Prepping Up with the Joneses - U.S. Power Grid Emergency: 13 States Affected — What Really Happened?

Millions of Americans saw the headlines about an electrical emergency affecting 13 states. Some people thought the power grid was about to collapse. Hello everyone, this is Dave Jones, the NBC guy. And I'm doing this video to help you understand what happened, why it happened, and to be prepared for the next time this happens. And it will happen again. I spent approximately six years working as a watch officer in Pennsylvania Emergency Management's operations center. And we regularly received warnings that projected electricity demand and passed the warnings down to the county emergency management agency. And today I want to explain to you what actually happened, why the federal government got involved, and what that means for the future of the electric grid. First, let's look at what actually did happen. On October 11th, PJM requested Federal Emergency Authority. On October 12th, the Department of Energy issued an emergency order. On October 13th to the 14th, unusually warm weather increased the demand during actual schedule maintenance. And the period that the emergency order covers is the 13th through the 16th, so up through today. So PJM serves approximately 67 million households, and there was going to be a projected loss of kilowatts to those households. And here's what... during October is a normal scheduled maintenance for power plants. And we had an unusually warm stretch, record highs actually, and the demand would be increasing during a scheduled maintenance period. So they requested the emergency order to change things around. So when I was in Pennsylvania Emergency Management in EOC, we would get these warnings of peak demand and load. And it was usually during the summer when the projected heat was going to be outrageous and the demand for electricity was going to be at the greatest. Now, remember, this is all precautionary, okay? And it was designed to... be able to warn the public so that they're not surprised by brownie outages or power outages. So what happened with the federal government? Well, they went into Section 202C, and it was the Federal Power Act, and it authorized the Secretary of Energy to order specific emergency electricity operations. This is used when reliability is threatened or shortages and other emergency conditions exist. So in October, the order provided temporary authority, not a permanent regulation change. So this emergency order allowed the PJM to direct certain high cost usage customers like data centers to go on to backup power to relieve some of the stress on the grid. It allowed temporary environmental permit restrictions to be lifted, and the operators could use additional available generation of electricity to maintain reliability on the grid. Now, all of this was a temporary measure that was designed to prevent things from. So it was a precaution. And this was all good and very responsible that they did this and let the public know. So this is America's power grid. It's divided into three sections, as you can see. And this is why the grid is under pressure. There's never been a larger demand for electricity. The infrastructure that's in place now was designed and developed over a century ago, okay, when electricity was still brand new. And some of the parts in the grid are decades old, and they usually don't replace them until something fails. New generation lines take years to put into place, and the demand just keeps going up. So new power plants, between environmental concerns, well, not to mention, we haven't added a nuclear power plant in a long, long time. Now, there have been a few power plants that were brought online in Georgia in 2023 and 2024. And there's another one that came online in April of 26. But the average age of a nuclear power plant in the United States is 44 years old. Coal-powered power plants have been restricted. And wind and solar does not perform well, as you may have heard about the power outage. That occurred in Texas a few years back during that ice storm. So that's why our grid is so vulnerable right now. So could major power outages happen in the United States? Yes, absolutely. And they have. In 1965, the whole northeast United States was blacked out. And in 2003, there was a blackout that went all the way into Canada. And of course, I already mentioned the winter electrical crisis in Texas in 2021. So this absolutely can happen and will happen. The U.S. power grid regularly operates at over 90% of its capacity. And during peak times is when you get the warnings. And because of a cascading effect over the power grid, one small thing can lead to a major outage. I think the one in 2003 was attributed to some overgrown trees that knocked a power line out in Pennsylvania, and it caused the cascading effect that knocked out the power on the East Coast and into Canada. Not to mention severe storms, extreme heat, fuel distribution disruptions. If the fuel can't get to the power plants, the power plants have to go offline. Cyber attacks, physical sabotage, any number of things can cause a cascading power effect. Now, the question is, you have to keep all this in perspective, right? So, What is it that your families can do? Okay, the first thing you need is a plan. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It can be very simple. Okay, what if? And that question you need to ask yourself over and over again. What if? What if the power goes off in the winter? Can you heat a room in your house? You don't have to heat the whole house. Just keep the family warm in one room. What if it happens in the summertime? So what if? Keep asking yourself that question. And the first thing you should do is assess the situation. Is it just your house? Is it your neighbor's house and you? Is it the whole neighborhood? Is it the whole town? Figure out if this is going to be a normal power outage Or something that happened that's going to put you out of power for a long, long time. And know that anything that you can do ahead of time, like if a storm is coming, pre-position all this stuff. Get it ready. Check it. Make sure it works. And of course, if you want to exercise your plan, once you have everything in place and some things written down, you have to write it down. Because what if you're not home? when it happens, and your family is there alone. Do they know what to do? So if you want to exercise your plan, just get ready, get everything ready, and hit the main breaker in your house. Turn off all the power and see what happens. See what you need before the real thing happens and you can't just flip a switch and turn the power back on. You should take these precautions ahead of time. I mean, if we know that you're going to eventually have a power failure, wouldn't you want to have this stuff ready and on hand You don't want to be the person running downtown when everybody else is out of power and asking for the exact same thing that everybody else is trying to get. I mean, you have a first aid kit, don't you? You have some Band-Aids in your house. You didn't get cut, but you anticipate getting cut. You should anticipate being without power. Listen, I want you to know that I'm new to this YouTube thing and putting this information out there. I am not new to emergency management. I have decades of experience in emergency management at all different levels, local, county, state, and federal. So I know what I'm talking about when it comes to power failures and the likelihood of the lights going out. I like to keep these videos short and to the point, and I think I pretty much hammered this out. Get your checklists, figure out what you need, because when you need it, it has to be there at your fingertips. Anyway, I want to ask you a question now. How many people listening to this actually kind of freaked out when the emergency, when the news media covered it and when everybody on YouTube was talking about it and Facebook. Did you freak out a little? Be honest now. Did you run downtown and buy something that you wouldn't have normally bought? Maybe beans, rice, whatever. That's the reaction I want to do away with by this YouTube channel. So, I want you to prepare now so that when something like this happens, and I believe that information is your biggest weapon. So stay tuned. Stay prepared. Click, like, subscribe. And if you like what you're hearing, I'm developing something called the Stability Report. It's going to be a weekly report. Yeah, so this stability report is something that I came up with because I was recently at a prepper event and I would tell people, do you think the crazy meter is going up or do you think it is going down? And I said, do you think we're being more stable than we were six months ago? or less stable. And me saying that prompted, hey, I would like to have something like this. Something that shows either we're getting better or we're getting worse. Either we're getting more stable or less stable. So the weekly stability report centers around either an economic collapse, a financial collapse like 1929, or a world war like the first and second world war. So that's something that's going to affect everybody in this country and perhaps the world. So I'd like to show this graphically and explain it in historical context. So you know where we stand right now. I want to be able to give you an honest assessment of where we are and, uh, my views on it and what we're doing here at the Jones Homestead. So that's the stability report and look for it on this YouTube channel and I guess X and whatever else. If that's something you like, please subscribe. I'd like to give you all the information you need to make informed decisions without any of the hype. And if you like what you hear about this stability report, uh, Please like, subscribe, and all that stuff. So remember, don't panic. Pay attention. And of course, prep on.