From Flu Wiki 2

Forum: The Domino Effect

18 September 2006

Okieman – at 13:59

I am starting this thread for discussion of the effects of one city falling due to critical infrastructure failure. In other words, if one city population 500,000 or larger were to lose either electricity or water or wastewater service, what would be the cascading effect upon other nearby cities?

The movement of infected people would not be something that could be contained, so a spreading of the disease obviously would occur as people moved in with nearby friends and family. But also there would be added strain upon infrastructure and businesses in the surrounding cities. We have seen this after hurricanes and it can be a significant factor.

My theory is that widespread failure of the electric grid may not be needed to cause a catastrophic effect. Just one localized failure in a large city could initiate a cascading effect which would ripple from one city to the next.

Green Mom – at 17:08

I think you’d need some sort of social engineer to work this one out, but I will offer an observation. When KAtrina hit New Orleans, cities as far north as Nashville Tn were completly swamped by refugees-even Louisville KY was affected-thats not cities that offered to take them in-thats how far people drove to get away from the storm. The entire country felt the increase in gas prices immediantly, and also some commodities-I’m thinking mostly of sugar and plywood/building supplies.

Bronco Bill – at 17:23

I don’t think localized grid failure (say, in a small section of a city) would cause so much catastrophe. Most neighborhoods are on parts of the grid that are serviced by unmanned sub-stations, being nothing more than large groups of transformers and transmission lines. But I see where you’re going with this, and if a large city was to lose power or water for an extended time, people are likely going to want to get out of the area and travel to areas that aren’t affected. By the time we get to that point, though, maybe 3–4 weeks into a pandemic, there’s the possibility of forced quarantines in place to keep just that thing from happening…

Bronco Bill – at 17:27

To follow up: I don’t think localized grid failure (say, in a small section of a city) would cause so much catastrophe. Most neighborhoods are on parts of the grid that are serviced by unmanned sub-stations, being nothing more than large groups of transformers and transmission lines.

Most of the major utility companies are able to shunt service to other areas to temporarily carry the load for a short amount of time, until the offending unit can be repaired. How would this play out if there’s no one to do the repairs? And the outlying local grids fail? Good question…I think the cascade effect could very well take place, starting out slow at first, then building momentum over a period of a few weeks as more and more grids fail and more people move outward from the original failure site, if they are able to…

LMWatBullRunat 17:42

Water supply failure can be either lack of service or lack of disinfection. In my judgment, lack of disinfection and/or proper filtration is most likely; service failures are fairly unlikely absent wholesale power failure. Disinfection or filtration failures (lack of staff or chlorine) can be coped with by “boil-water” orders and have relatively low impact. System failures due to lack of power would result in wholesale exodus. Most likely this would be by foot; there would be no fuel available, and most people don’t maintain a stock of gas. There might also be attempts to close roads to maintain quarantine.

Sewer treatment system failures caused by lack of staff but with power on would be bad for those downstream and those living in lowlying areas served by sewage pumps that went out. This would not cause mass exodus, but likely localized evacuations as the sewage floods lower levels.

A wholesale power failure would result in wholesale sewage system outage, but this would also mean no water, so this is already covered.

IMO, as has already been stated elsewhere, the big issue is the grid. My guess is that localized failures would quickly result in largescale failure, but even a local failure would result in a wholesale breakdown of civil order in that area, spreading to the surrounding area as quickly as people travel. There would be an associated large increase in infections 2–4 days after the breakdown, which is about the time people could walk 50 miles or drive 1000–2000 miles.

I suspect that before local or wholesale grid failure, there will be significant depletion of local stocks of fuel due to lack of able delivery drivers. given that most of the exodus will be on foot, I think that the infection will be more or less localized, so I think that the idea that a 500K city would cause a wholesale breakdown is not highly probable. However, I suspect that one local grid failure would presage more, and the power system is very vulnerable to outages under “normal” circumstances.

Oremus – at 19:07

Without water, will city residents just dump their chamberpots out the window, as was done in ancient cities? This could lead to secondary diseases.

Anon_451 – at 19:39

If I assume correctly that you are saying only one city lost power and water, What would be the effect. First the entire grid would shutter, until the offending city was taken off of the grid. Second, MSM would be all over the city that has fallen. That will cause a lot of fear in all of the other major cities and every politican would be on the tube saying that it is only one city. Every resourse would be diverited to that city to try and bring it back up to reassure the rest of the nation. With all of the resources sent to that city, other cities would start to fall and then the casscade would begin.

