It’s a well-established fact within our national security community that America’s power grid is a valid target for warfare and terrorism. Whether cyber warriors seek to take it out via the Internet, or if terror cells physically attack power substations and other important infrastructure, affected regions of the country will suffer.

Plus, there is the ever-present threat of being attacked by an electromagnetic pulse (nuclear) weapon, or being completely disabled by a massive solar storm.

But, however it happens, experts say it is not a matter of if, but when, it will happen.

As noted by the website OilPrice.com, Americans need to be prepared for that eventuality, as recent events have demonstrated.

For example, the site noted, localized power outages caused all computers utilized by Delta Airlines to shut down – for six hours – grounding every single flight, and stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers.

Whether an accidental power glitch or an act of sabotage, the end result was extremely serious in that it grounded an entire major U.S. airline. What would happen in the event of a widespread attack on the power grid? Every single flight for every single airline would be cancelled, perhaps indefinitely.

And that’s not all. Water purification and sewage treatment plants would fail, reliant on backup generators that would eventually run out of diesel fuel to power them. Retail food logistical chains would cease to function, meaning stores could not get supplies in a timely manner, if at all. The banking system would collapse, and in an instant, the entire net worth of every single American in the country would vanish.

Streetlights would not work. Local transportation services that rely on the grid for scheduling and route planning would not work. Computers would become worthless. The Internet might as well have disappeared. Hospital backup systems will eventually fail.

When that happens, even the most well-honed survivalist may find it difficult to survive. In fact, earlier estimates have found that 90 percent of Americans would die.

And, as the International Business Times notes, in 2014 the U.S. Department of Energy found that of all the world’s developed countries, the United States – with its aging electrical infrastructure – suffers the most power failures.

The U.S. national power grid, OilPrice.com reports, is interconnected. So, even if states like Texas have their own grid, these too, are liable to fail if major sections of other parts of the country fail. That’s because when one region goes down, it borrows power from other regions – and they are often overtaxed already.

Failure ensues, and when it does, widespread pandemonium will follow. So, unless you’ve got a safe place to hide out, a way of feeding yourself, a reliable water supply and a means of defending all that, you’re going to be in trouble.

Most Americans have not planned for any of these things, let alone all of them. If you are one of those people, the time to make the necessary changes in your life to ensure your survival is now.

Sources for this story include:

CyberWar.news

OilPrice.com

Glitch.news

IBTimes.com