Oh fun, another Doomsday Prepper snuff film: American Blackout

[NickB79]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-sagers/natgeos-american-blackout_b_4158582.html

What does it mean to be powerless? That question is at the center of American Blackout, a new found-footage style suspense/horror movie from National Geographic Channel that imagines 10 days of a nationwide power outage caused by a devastating cyber-attack.

Airing Oct. 27 at 9 p.m. ET, Blackout utilizes a combination of user-generated content culled from online, actual news reports and scripted scenes to dramatize a frighteningly realistic disaster.

Much of the film's narrative revolves around a variety of survivors documenting the blackout, and their rapidly deteriorating situations, on their cell phones and flip cams. There is a young, affluent couple in a New York City penthouse who only have credit cards and electric can openers; a teen vlogger left to his own devices while his mom works at a hospital; a little girl in the suburbs with a pregnant mom; a trio of college students stuck in their dorm's elevator after the end of the academic year; and the pre-teen son of a prepper family, who has escaped with his parents and sister's boyfriend to their "bug out" compound.

American Blackout is unnerving and, at times, downright scary (and yes, there's at least one good jump scene). The news footage and modern setting give the story a sense of place and time. Moreso than most apocalyptic movies or even a standard episode of The Walking Dead, this feels as if it could happen on any average day -- or even this afternoon.

Sow that fear. Sow it deep, sow it wide.

[Galileo126]

1. It's no accident

News Corp owns 67% of Nat Geo TV. They're catering to the fear-addicted Fox News crowd.

[kestrel91316]

2. If it gets people to stash away some extra food and water and do a LITTLE emergency planning,

I'm all for it. I'm waiting for my order of some storable food, big water filter, couple different emergency stoves, and some books to arrive as compensation for a little preparedness writing gig I recently finished.

I went through the aftermath of the Northridge quake, and I wasn't adequately prepared for that. Fear has little to do with it. I just really hated having to rely on other people for the basics for a while.

[NutmegYankee]

3. I keep supplies on hand because I've gone through 3 events in just the last few years.

Lost power for 7 days with Irene, 2011
Lost power for 2 with the Oct 29 Snowstorm, 2011
Lost power for 2 with Hurricane Sandy, 2012

I always have some spare food, water, propane, and batteries on hand. I also keep a 24,000 BTU kerosene heater and 5 gallons of K-1 kerosene on hand for heat system failure. That's in addition to my generator and a typical reserve of about 8 gallons.

Each event was interesting. I made coffee for the neighbors and used canned milk as the creamer after Irene. As a few were not as prepared, I also lent out flashlights and gave away batteries. For Sandy, I shared the generator for fridges and lent the kerosene heater to a neighbor (Generator can run my furnace).

I'm not a survival nut by any means, but Mother nature has sure been angry with us these last few years. I I expect it to get nothing but worse!

[Mika]

7. I lost power for 22 days @home after Andrew, & 18 days @ work.

Couldn't drive for almost a week b/c of downed trees and debris in my whole block. I rode a fat tire bike to get some supplies and to check work. Many houses burned and people killed from CO & CO2 poisoning - from generators - fire/rescue couldn't get to them to help.

Learned a big lesson. Florida is a 3rd world failed state.

[NutmegYankee]

10. Given the mass forest cover of Conn, we'd not get power for months with an Andrew like event.

The state is roughly 70% covered in trees. Luckily, despite the long outages (2+ weeks for some) associated with the Oct 29, 2011 Nor'easter (which dropped 2 feet of snow on trees that hadn't dropped their leaves yet), there were not many fires or CO events. Even Sandy was handled pretty well around me. The gas stations all were still operating because they had installed generators after Irene. It was NY,NJ that suffered the gas shortages because Irene had hardly impacted them, so they still had that feeling of invincibility.

We did have some fun during the Irene outage though. At about day 5 a neighbors meat freezer thawed and had to be cooked or tossed. So there was a huge "Block Party" and all of the meat (roughly 30 chicken breasts, 6 steaks, 11 sausages, etc) was grilled and served. And with no internet, we partied into the night drinking slightly warm beer and eating vodka filled watermelon. It was that outage that made me invest in a generator.

[knitter4democracy]

4. In my experience, people come together after something big like that.

I've been through many a storm aftermath, and we all started sharing resources and helping each other every time. I do agree that we need to make sure we can survive anything like that, power outage for whatever reason, though. With the weather changing, things are getting to the point that we all should be prepared.

[hedgehog]

8. THIS!^^^^^^^

[AverageJoe90]

5. I've noticed a general trend of fearmongering as well.

And not just with stuff like this: the supposed inevitable rise of China(when in fact, their bubble is about to burst.), "unstoppable", "worse than predicted", climate change(and all the "inevitable human extinction" theories to go along with that.....label me a "denier" if you want, doomers, but this isn't dismissing climate change altogether; rather, I'm pointing out that the hysteria surrounding these cries of doom has been largely unfounded. No, we're not at risk for extinction, and yes, we can fix it), the supposed "inevitable" decline of the U.S., Obama being Bush-Lite(he's not), World War III prophecies, etc., and that's just a tiny sliver of what I've come across.

I don't think that the people who make these films are necessarily part of any agendas, no. But I do wonder if some of this material is being used and abused for such; it's a possibility we can't ignore, IMO.

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. If too many people stopped living in a blind panic, they might begin to notice

how fucked they are and who did it. Can't have that.

[LiberalArkie]

9. I learned from an ice storm that took our power 2 weeks and blocked the roads for 7 days

1 home home log generator with 250 gallon propane generator.. It runs the whole home, washer, dryer, water heater everything except the range. It came in handy last year when we lost electricity for a week due to 2 feet of snow.

Best thing I ever purchased.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. What is it about the collective American psyche that's made this a thing, there?

When it's not a phenomenon that exists anywhere else? Sure, there may be a few isolated nutters outside the US with this mentality, but nothing like what you see in the States. Is it the relatively weak central government compared to most other countries? The relative isolation of American rural communities (and in many cases suburban communities) because of low population density? The influence of apocalyptic millenarian Christianity? The third-world infrastructure that makes things like 24- and 48-hour blackouts a routine occurrence? The "rugged individualist" frontier myth? Some combination of "all of the above"?

[magical thyme]

12. I'm hunkered down for a Maine winter

meaning I'd be warm and have warm food for several weeks, until the propane tank ran out. Then I'd be cold, but I'd still be able to warm food over the steno.