Just my opinion. if Jumping Jack Flash is out there he would be best suited to answer this and I would value his opinion.

LauraBat 19:46

Nationwide the entire electric system is over-burdened. We experienced the big “black-out” a few summers ago here on the East Coast, a huge multi-state outage that started in Ohio - I’m in CT! Also, we experience more localized outages regularly. They are repaired quickly when the weather is good and not much else is going on. A few weeks when Ernesto blew threw there were massive outages statewide. Because there were so many downed trees, it took crews a long time to get it all back up and running. That’s the problem - throw in a natural disaster on top of crews being out sick and you’re looking at huge failures that take a long time to correct.

If there is no water, people will freak out pretty quickly. It’s one thing to go for awhile with no food, but every knows you have to have water to survive. But, water is also dependent on electricity, be it city systems, purifying systems or backyard wells.

silversage – at 19:58

I would think, in the winter, during failure of electrical and/or natural gas there would be a mass migration to warmer areas. I’ve done all I can afford to prepare my home and family but if I can’t keep them warm enough to survive here in Chicago, why wouldn’t I take the last of my gas and head south? I once read that 40 million people get water from the great lakes. Most of the areas around the great lakes are cold in the winter time. What if only 10% or 5% of these people have the means to travel but not to keep warm, who will be able to stop them from heading south?

What would the government do? Would it try to relocate populations from northern cities to warmer areas? Will they have the manpower or the means? What kind of misery would that invoke on southern cities to have sick/hungry refugees landing on their doorstep? Or will the northern cities be left to freeze?

LauraB – at 19:46

My sis lives in CT too and lost power for three days during that ice storm/zero degree weather you had last winter. She had to move into a hotel because her house was down to 30 degrees in 24 hours.

INFOMASS – at 20:01

Maybe we would be like Baghdad with four hours a day of electricity, being rotated to different neighborhoods? With even much reduced output, we could keep water and sewerage and hospitals going while giving households some power for cooking and heating. This assumes the utility would manage things to maintain some service, but this is what happens in poorer countries with inadequate capacity.

LauraBat 20:08

Info - I think you are right, as long as the system can handle it. I also happened to be out in CA during their rolling black-brown outs a few summers ago. It was the only way to keep the system from completely frying. it wasn’t optimal but better than no power at all. there could even be public announcements stating when areas/towns will be with/without power so people can plan accordingly.

I also think major cities will also be a priority vs outlying. I lived in a former soviet-union city where fuel for power was a huge problem. We had brownouts regularly but rarely lost power all together. However, once you got outside the city limits power was off for hours at a time. They had to keep the capital up and running to keep foreing companies, embassies, etc. happy. The poor villagers 30 minutes from downtown were tough out of luck. Keeping tightly packed urban dwellers happy will also go a long way to preventing unrest.

Glad I ordered my generator last week!

enza – at 20:50

A few weeks ago on another thread I suggested the concept of rationing/rotating electricity in the event that things are worse than we anticipated when tshtf; the idea went over like a lead balloon. However as a resident of CA (with summer brownouts and rolling blackouts)and having lived in more than one (develped)countries where electricity is not on 24/7 I maintain that this may have to be an option to consider. Then I really waded in and suggested that if workers don’t/won’t show up, we could have the military temporarily provide the manpower needed to run the plants.

Oremus – at 21:28

As far as the load on the grid goes. How much does the load go down in the evening hours when a lot of businesses are closed? During a pandemic, I expect a lot of businesses will be closed.

DennisCat 22:07

We just got new fancy meters that can be read, and turned on and off by some kind of digital radio signal sent down the lines. I would think that some areas may have computer controlled rotating/rationing. I haven’t checked with those that “know” but I would think the companies could ration electricity in some areaas.

Dennis in Colorado – at 22:12

Oremus – at 21:28

Electricity consumption numbers for 2003, from
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2744/is_6_2004/ai_n6121368/pg_3

Residential = 37%
Commercial = 35%
Industrial = 28%
Transportation < 1%

Edna Mode – at 22:43

LauraB – at 19:46 Nationwide the entire electric system is over-burdened. We experienced the big “black-out” a few summers ago here on the East Coast, a huge multi-state outage that started in Ohio…

Yeah, LauraB, and if memory serves, it was started when a squirrel got fried on some lines that triggered a domino effect. So, clearly, it doesn’t take a pandemic to shut the grid down.

