Power outage cripples Saddleback and south Orange County
In the dark (SDGE.com)
Four million people were brutally awakened as to how much they rely on electricity. They got a taste of just how powerless we are as people without an energy grid. Have we, as humans, become too dependent on technology?
Last Thursday at approximately 3:42 p.m. millions of people across parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California and the country of Mexico, found out what it was like to not have one of the basic home utilities next to water.
I happened to be sitting in a classroom in the BGS building taking notes while my instructor gave a power point lecture. Suddenly everything is turned off. The air conditioner included.
As the room was heating up from the lack of cool air flow, my instructor analyzed the situation and quickly wrapped up his lesson and dismissed us nearly two hours earlier than usual. I would be lying if I wasn’t in the least bit happy about the situation, but I was also concerned.
My instructor didn’t have a contingency plan to deal with the situation, and seeing as how school was cancelled for the rest of day, I would suspect that not many other instructors had one either.
Getting out of class was one thing, but getting off campus was another challenge in and of itself. With the electricity off the traffic lights were off and traffic getting out of Saddleback was like trying to get out of a parking lot after a baseball game.
Across the southwest and in to Mexico, people had to suffer through the night with no air conditioners and the loss of all perishable food items that would have to be thrown out due to their refrigerators not working.
According to ABC news, even gas stations couldn’t provide their services and people were stranded without gas in their tanks.
We are clearly too dependent on power, when we are so easily crippled into the dark ages by a lack of electricity. This crippling crisis all because of the lack of electricity, we are too dependent on it. It runs our air conditioners, our refrigerators, our leisure items like video game devices, and yes, even our education.
This crippling crisis all because of the lack of electricity, we are too dependent on it. It runs our air conditioners, our refrigerators, our leisure items like video game devices, and yes, even our education. But what choice do we have?
Well for teachers it may be a good idea to not rely on PowerPoint and other electronic media presentations so much. A classic approach may not be as fun but will hardly fail under these circumstances.
To possibly avoid a room heating up like an oven without the air conditioner, architects should probably look into designing buildings in a way that reduces heat from entering a house or building.
Instead of all of our food sources needing to be in a refrigerator, we should always have a safe amount of non-perishable foods to eat when the electricity is out. These are only small steps to avoid another crisis like this affecting us the way it has in the past.