As I write this, I’m enjoying the benefits of electric power, unlike many people to the north.
A day like today exemplifies the limitations of using the Internet to get your news. Most of my usual news sites are running the same AP articles, so bouncing around isn’t getting me more details. Kudos to the Washington Post for running a sidebar on how power grids work; ironically, this is also on the AP feed, but the Post was the only site in my normal diet to run it.
And of course, the usual chorus of bloggers who provide facts-on-the-ground in such situations are reliant on electricity to do their job. So while on September 11th I was able to get lots of first-hand information that contradicted some of what I was hearing in the national media, today it’s traditional news or bust.
The parallels to 2001 are obvious, and it’s safe to say that my initial search for news was to determine my own guidelines for how far my disaster drill should go today. (I ended up limiting it to getting some cash in my pocket in case the ATM and plastic networks go down.) But what was frustrating—and probably expected—was just how short on information the day is from official sources.
Right now, we’re not sure why the power’s out. But we’re certain it’s not the work of terrorists. So everyone should just rest easy and drink lots of water.
Beyond that, nada. No word on why we’re certain it’s not the work of terrorists. No word on best guesses as to what’s going on. Rumors that this all started somewhere near the Canadian border, but not about why the blackout miraculously stopped somewhere in the Jersey Pine Barrens.
My biggest moment of concern came from this map on the CNN web site, which seemed to show that the outage was limited to major metropolitan centers. That’s not how power grids work—I knew that before I got to the AP article. An area map showing affected regions would have been a lot more useful, but CNN probably doesn’t have that information either. So far better to put up a misleading map that makes today look much more dangerous than it already is.
Two lessons seem to be drawable from today’s events, one good, one bad:
- Despite all of the misinformation and pseudonews about terrorist activity and color-coded levels of alert, most people seem able to act calmly and rationally in bad situations. Pat on the back for Americans.
- The officials in charge continue with their policy of providing unsupported assertions and generally keeping the public in the dark, which someday will override the impulses that are keeping us calm today. It’s in the absence of trusted information that rumors spread—one report from NYC today relayed a rumor that Los Angeles had gone dark. Those of us who follow terrorist activities know that an attack on the power grid is a likely target, but I don’t think this has gotten to the general public yet. On the other hand, given the hype on dirty bombs, I wouldn’t expect to see the Northeast so calm if the issue were some geiger counters that were ticking ominously.
So while today is a great opportunity for a wake-up to slumbering officials, I’m afraid that the power is still out on their alarm clocks.