The other day I was watching a documentary on Netflix (about Joseph Stalin if you must know) and scrolling through email on my phone when suddenly the TV screen went to a message “You are not connected to the Internet.” Hmm. Rebooted the modem. Nothing. Went outside and checked on the Starlink receiver and the cable. All looks good. Called a neighbor who also has Starlink. He’s watching Netflix. Reboot a couple more times. Nothing. Put in a trouble report to Support. Quick response. Looks like your cable. We’re sending you a new one. No charge.
Great Customer Service. Replied in minutes. But the cable isn’t coming for 4-5 days. What will we do for 4-5 days?
We were back in the 80’s
We cooked dinner, worked on a jigsaw puzzle, listened to music. All normal things for us. Could have watched a DVD but were happy with our puzzle. But there were no emails on my phone all afternoon. (We live out of town in a river valley so cell service is spotty, just like cable internet is non-existent.)
All that happened was that one of our entertainment options was unavailable and emails didn’t come through. Why should that matter? We’re not emergency personnel on call. And it was a Sunday anyway. There was nothing that couldn’t wait until Monday. But nothing was going to work on Monday either. Or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday.…
Texting still worked if we needed to contact someone. And the landline that we almost never use but have for emergencies works. We’ll have to go to town and use the wifi at the Library this week (which is where I’m sending this now).
But there is still this undercurrent of anxiety. We’re disconnected, out of the loop. And our lives have become somehow … inefficient.
The History of Email
Email didn’t even exist outside of internal corporate networks until the 1980’s and wasn’t widely available until the 1990’s when America Online (AOL), Echomail, Hotmail and Yahoo were launched. There weren’t even home computers readily available until the mid-1980’s. For some of our readers, PCs, email, and social media have always existed. But for anyone over 50, PCs and email are “modern inventions.”
We remember paying for one hour/month online, with “flash sessions” to upload/download the day’s emails in a minute so the 60 minutes lasted all month. High speed unlimited broadband (whatever that was) sounded like something from a Jules Verne novel.
This was the Internet. What about losing power. For months.
What if our power had gone out? That happens sometimes, usually only for a few hours. When the power goes out for us, we pull out the solar power pack so we keep the internet, the well pump and the fridge going. Even a light or two, if we want. We have the wood stove and a gas kitchen stove and the grill so we can eat and stay warm. But it’s still a disruption of our normal routine.
What if it went out for days? Or weeks? A wind shear occurred in our area a while back, before we lived here, and power was out for weeks. Fortunately it was summer. And every power outage we’ve ever had, including the wind shear, was local. If we wanted to, we could always get in the car and drive 15 minutes or, worst case, an hour to where there was power. And internet.
But what happens if the power, cell phones and/or internet goes down for a long time, or over a wide area, or even across most of the country? With local disruptions, the utility companies bring in repair personnel from other areas. What happens when the outage is so large that every utility company has to keep their resources in their own service area, when there are no resources to share? Service can’t be restored quickly, or even slowly, or maybe not even this year? A few days without email and Netflix and we’re all discombobulated. What if the grid, and the internet and cell towers, all go down for months?
We know that an atomic bomb exploded at high altitude creates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that destroys unshielded electronics. And we know that the commercial electrical grid is not shielded.1 We can assume that military and intelligence facilities are shielded. But does anyone breathe a sigh of relief to know that the military and Intelligence Community would be the only ones still operating? (Sounds more like a totalitarian state, but I digress.)
We also know that there was massive solar activity, called the Great Carrington Event, that happened in September 1859. The telegraph was greatly impacted for two days but since electrical/electronic grids weren’t in existence yet, the event was more sound and fury than disaster. (It’s an interesting story and worth a few minutes of your time to research it.) But another solar event like that today could wipe out the power grid along with every unshielded laptop, phone, generator, the internet and all other unshielded electronic devices, just like an EMP attack.2
So what do we do? Build community!
Our purpose here is not to scare everyone into building a shielded underground bunker in the woods, with three wells, four generators, five years of freeze-dried food, six family members and more guns and ammo that a military base. I’m not predicting a massive natural or man-made disaster. No one knows, despite the many claims.
No, this ramble about losing the internet for a week is about questioning our mindsets. Are we so locked into the world as we know it, with 24/7 entertainment and connectivity that the thought of a day (or more) of no internet provokes anxiety? Would the reality of an extended power outage threaten our lives?
Or have we invested the time, energy and emotional commitment to build community, with our neighbors, the people at church or the YMCA, our local government officials or local farmers? Do we have a way to communicate without cell phones and the internet? Have we built relationships around drinking coffee or playing golf or discussing books – in person? Do we belong to a community garden or have our own garden and share tips with our neighbors who have their own gardens? If our lives are built on community and friendships, losing social media and email won’t be such a big deal.
And you know what? There is no downside to building face to face community. If the internet or the power grid never go down, and we hope they don’t, we’ll have community and be the richer for it.
Grid Down, Power Up (https://griddownpowerup.com/) is a 2022 documentary about the vulnerabilities of the power grid. Dennis Quaid narrates the documentary and has appeared on Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson to promote it.
Even Wikipedia admits that a geomagnetic storm like the Carrington Event would create widespread electrical disruptions.
I’m glad I was part of the solution!! Lol. Very good read, neighbor:)
Oh no!! What do we do?!
Excellent insight & reflection. Thank you - You immediately went to your neighbor to check in. So community-minded