Yet another reason to update your emergency supplies

 

Yesterday the Dutch railway network was brought to its knees by coordinated sabotage attacks across the country.

There have been no trains at all across swathes of the northern and central Netherlands after objects were attached to the rails in at least 30 known locations. Remarkably, the national railway operator says that in some places where the obstacles had been cleared, new ones were quickly placed in the same location again once engineers and police had left the scene.

The nationwide coordinated sabotage campaign has used the railway’s own safety systems against it, with metal objects “deliberately placed” across the two tracks. Modern railways use electrical circuits between the two rails to detect where trains are and are not, the presence of a train’s wheels and axle spanning the two tracks closes the circuit and alerts the signalling system to its location.

By manually shorting the circuit, the saboteurs were able to trick the automatic system into turning the signals across the network red to prevent phantom trains from crashing into each other, which in turn forced the real trains to halt as well.

. . .

Because of the nature of the sabotage, which introduced phantom trains to the network, in several locations, level crossings were automatically activated to protect drivers from approaching trains that didn’t exist, spreading the network chaos onto the roads too.

. . .

As well as railway networks, climate extremists have targeted power infrastructure. The decentralised nature of both networks and the widespread disruption possible makes them apparently attractive targets for would-be extremists and left-wing terrorists, given that the widely spread infrastructure is difficult to closely watch, harden, or fortify.

In at least one case, European railways have been sabotaged by state actors, with Russia blamed for a bombing of a Polish railway in a “false flag” attack last year.

Germany’s power networks have also been repeatedly sabotaged by the hard left in recent months. Just last week, it is believed an extremist used dozens of homemade rockets to knock out high-voltage power substations to sabotage coal power plants nationwide, and Berlin’s power network is sometimes subjected to acts of arson with considerable knock-on effects.

There's more at the link.

Americans tend to forget (or ignore) the fact that we've had precisely the same sort of sabotage in this country for a long time now.  That may be because the US is so much bigger than most other countries that we don't notice (or take notice of) what's happening in areas other than our own.  The methods may differ, but the results are the same - disruption of vital infrastructure.  For example:

• Attacks on the US electrical grid;
• Cyberattacks on water systems;
• Vulnerability of US mass transport and passenger rail systems;
• Terrorist threat to U.S. highway system.

Follow those links for more information.  There's no need to mention the vulnerability of airline transport, so close to the anniversary of 9/11.  Things have improved since then, but they're far from foolproof.

The thing is, so far we've experienced relatively uncoordinated attacks against the infrastructure on which our entire society and economy depend.  Electricity may be cut in one area, water in another, rail traffic in a third, but until now they've been relative pinpricks from the perspective of the nation as a whole.  That won't necessarily remain the case;  in fact, it's very unlikely to stay that way.  Terrorist nations such as Iran and enemies such as North Korea have had all the time in the world to infiltrate operatives across our southern border, and I've no doubt that several thousand such people are already here.  If they were "activated" or "mobilized" by their source nations, they could do immense damage to our society by striking in a coordinated fashion across multiple critical systems.

• How could a fire department rush to extinguish a blaze caused by a terrorist bomb when the traffic management system has been disrupted, and the rail system sabotaged to cause all level crossings to shut down, and the water supply to a city to be interrupted by a cyberattack on the main pumping stations?
• How could emergency services cope with such a rash of issues all arising at once, particularly if the roads were further disrupted by spreading caltrops (which can easily be produced in mass quantities at negligible cost, using backyard garages and workshops) in strategic locations on the city's road network, disabling enough vehicles to block the road almost completely?  They can be dumped out of the back of pickups or rented vans using buckets.

We don't know whether the attacks on Holland's railways were state-sponsored (probably by Russian agents trying to disrupt support for Ukraine) or arose from domestic political terrorism, but it doesn't really matter to those affected by them.  Much of the country was brought to a halt at once, without warning.

That could happen to any major city in this country, and even to whole states, if enough people struck at enough critical infrastructure nodes.  It would take weeks, if not months, to restore everything to normal operations.  During that period, if you rely on critical supplies such as medication, special foods for kids or invalids, or enough gasoline or diesel to get from a remote location (e.g. a farm) to the nearest source of supply, you'd be S.O.L.  That's why I make sure that my wife and myself maintain a year's supply of all critical prescription medication, including basic antibiotics in case they should be needed.  That practice has come in very useful in the past, for ourselves (being able to take an antibiotic for repeated infections) and to supply friends with medication (for example, during the COVID emergency).  Oh - and don't forget critical OTC supplies like painkillers and allergy medications.  How miserable would you be if an emergency arose that forced you to spend many hours outside, or without air conditioning or filtration, during peak allergy season?  Since both my wife and I have allergy problems, you can bet we stash enough of those meds to see us through a couple of months.

For that matter, it's worth keeping at least one month's worth of food and water on hand, in case of an emergency.  Forget the commercial "72-hour" kits (like these, for example);  they're better than nothing, but don't hold all you'll need, even for so short a period.  They're designed to make you feel like you're prepared, while enriching those who make and supply them.  Get the foods you normally eat, particularly canned or dry foods, and put an extra supply away for a rainy day.  Also, keep on hand a way to prepare that food if your electric or gas stove suddenly stops working;  and have a way to dispose of garbage and human waste.  (Yes, that does mean a reserve supply of toilet paper and paper towels, plus a spade to bury everything critical, because it's unlikely regular garbage collection will happen.)  Think of all the little things we take for granted in our everyday lives, and ask yourself:  "What would I do if I could no longer get this?  What would I no longer be able to do?  Can I live with that?  What about alternatives or substitutes?"

I want to re-emphasize the importance of water supply.  We've just seen, in recent weeks, multiple attempted cyberattacks on water supply systems in several states.  I'm sure we'll see more.  Plan on needing at least two gallons per person per day for all purposes (double the "official" recommendation, which is a minimum to preserve life, and doesn't include luxuries such as washing yourself, laundry, etc.).  Unless using sealed containers, empty and refill your water supply every six months or so.  Water containers are freely available;  some (such as two-liter soda bottles) are free, once you've used up their original contents and cleaned them thoroughly.  A very economical solution is to buy 5-gallon buckets with lids (preferably made from food-grade plastic) and reserve them for water storage only.  They're not ideal, but they'll do the job.  (A full bucket of water weighs over 40 pounds, so if lifting heavy weights is a problem, buy 2-gallon or 3.5-gallon buckets instead.)  Finally (and particularly if you can't keep more than a few days' worth of water on hand), have a good-quality water filtration system in case purified water runs out.  They range from a few dollars to several hundred.  Buy the best your budget can afford, and then buy another one (or a less expensive backup system), because you simply cannot afford to be without drinking water.  For almost all of us, it's our single most critical emergency resource - and one of the most neglected.

It's not just natural disasters we have to worry about:  it's all the others that can catch us unawares.  The Netherlands is finding that out right now.

Peter