it got me thinking how long I could go without power based on the supplies I have in my house. I'm not gonna lie, it probably wouldn't be long. I do have Twinkies, though. Watching this does make me want to buy a case of water just to have on hand. I could probably survive on the food I have for ten days, even if it means eating dry pasta, but water would be an issue.
Another issue would be getting in touch with friends and family. I could power my cell phone and probably find ways to recharge it, but the cell phone towers would be down so you still couldn't call or text people. I don't even think you could send email because the Internet would be down. That could cause some problems.
There are some things that bothered me about the movie, too, though. One of the storylines followed a group of people stuck in an elevator. They managed to climb out and end up on the roof of the building, but then got stuck up there. Now, I'm sure there would be a lot of people stuck in elevators across the country if this happened. I'm wondering what the protocol would be to get those people out, or if they would just leave them all in there. And I can't imagine that people would just be stuck on a roof with no way down. In the movie there were no people on the street to yell down to, and that seems suspicious to me. Don't most tall buildings have a fire escape, also? I wasn't buying that.
I also felt like martial law was declared really soon after the blackout. After two days people were shown resorting to killing and looting. I'm sure some of this would happen as panic sets in, but not to the extent that was shown in the movie. At least I hope not. I'd like to think that people would band together and support each other through this. We've seen this happen during Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. People show themselves to be good. I'd hope that would be the case during a massive blackout as well.
A rather humorous, yet sad, scene in the movie involved a couple who, upon securing a can a fruit to eat, realized they couldn't open it because their can opener was electric. When trying to open the can with a knife the man severely cut himself. Do people really not have a manual can opener? I only have a manual one because I've never been able to figure out how to use an electric one. My parents make fun of me for this, but at least I could open cans in a blackout.
Finally, I couldn't help but compare this movie to the Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." At the end of the episode (Spoiler alert, but seriously it's a 50 year old show) the aliens who cause the blackout on the street basically say that all you have to do is turn off the machines and wait for the people to destroy themselves. This movie showed a lot of the same things. It would be interesting to see what really would happen. Although, I hope we never do have to see it.
Bottom line, this was an interesting, thought-provoking movie. If you haven't seen it and you get a chance, I recommend it.
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