The Day The Lights Go Out And The Trucks Stop Running

[cronus]

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... op-running

The Day The Lights Go Out And The Trucks Stop Running
By Michael Snyder, on August 29th, 2016

What would happen if some sort of major national emergency caused a massive transportation disruption that stopped trucks from running? The next time you talk to a trucker, please thank them for their service, because without their hard work none of our lives would be possible. In America today, very few of us live a truly independent lifestyle, and that means that we rely on the system to provide what we need. Most of us take for granted that there will always be plenty of goods at Wal-Mart and at the grocery store whenever we need more “stuff”, and most of us never give a second thought to how all of that “stuff” gets there. Well, the truth is that most of it is brought in by trucks, and if the trucks stopped running for some reason the entire country would devolve into chaos very rapidly.

Earlier today, I came across a quote from Alice Friedemann that detailed what we would be facing during a major national transportation disruption very nicely…

Within a week, in roughly this order, grocery stores would be out of dairy and other items that are delivered many times a day. And by the week, the shelves would be empty.

Hospitals, pharmacies, factories, and many other businesses also get several deliveries a day, and they’d be running out of stuff the first day.

And the second day, there’s be panic and hoarding. And restaurants, pharmacies would close. ATM’s would be out of money. Construction would stop. There’d be increasing layoffs. Increasing enormous amounts of trash not getting picked up, 685,000 tons a day. Service stations would be closed. Very few people would be working. And the livestock would start to be hungry from lack of feed deliveries.

Then within two weeks, clean water supplies would run out. Within four weeks to eight weeks, there wouldn’t be coal delivered to power plants and electricity would start shutting down. And when that happened, about a quarter of our pipelines use electricity, and so natural gas plants wouldn’t be fed natural gas and they’d start shutting down.

There is so much infrastructure that we take for granted that would suddenly become very vulnerable in this type of scenario. There are countless numbers of workers out there that never get any glory that do the hard work of maintaining our nuclear power plants, our natural gas pipelines, our electrical grid, etc. If they suddenly were not able to do their jobs, the consequences would be absolutely catastrophic. The following comes from Tess Pennington…

They rarely mention the dozens of nuclear power plants that litter the United States. If no one is there to operate them, how long before they melt down and bury millions of survivors under a radioactive cloud?

Then there are the 12,000 facilities around the country that store large quantities of toxic or flammable chemicals, and reside close to residential areas. 2,500 of these sites contain chemicals in quantities that, if a catastrophic accident were to occur, could affect 10,000 to 1 million people each. And let’s not forget the 2.5 million miles of oil and gas pipelines that can be found in every state. They suffer hundreds of leaks and ruptures every year, and are much more likely to explode when they aren’t maintained. That detail seems to be conveniently forgotten by post-apocalyptic films.

And finally, most post-apocalyptic movies will forget to mention what happens when there aren’t any functional fire departments. Aside from the obvious consequences, like whole neighborhoods routinely burning to the ground, who’s going to put out landfill fires that are occasionally radioactive?

For most Americans, a major national emergency of this magnitude may seem unimaginable right now. But the truth is that it isn’t difficult to see how this kind of scenario could happen. The Yellowstone supervolcano is becoming increasingly active, a single large asteroid could change all of our lives in a single moment, a crippling pandemic could bring normal life in America to a complete standstill, a terror attack involving weapons of mass destruction would spread panic and fear like wildfire, and a historic earthquake along the New Madrid fault, the Cascadia Subduction zone or any of the major faults in California could literally change the geography of our entire continent.

In addition, a massive EMP burst from a nuclear weapon or from the sun could fry our power grid and send us back into the stone age in a single moment. This is something that I have written about extensively, and those that want to minimize this threat simply don’t know what they are talking about.

(continued)

[NineBerry]

If the trucks stop running, we'll just have Uber drivers do the deliveries.

[JimC]

no, drones...

[Brian Peacock]

When we have been genetically modified to draw our energy directly from the soil truckers will be unnecessary.

[pErvinalia]

theeconomiccollapseblog

[laklak]

Shut off the national power grid for just 24 hours and watch the inner cities self-destruct. Give it 48 and suburban soccer moms will be eating the homeless. Within a week the only functional societies left will be Appalachia, some saltwater redneck enclaves, and the survivalists. And Alaska, of course. We'll be OK, because I keep the fuel tanks topped off and the ammo boxes full, we'll stand offshore till it blows over. But I'd hate like hell to be stuck in Detroit or Liberty City.

[Rum]

Our system is hugely complex and inter-dependent and it is bound to go wrong at some point, though it is no doubt resilient too - the oil shock of the 70s is a good example. Of course some of us think it is amazing that we can be so resourceful while other chuckle with glee at the thought of the chaos that would ensure - at least temporarily.

[laklak]

It is pretty amazing how the whole thing somehow manages to keep on ticking despite being stuck together with duct tape, baling wire, cable ties, and chewing gum.

[JimC]

Memo to self - stock up on gin...

[Brian Peacock]

The trucks stopping rolling is one thing, but the internet being turned off is the real nightmare horror scenario.

[laklak]

You may stop the trucks, but you'll NEVER stop the train.

[Brian Peacock]