Tornado serves as reminder that modern lives hang on technical threads.
Following the Ottawa tornado I had to reset my microwave and reboot my modem. Which doesn’t even qualify as a First World Problem, let alone compare to the hardship of those lacking electricity or, in the worst cases, injured or with wrecked homes. But even my small inconveniences prompt sobering reflections on the fragility of our access to water, food and power.
The heartwarming community response, as those with power rallied to provide hot food, showers and comfort to those without, is a silver lining. But to this dark cloud: what if the damage had been more widespread? If a second natural or even man-made disaster had followed the first, where would we be?
When I returned Monday from a road trip I initially thought there might be a significant problem with the internet, at least locally. I couldn’t send email, upload files or do other things trivial in themselves that would matter enormously if they afflicted core public and private infrastructure, from power utilities to grocery store “just-in-time” delivery.
What would happen in Ottawa, or your hometown, if everybody had no power for three days, or a week? How long would it take to go from adventure to inconvenience to catastrophe? How long can the average family survive on the food and, crucially, water in their kitchen or basement?
The World Health Organization says you need 2.5 to three litres of water each per day for basic survival, never mind sanitation. That’s 36 litres for a family of four for three days. Got it? Or a flashlight with working batteries? Sure, your cellphone’s an emergency light. But for how long without recharging?
At some point you’d get in your car and head for relatives, friends or a motel. But suppose the problem were more widespread? Or you hadn’t gassed up and the pumps weren’t working? Do you even own paper maps?
We don’t think much about how exposed we are, unless we are survivalists with strange headgear who harangue unwary strangers. How much time does Parliament, or cabinet, devote to frivolous partisanship or boutique causes as against the resilience of critical infrastructure? Whereas three federal departments laboured hard to draft a vacant statement claiming “shared values” with Mali on its independence day.
Oh but it can’t happen here, right? In Canada our idea of a problem is remembering how our microwave clock works. But last year I wrote a column on what would happen if hackers did “break the internet” as some Kardashian tried to by enlarging a body part. If she’d succeeded arguably it would have served us right. But, again, read my colleague Anthony Furey’s scary Pulse Attack on how “electromagnetic pulse” could devastate the microchips without which power plants, hospitals and even cars don’t work. Then consider the possibility of hacking in the wake of a natural disaster, vice versa, two consecutive disasters, or disaster plus terrorist attack. It could happen here.
Some neglected precautions are easy, like “Faraday cages” around critical command-and-control systems. Others are harder, especially given the ignorance as well as complacency of those in charge. But here’s one problem we could fix: ignoring it because we’re busy analyzing “Celebs who gueststarred on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ ” or “Winners and losers from ‘Monday Night Football’ ” or even “N.B. government ‘may not last long,’ ” all real Tuesday headlines from my browser’s “New tab.”
Earlier I briefly mentioned friends and neighbours helping one another out. Here let me acknowledge more fully the remarkable resilience that does exist in our society, emotional and technical. And then warn about its limits especially given, paradoxically, the efficiency of our economy.
I’m always amazed when people call capitalism “wasteful.” Whatever their failings, the thing free markets do best is find ways not to waste things including time. But the remarkable success of modern distribution systems in not leaving stuff lying around doing nothing, including food and fuel, creates insecurity unknown to past generations when (a) there wasn’t much infrastructure to fail (b) most people were largely self-sufficient farmers (c) most non-farmers lived near farmers they knew. We have relatively fewer spare resources to improvise with nowadays.
To be sure, tornadoes are rare events. As is anything capable of disrupting the infrastructure and overwhelming the response capability of our advanced society. It’s not geography that makes natural disasters so much more lethal in, say, Mali. If we ignore the problem we’ll probably get by. But we give an astonishing amount of attention to things we could ignore and get by without — and we’d be better people for it if we didn’t.
So let’s count our blessings this time, help those with fewer, and think seriously about strengthening our power grid, distribution networks and personal preparedness so we never find ourselves collectively with none to count.