Lights Out on GridEx II

A much-anticipated national exercise that was supposed to simulate a serious disruption of America’s electric power grid ended yesterday.

So how did this “GridEx II” turn out?  Were there devastating problems – like those simulated in a recent National Geographic docudrama called “American Blackout”?  In that movie, the power was off for ten days due to a cyber attack and three-hundred thousand people died.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what happened in Grid Ex II – and its organizers won’t tell us until next spring.  What we do know, though, is that they pretended the phones and internet would somehow work in their blackout – a totally unrealistic and seriously distorting assumption.

Meantime, we’re assured there’s “no need for panic” about fixing the grid’s well-documented and potentially life-threatening vulnerabilities.

Are you feeling lucky?