About a year ago, while doing research for prepper-type stuff, I came across this interview of Ted Koppel, discussing his book Lights Out.
It piqued my interest, especially since Ted Koppel is not the kind of person I’d peg as much of a prepper/survivalist. The part about the Mormons sounded interesting too, so I reserved the book from my local library and checked it out.
I was not disappointed.
The infrastructure of the power grid is highly dependent on the internet.
This dependence has created a series of vulnerabilities that could destroy large portions of this infrastructure.
The private sector has failed to reliably safeguard against these vulnerabilities, mainly because the companies at the failure points have little incentive to develop the safeguards.
State and Federal agencies cannot impose sufficient safeguards because of lobbying efforts and privacy concerns.
Because most of the infrastructure is generations old and not standardized, it would take months or even years to replace key components in the event of a successful attack.
The Russians and the Chinese already have the capability to bring down our power grid, and with the proper expertise it is fully within the capability of rogue states like Iran or North Korea, or non-state actors like ISIS, to do so as well.
The Federal government fully expects an attack on our power grid in the mid to near future, but the various agencies do not have a clear plan for how to deal with such a contingency.
The general US populace is woefully unprepared for such an attack, except for certain communities such as the Mormons. They would not be able to provide for everyone, however, and would probably use force to defend themselves in the event of a collapse.
The only way our society could survive an attack is if everyone who can afford it would store three to six months of food, water, and emergency supplies. Otherwise, if the power grid went down, a collapse would be swift and catastrophic.
Freaky stuff. What was really freaky was the way that people who should have been taking more responsibility, such as the CEOs of major power companies or the directors of Federal agencies such as the DOD or DHS, all seemed content to pass the buck and give Ted Koppel the run-around. He described in detail some of his interviews, and the way in which various officials passed him off to one another like a hot potato.
And then he got to the Mormons.
I have to say, the chapters about the Mormons were some of the more fascinating parts of the book. Ted Koppel only expected to get a phone interview, but instead, Elder Henry B. Eyring flew him out to Utah and gave him a personal tour, including the welfare farms, the distribution centers, the canneries and home storage centers—they even found a local Utah family to cook him a food storage dinner! The gold-ticket treatment definitely impressed him, and that shines through in the book.
Of all the books about Mormons written by non-Mormons, I have to say that Lights Out gives one of the fairest treatments I’ve ever seen. Ted Koppel touches only lightly on church history and doctrine, but he makes it clear how these things tie into our emphasis on self-sufficiency and preparedness. While his impressions are quite favorable, he doesn’t shy away from asking the difficult questions, such as whether we would take up arms to defend our supplies if roving hordes threatened to take them from us by force. As he points out, there’s a great deal of constructive ambiguity from our leaders on that point.
If you’re as interested in potential doomsday scenarios as I am, or in emergency preparedness and self-sufficiency, this is a great book. It raises some frightening concerns without being too alarmist or devolving into sensationalism. For those who are concerned about this sort of thing but don’t have much experience with preppers or prepper culture, the book offers a fascinating look at this growing subculture and the motivations that drive it. Definitely worth a read!
Loved the interview, will have to read his book. Thanks for sharing it with us! 🙂