Blackout

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seasidegirl
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Blackout

Post: # 276305Post seasidegirl »

Just watched this drama I recorded on Channel 4.

Anyone see? Really good about a long term power cut over the whole of Britain.

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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276308Post Skippy »

I've recorded it too but haven't got round to watching it yet but have read comments on other forums. People are saying that in general it's well made and probably quite an accurate description of what could happen albeit with a few flaws. For example the traffic chaos probably wouldn't be as bad as was shown, most people cope with traffic light failure and the majority of roads are unlit anyway. There is a piece about someone drinking water from radiators that is a definate no no what with the chemicals in these systems , and from the comments about someone cooking with an out door barbeque I can't help but think that would be common anyway in a week long power cut as cookers wouldn't work and freezers would be defrosting.Makes sense to cook up the food.
One thing some have noted is that if such a thing was to happen, i.e. a cyber attack to take down the grid , any attacker would probably try to do it in the winter for maximum effect rather than the mid summer timing of the show.
I'll watch it and see if my mind changes or I have anything else to add.


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seasidegirl
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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276310Post seasidegirl »

Yes I had that thought about how much worse it would have been in winter.

I wouldn't have posted comments before you watch but as you've already read in other forums...

The traffic chaos seemed quite reasonable to me. Although drivers usually manage faulty traffic lights themselves I don't think this could work if all of them are out. Other factors in play include some vehicles blocking roads - remains of accidents that happened when the lights first failed. Some of them seem likely and police struggling to clear them. Abandoned vehicles empty of fuel (garages on power cuts or just empty). Also lots of people deciding to travel all at once to check on relatives or just get home.

Mains gas cookers are ok though arent they? I'm sure we've used ours in power cuts.

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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276334Post diggernotdreamer »

I watched it and it left me feeling quite odd. I mean, this is something that I have thought about in the past, especially during the lorry drivers strike, I remember going into Waitrose and there wasn't much left on the shelves. A few bits had gone missing from peoples allotments and I did comment to my partner that if this continued, we would have people climbing over our fences to pinch our veg and poultry. I am on a fellow called Paw Possum's facebook page, they are prepper types (shtf) and there is a topic on there at the moment about what weaponry would be best, rifles, crossbows etc, and I really find that quite a problem, would I really want to live in a world where you are frightened of people who might come and take your stuff and even kill you for it. It seemed to me a long while ago, it's not the oil running out we should be worried about, but cyber attack, everything is so reliant on computers and cloud computing. Look what happened to the banking system not that long ago and it took ages to sort out.

I think that those of us who live in the countryside are probably better placed, we have a spring well for water, no street lights, no traffic lights, we have our own sewage treatment, preserved food and veg growing usually all the time, town dwellers who live more luxuriously than we do would probably be in a bit more trouble than us................. but it's the others isn't it? could you start shooting people or even want to keep going in that kind of environment

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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276345Post Maykal »

Not sure either about traffic chaos. I can't remember where I read about it, but I'm fairly sure a town in Germany or Austria did an experiment in which they turned off all the traffic lights, removed all the roads signs and road markings and just let people get on with it. The result was that people, not being told what to do, were far more cautious at intersections and accident numbers went down as did congestion. Obviously, that doesn't account for the panic factor :)

seasidegirl
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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276348Post seasidegirl »

digger

I think it's good to remember this was a drama and they had to build up the human conflict to keep people watching.

If we think about real events more people help their neighbour that rob and shoot them. I remember seeing a sign outside someones house in America, after a hurricane I think, that said 'we have a generator - charge your cell phone here' or something like that.

I do think the programme was worthwhile though. I hope some of our leaders saw it and also that more people store more essentials. I used to use nearby shops like larders. Remember saying to my mum, 'why have cupboards full of stuff when there is a shop at the end of the road?' Now I know most shops only have enough food for 24 or 48 hours of normal trade and can't cope with panic buying. Anyone can find room for an emergency box but how many people have them?

Having said that we're hoping to move soon so I'm running down my food cupboard.

I read a brilliant novel, well I thought, by Helen Dunmore, called The Siege. Recommend that for a historical survival story.

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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276375Post doofaloofa »

I think the drama was unbalanced in that it missed out the smug rural folk enjoying the quiet life for contrast
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seasidegirl
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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276452Post seasidegirl »

Too true. And the most deranged person in the end seemed to be an urban isher.

