Slashdot Mirror
Feds Have a Plan For Catastrophic Solar Flares (digitaljournal.com)
New submitter Steve Sacco, referencing the newly released National Space Weather Strategy and the National Space Weather Action Plan, written in anticipation of large-scale disruptions from a solar flare or similar event, writes: Released on October 28, 2015, the White House plan involves the coordination of agencies from the federal level, state level, and including emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, nonprofit organizations and the private sector, all in preparation for the worst-case scenario possible, such as the Carrington Event that took place in 1859.
Their response will be just like Hurricane Katrina... They'll just sit on their fat asses. Their only plan is for themselves... which is why I've stored away some solar panels, emergency supplies, bug out kit, etc. Nobody should depend on some govt agency when a large disaster strikes.
From what I understand there is really only one preparation, which is the entire reason the Space Weather Prediction Center was created. To know that it's coming and be ready to shut down the grid. This isn't an EMP, it won't overly effect individual electrical systems (like a Hospital running on a generator). It really only effects large networks which have enough surface area to serve as a receiver for the energy of the storm. The biggest threat is operators not reacting fast enough, which would cause the grid voltage to increase to levels that it wasn't designed for which would cause transformers, generators and other control/generation systems to burn out. If that happened replacement of the burnt out systems would take years.
I was going to say much the same thing, but you've said it better.
Just to add SOMETHING to the mix, however, I would have thought that hardening our electrical grid _MIGHT_ have been one of the things the gub'mint should have spent a little of the trillion wasted "stimulus" dollars on. But as Instapundit Glenn Reynolds puts it, that might have given real jobs to burly men rather than to the natural Democrat constituencies.
Further, as the recent article from Nature pointed out, ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica have recently revealed spikes in C-14 and Be-10, indicative of a truly MASSIVE solar storm, in 774 and 993, perhaps as much as 5 times more powerful than the Carrington Event. So, yeah, perhaps we should think about planning to begin.
I'm less concerned about the threats from outer space than I am about the catastrophe we will cause ourselves.
http://graphics.latimes.com/ex...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Develop field hospitals, bunkhouses, feeding centers, rescue bases, and other disaster handling gear designed as modules all in the standard 2TEU long freight container size. Store them in unused corners of military bases around the country. Make retainer arrangements with a well-distributed number of long-haul truckers such that when disaster occurs truckers who happen to be properly situated at the time will drive to a designated base, exchange their current load for a specified FEMA module, and haul it to the disaster zone. Meanwhile, their regular trailer is waiting at the pickup base under military protection for the duration.
For overseas needs, using the standard container size would allow modules to be carried by ship and rail anywhere in the world.