I just found a little light reading material at the NERC* (North American Electric Reliability Council) Web site.

Here’s a white paper in which NERC frames the problem posed by pandemic: http://tinyurl.com/qhjdc

Here’s a response plan draft: http://tinyurl.com/mz9eo

And here’s a little something to calm the frayed nerves (ignorance truly is bliss): nuke http://tinyurl.com/oy8ca

The thing about the nuclear power plants is really more than my mind can deal with at this point, considering we live about halfway between two of them. I’d gladly do without power for a prolonged period of time to redirect it to those plants—and I have to assume that anyone with any authority and an ounce of brains has that as the master plan in worse case scenario.

Bronco Bill – at 23:16

Oremus – at 21:28 --- How much does the load go down in the evening hours when a lot of businesses are closed? During a pandemic, I expect a lot of businesses will be closed.

Honest, I’m not trying to start an argument here. Even though the businesses will be closed, and their power consumption dropped to about nil, many more people will be home during the day, and if it’s hot outside, air conditioners and TV sets will be turned on when normally they would not. I think it would about even out.

Oremus – at 23:29

Bronco Bill – at 23:16

You have a point with the AC’s, the TV’s go on in the evening now, so being on in the day would not change the lower load. It would depend a lot upon what percentage of people leave their AC or Heat on while they are at work.

19 September 2006

TRay75at 00:27

I’ll put in my $0.02 in on this one from actual experience.

In 1978 the “Great NY Black-out” hit and rolled southward on that hot July night. It made it past DC, into Virginia, and got stopped dead by a set of newly calibrated line frequency relays on the Carolina Power and Light grid. Unable to continue south, it shifted west into the TVA grid and eventually died as more distribution systems did exactly what we will do if this happens again - they blew their line disconnects and became independent islands of local grids with their generators supplying only their own customers.

The grid does not depend upon voltage or amperage levels to protect itself - it depends upon frequency. The US power grid is synced to 60 Hertz, 60 cycles per second. If load becomes too high, the frequency begins to drop. The principle is the same as stomping the accelerator of your car to keep the same speed going up a steep hill by forcing the wheels to turn as fast as they do on a flat road. If the engine cannot supply this much power, the car slows down even with the throttle wide open. Same basic principle for a generator, except these monsters weigh about 100 tons, run on steam at 2000 psi and 1000 degrees F (1000 psi and 500 degrees F on a nuke), typically spin 1800 times a minute, and do not slow down happily with a sudden increase in load. Nor do they speed up well if load suddenly drops off.

But, they can manage changes if they have to. And there are nation-wide protocols to “black start” after a major outage - where plants that stay on line feed power back to plants that trip out to get them restarted as soon as possible. Nukes are required to have enough fuel in on-site storage to run their emergency generators (which themselves could run small cities) to provide for a controlled shutdown or restart of the plant and to keep their spent fuel pools cooled until power can be restored (and having been at Brunswick Plant on the NC coast that meant having to endure a full cat 3 to 5 hurricane and wait for the lines to be restrung to get back on the grid).

Now, if a city starts to loose power, the control center is going to kill out sections in an attempt to isolate the areas where the problems are happening (like one side of the street may have power and the other be dark if they are on separate feeders) to prevent a blackout. If push comes to shove, a coal or gas or oil plant can throttle back very extremely and keep just itself running, killing its outside switch yard connects to isolate until the fault clears or the armed guards remove the threat as I have read in some plans.

A nuke is made more to run at the upper end of its operational envelope, but can be throttled back to maintain itself if it is done as a controlled sequence as opposed to being dumped by a blackout. If anyone is familiar wit the 1970′s novel “Lucifer’s Hammer” this is what became the basis for a rebirth of civilization, having a throttled down nuke able to extend it’s fuel life long enough to rebuild infrastructure by having that power and the shops and brain-power of the construction crews available to put things back together in the world after the disasters had happened.

Now, as to a cascading city to city migration and load after a grid failure, if it starts, there will be trouble, but if the plants and lines are still intact, once the population stats bugging out, it will actually be easier to restart the grid, because it can be done at a pace the repair crews ( what may be left of them) and the plants can control. In effect, the place the population abandons becomes a candle to draw them back, probably with fewer returning as in New Orleans post-Katrina.

How long the grid stays out is more likely a function of weather and people shooting at the repair crews than size of the city. At almost all costs, a power utility is going to protect the generators first, then the switchgear and feeders, then the substations. That is where the guard will be most likely to go, to protect the assets to keep the transmission system intact, even if it may go dark for a period of days or weeks.

