The Castle Doctrine
When the grid goes down, what is a responsible provider to do?
“Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.” – Miguel de Cervantes
Indulge us, if you will, in a small exercise of your imagination. To set the scene, picture that you are going about your busy week as news of an upcoming winter storm simmers in the background. The Weather Channel has already given it a name, a development you brush off as further evidence of the imperative to sensationalize what used to be considered normal variations in the weather. Between Zoom meetings and shuttling the kids to and from their Thursday evening activities, you catch notice that forecasters are calling for as much as a foot of snow in your area beginning early Friday and continuing into the weekend.
You wake up the next morning and look out the window. There’s no snow yet and things seem rather calm—the local school district’s decision to close for the day feels gratingly preemptive. Your weather app signals that the snow’s expected arrival has been pushed back, although accumulation estimates are converging to between 8-10 inches—a significant amount to be sure, but nothing you haven’t easily handled in the past. You turn The Weather Channel back on and smirk to see the big-name talent fanned out across the expected impact zone—none other than Jim “Thundersnow” Cantore has set up shop in a nearby city, safety glasses in tow.
Wet, heavy flakes begin to fall mid-afternoon. After a few hours, branches buckle under the weight with the elasticity of a gymnast. You are momentarily charmed by the surreal, shimmering tunnel effect as you drive out your neighborhood to pick up takeout for dinner. The storm sweeps through overnight, and the last inch of precipitation arrives in the form of freezing rain that acts like a glue locking an enormous tonnage of precipitation onto the sagging arboreous canopy. The low-pressure system quickly makes way for the high one behind it, and the sudden change triggers a temporary bout of substantial wind gusts. For many trees, this is the time to give in—down to the ground they go, taking countless power lines with them.
And just like that, with at least a week of single-digit temperatures in the latest forecast, your neighborhood descends into darkness, your home is without heat and electricity, and you are left wondering what to do next.
For some of you, this was hardly a tax on your imagination. Last week, a historic cold snap descended upon much of North America, making the hypothetical an all-too-real possibility for millions of families. When temperatures drop to 0°F or lower, an extended power outage can quickly escalate from an inconvenience to a life-threatening emergency. Rest assured, there are simple ways every household can be better prepared to increase comfort and decrease damage.
As longtime readers of Doomberg will know, we unabashedly count ourselves among those unwilling to cede certain aspects of the health and well-being of our families to the government, preferring instead to create a form of tangible insurance against tail risks like the recent weather event. It has long been common to mock this streak of independence. We reject such collectivist shaming, and we suspect a good number of you do as well.
How would we prepare for a week-long loss of power and heat in the dead of winter? What do the abatement options on offer teach us about the raw physics of operating a typical home, and what are the implications for energy systems at the community and national levels? Let’s fire up the idea generator and help get your house back in order.