Dark: Eight Observations & One Big Question Following Recent Power Outage

Instant black.

Instant quiet.

One second I was writing a description for an upcoming 3BY Podcast, the next second I was sitting in my recliner, keyboard in hand, staring out into absolute blackness. 

I grabbed my phone and clicked the screen on. It came up immediately. OK, so no electro-magnetic pulse (EMP), that’s good to know.

I got up out of my chair and walked outside. Pitch black, the town was bathed in starlight. I could hear cars driving around, further evidence that it was a grid-down only scenario.

As a journalist associated with a local newspaper, I decided to do a bit of investigating. I hopped into my car to see how much of the town was blacked out… the sky was really dark, so I was pretty sure all the streetlights were off, but I was curious… I was also curious to see people’s reaction.

Night sky above a cedar tree at The Place

I drove uptown (downtown to you city slickers) and found several cars stopped in the middle of the street,  the people leaning out their windows, chatting. This may seem strange to those not accustomed to it, but around here it’s a time honored tradition to park in the middle of the street and talk. Even the police do it, and everybody knows if two people are talking just pull around them to the outside. No big deal. I drove on past one bank, then the other… yep, both of their lights were on, both generators were working. I drove past three different C-stores and I was absolutely baffled to see what I did. All the lights were off except the “lotto numbers” signs, which were all on. Apparently, those things have battery backups. Who knew?

I pulled into the newspaper where pretty much “all hands” had gathered and we got on social media. The power was dead but Facebook was hopping, literally hundreds of residents were on their phone sharing information about the lights being out, as well as where the lights were on. 

It turned out that our power company, Ameren, lost a bunch of towns in north Missouri, basically in a line stretching along Highway 6 in the east to middle part of the state. 

Many other communities are server by Rural Electric Cooperatives (REC’s) which generate their own power and maintain their own grids. The REC homes and businesses were all still powered. 

I decided to drive past our local nursing home/residential care facility to see how they were doing, since I know it to be on Ameren. Lights were on, the generator had kicked in like it is supposed to. 

After about an hour-and-a-half of darkness, the lights came back on. Ameren has offered no reason to us for the blackout.

One thing I did notice, however, were bunches of people who immediately rushed to the c-stores and gas stations to fill up their cars & buy milk and bread. 

Prepper things that I learned in this short, harmless event:

1. People used social media as their prime communication tool in the community. 
2. Nobody seemed to have their radios on, all communications were being done through phones
3. Even though probably 100,000 people lost power for 1 1/2 hours, there was no mention of it on any regional media. Interesting.
4. No explanation for the outage has been given. Again, interesting. 
5. There was no panic or looting, but people did come out of their houses and talked with their neighbors.
6. There was quite a bit of “people just driving around and looking.”
7. People realized they needed to stock up on things AFTER the event happened. That’s not good.
8. Living in a community where everybody knows everybody else is a whole lot better place to be than in a community where nobody knows anybody else. Call it a community tribe if you will.

After the power came back on, I was left with one overwhelming question, and to me it’s a huge concern… with our cultural dependence on cell phones growing, how will we react & communicate if they are knocked out as well.

I suspect we would have seen an entirely different situation if the cell phone towers were offline.