And, as we keep coming back to in these discussions, if you have power, you can mine coal, pump and refine oil, pump and purify water, and get lights and information out to the masses. Don’t think that TPTB don’t know that is the only way that they will survive as well, and the resources needed will be placed to keep the grid from disappearing just because a suicidal squirrel throws itself onto a transformer tap in Brooklyn or too many sick and dying people turn on their air conditioning to try to survive. The grid is the source of all money and political power. Without it, even the bullets will run out one day if this becomes some sort of Mad Max aftermath.

Still, the idea of mass migration impacts during a quarantine will get pretty ugly, with or without use of force. I’ll give this more thought.

TRay75at 23:01

Correction:

The “Great NY Black-out” was 1977, not 1978 - fat fingers and small keys make mistakes that even spell-check won’t fix. My bad.

Medical Maven – at 23:21
  H5N1 is the foe.  We humans are the microcosm.  Civilization is the macrocosm.  The cytokine storm in which elements of “the body” begin to attack itself (become disregulated) is the coup de grace for both.

20 September 2006

no name – at 00:03

The perfect reflection.

Call of the Wild – at 01:50

Power station operators sometimes have to be quick enough to catch the frequency change where it oscillates and the automatics can’t keep up. Saw this once when a large station tripped. It wouldn’t have been pretty if we didn’t island ourselves. It would have been a domino all right. Lack of coal will be our main problem if diesel isn’t kept up to the mines and transport companies. However in that scenario, the public won’t be going too far.

Bluebonnet – at 16:57

Here is an interesting article from the Houston Chronicle from October 2005 (in the wake of Hurricane Rita)

http://tinyurl.com/e5d8f

Debate flares over health of power grid

Points to note:

1. Problem is not with generation but transmission. The entire nation’s power grid — which is really a cobbled-together patchwork of systems — is Balkanized and full of bottlenecks. Despite soaring demand for power, investment in the poles and wires that zip electrons around to end-users has been anemic for years.

The Edison Electric Institute reports industrywide investment in transmission dropped $115 million per year for more than two decades, plummeting from $5 billion in 1975 to $2 billion in 2000. Some industry estimates say it will take between $50 billion and $100 billion to bring the grid up to snuff.

2. Texas is protected from compounding power outages.

Across the nation, Hurwitz said there has been a slight uptick in investment since the summer of 2003, when much of the Northeast, including New York City, was blacked out one hot August afternoon.

That cascading power outage rippled across eight states and left 50 million people in the dark, and it all started when a sagging high-voltage power line touched an untrimmed tree in Ohio and tripped off. The resulting grid imbalances overloaded alternate lines and shut down power plants around the region.

Most Texas customers are isolated from compounding power outages of that sort.

That’s because the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — or ERCOT — which oversees 85 percent of the state’s power demand, is an island unto itself.

ERCOT actively manages the overall flow of electrons in its Texas region to ensure uninterrupted access. But there is no such meaningful interconnectivity in Texas for Entergy customers.

ERCOT only operates inside the state’s borders, avoiding the flow of electricity across state lines. By doing so, it avoids interstate commerce and federal regulatory oversight. Entergy cannot be part of the ERCOT system because its grid is connected to Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, although the company said it is investigating how it could restructure to come under ERCOT jurisdiction in Texas.

3. Now throw in 30–40% absenteeism due to Pandemic Flu. BRRR! Frightening thought.

LauraBat 21:49

Forgot - was told when our transformer blew this summer during a heatwave that many systems in place at the local level are insufficient to handle the increased demand from the bigger houses, bigger appliances, etc. that everyone seems to have these days. Ours was capable of handling THREE houses, BEFORE my neighbors put in in-ground heated pools, etc. plus the electric company had FOUR houses running off it. Needless to say that didn’t work. Took almost three days to get a new transformer in place and that was with a friend at the phone company pull some strings with his friends at the electric company.

In a nutshell - have lots of alternatives/back-ups and contingencies. While schools/business closures will help lower demand some, all those workers will be at home watching TV, running their AC and washing machines, etc. And if there’s a storm, 40%+ out sick, we’re in for big trouble.

28 September 2006

DemFromCT - close thread – at 21:46
DemFromCT - close thread – at 21:46
Retrieved from http://www.fluwikie2.com/index.php?n=Forum.TheDominoEffect
Page last modified on September 28, 2006, at 09:46 PM