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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276458Post Skippy »

Right I've now watched it so I'm a bit better off to comment. I answered earlier because I didn't want you to feel no one was interested :iconbiggrin:
On the whole I'd say it was a fair assessment of how people would react albeit a bit over dramatised . The urban prepper /self sufficient guy was clearly being set up for a fall but it was an exercise in what not to do if you do prepare for such emergencies. Firstly and most important don't tell anybody about the food or whatever you store, and don't keep it all in one place just in case you get burgled. To use military terminology remember your opsec or operational security.
I'm not totally convinced that a power cut would produce traffic chaos on the scale shown. Perhaps in the cities there would be trouble but most rural routes are unlit and motorways can still run without the matrix signs working. People cope when traffic lights fail and would just be cautious. However, that said traffic problems may arise when all the boy racer types realise the speed cameras aren't working and plod is busy with other things and try to use the roads for their own racetrack.
Likewise some would see it as an opertunaty to riot and aim for the plasma tellys and designer clothes before they start to worry about food.
On the subject of food I can't help but think that to begin with there would be a lot going cheap as frozen stuff starts to thaw out in the supermarkets. Heck it's even possible that T***o may give the food away to " help the country through these dire times" or to be more cynical as it was an act of terrorism they probably wouldn't be able to claim on the insurance so would try to earn brownie points with the government "because they care" :pukeright:
Worse thing about the programme? The bloody filming, that whole blair witch style is frankly just irritating.


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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276459Post baldybloke »

Still it just goes to show how fragile our infrastructure is. We need to look at local renewable energy systems, micro energy grids and return to locally produced food.
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seasidegirl
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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276460Post seasidegirl »

Agree with what you both say.

I didn't really mind the film style although it did seem unlikely that at the start of the power cut all the people filming seemed to have a full battery. When whatever goes wrong there will always be people who were just about to re-charge, or go to the cashpoint, or re-fuel. As usual worse of all for the poor people.

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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276486Post wattreesmassive »

Firstly can I say I didnt see the programme BUT I am old enough to remember "Threads" about the threat of the nuclear attack in the 80s,I was a child at the time and the nightmares it caused me were terrible.As an adult I have lived in the country and we have lived through blackouts,petrol shortages,wars and threats of terrorism and I have to say that during a crisis my neighbours and friends have all pulled together. Wether its because most of my neighbours are elderly and therefore have lived through "The War" I cant say but we managed to be without power one Christmas and because I had a Rayburn and plenty of wood,I ended up with a houseful of people bringing food to cook as their ovens were off {most have electric but some were on bottled gas but had no lighting or other heating} and we ended up having a brilliant party once the genny was up and running! We also had no mains water for a week and a neighbour let us all use his borehole and have been snowed in more times than I care to recall,every time a crisis occured we all pulled together,the programme makers obviously like to create a drama,otherwise we wouldnt watch {although prehaps a programme about communities pulling together would make pleasant viewing!} so please dont feel afraid,yes our infrastructure is fragile,but only because we allow it to be so,everything is computerised,electronic and relys on technology to keep it going but there are many people who are withdrawing from this {most people on this site have changed a lot of their day to day behaviour because we are all disgruntled with the way things are going} and those that are doing more for themselves will be ok should anything untoward happen,there is a tendancy of applying a "Domesday Approach" to world collapse,whereas in reality it seems that things are happening more slowly giving people time to change their behaviour gradually. Take the programme for what it was,a drama.

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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276489Post Skippy »

In the programme there was a woman who was trying to reach her mother in Sheffield driving from somewhere down south. When she got there she found that the residents in the block of flats had all pulled together and were looking after her mother whereas down in London they were rioting and practically eating each other. It would have been good if the film had spent more time on the tower block community, indeed I would have preferred to see the film broken up into a few shorter episodes concentrating on individual cases and perhaps telling it from the government or police side too.


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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276492Post doofaloofa »

Oh yes, and get a shotgun license
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Re: Blackout

Post: # 276509Post JonathanJ »

Well I watched it.

Lots of stereotyping - Rioting in London, smug middle class ish-er getting his comeuppance, couple of likely lads trying their luck, girl in hospital with accident victim (will the batteries run out), single mum on way to see her mother, criminal who turns out to be a Samaritan. To me it was just a pedestrian 1960's disaster movie set in modern day UK. The only thing that was missing was the singing Nun.

I had so little sympathy with the ish-er. I was waiting for him to foul up in a big was by drinking the radiator water. By the way the Glycol in the Fernox in the radiator will cause serious health health problems if you drink it. http://medicine.med.nyu.edu/nephrology/ ... soning.pdf

It would have been far better if it showed how well people did cope.

Quite disappointing really.

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