If the Power Grid Were to Die Tomorrow

The trailer above is from the film "One Hundred Mornings." It follows two couples hunkered down by a lake in Ireland, while society is falling apart around them -- and supplies are running out.

What would you do if the electric grid went dead tomorrow? If grocery stores shut down because trucks no longer had gas to make food deliveries? Self-sufficiency and food security are popular topics...

...And now, a film called "One Hundred Mornings" takes a look at the kind of life we might have in a post-petroleum scenario, when society breaks down and people have to quickly learn to fend for themselves.

This film isn’t a doom-and-gloom documentary like "Crude Impact", nor an overly dramatized action thriller like "The Day After Tomorrow". Instead, "One Hundred Mornings" focuses on two couples hiding out at a lakeside cabin in Ireland, 10 weeks after all the lights have gone out. In addition to the stress of dwindling supplies and social unrest enter both a self-sufficient hippie neighbor and suspicions of infidelity!

The first screenings will happen in Los Angeles at the Downtown Independent Theatre starting Sept. 16, after which the film will travel to Northern California for the San Francisco Irish Film Festival, happening Sept. 23-25. _mnn

If anyone were to film an accurate portrayal of what were to happen during a long-term collapse of the power grid and fuel supplies, they would not be allowed to show it in theatres. A graphic, realistic portrayal of how quickly civilised human society can degenerate into a lawless battleground of immediate appetites and primal fears, would not appeal to anyone except the morbid -- who enjoy watching the "death films," where people actually die.

The film discussed above deals with a society crashing when petroleum supplies run short, but there are dozens of ways that the power grid could be brought to its knees for a prolonged period of time. Very few communities are prepared for such an event. Individual families and groups of families could survive in the midst of such unprepared communities, but they would need to keep a low profile, and turn a blind eye to what their neighbors were enduring. How many can do that? Much easier if you can find a remote cabin, far away from the breakdown of polite society, and wait for things to settle out.

If you are a physician, a fireman, a policeman, an EMS worker, etc., could you do that? Could you turn your back and walk away, if your family were at risk?