American Blackout

This Sunday night, the National Geographic cable channel is going to air a new film certain to shock and alarm everyone who sees it.  Entitled “American Blackout,” it dramatically portrays what would happen if the United States electric grid were subjected to a devastating, and sustained, cyber attack. 

The viewer watches as food, water, medicine, transportation, finance and other things whose ready availability we take for granted are disrupted for ten debilitating days.  The hard experiences of ordinary people are chronicled as life and society as we know it come undone. 

“American Blackout” doesn’t address the even more frightening scenarios associated with naturally occurring or man-induced electromagnetic pulse (or EMP) events. But it sure makes clear that we have to protect our grid and people against all such hazards – and do it now.