It's not a movie. It already happened.
February 2021. Texas. Not a war zone. A winter storm.
Most Texans went to bed on a Sunday night thinking it was just a cold snap. By the end of the week, 69% of them had lost power, on average for 42 hours. Almost half lost running water for more than two days. Pipes burst. Stores emptied.
246 people died. Most from hypothermia. The youngest was under a year old. The oldest was 102.Texas Department of State Health Services, via NPR, Jan 2022 · University of Houston Hobby School / YouGov survey, 2021
Three years later, in September 2024, Hurricane Helene tore through the mountains of North Carolina. It knocked out 4,562 cell sites, the most ever recorded in a hurricane. In three mountain counties, one tower in ten was still working. Parents couldn't find out if their kids were alive.
April 28, 2025, 12:33 p.m.: all of mainland Spain and Portugal went dark at once. Trains stopped. ATMs died. Gas pumps froze. In the Madrid region alone, crews pulled people out of almost 300 stuck elevators.
And it's getting worse, not better. In 2024 the average US electricity customer spent 11 hours with no power, nearly double the figure from a decade earlier (US Energy Information Administration).
Only 37% of American adults have made an emergency plan. Only 57% of Canadian households have three days of water.FEMA National Household Survey 2023 · Statistics Canada
Here's the hard truth: when it happens, no one is coming for hours. Maybe days. The only thing standing between your family and the dark is what you know, and what you have ready.
