Review
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Title: Lights Out
Author: Ted Koppel
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Genre: Nonfiction
Year Published: 2015
Number of Pages: 280
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 978-0-553-41996-2
Price: US $26.00
Reviewed by Vickie Cleverley Speek for the Association for Mormon Letters
It’s a scary scenario. A terrorist or group of terrorists hack into the cyber network that controls one of the three major power grids in the United States, plunging that region into a darkness that could last weeks if not months. No lights or refrigeration. No heat or air conditioning. No water or sanitary facilities. Within 24 hours, grocery shelves would be empty and gasoline pumps wouldn’t work. Millions of people would lack the essentials of life and tens of thousands would die.
Think it could not happen? Think again. Ted Koppel claims all it would take is one terrorist with a laptop computer. Even if the power grid was not totally taken out, the action would be considered an act of war against the United States. It would be reassuring to know that the grid is adequately protected, but it is not, and evidence shows there’s already been a practice run.
The purpose of *Lights Out* is to “show the consequences of losing power in more than one sense of the word.” Without ready access to electricity, the world as we know it would be thrust back into another age—an age in which many of us would lack both the experience and the resources to survive. Exactly how that happens is less important, Koppel says, than how prepared we are for the consequences.
The book is divided into three parts. Part one discusses the mechanics of the electric power grid, the odds of such a cyberattack occurring, and who would likely be responsible. Part two discusses the state of preparation in the Unites States, including the lack of government plans to provide food, water, and sanitary facilities for millions of people if a full-scale power outage lasts for more than a few days.
Part three concerns the people who would be likely to survive a grid meltdown. Koppel discusses the disaster plans of so-called doomsday preppers and those who already live off the grid. He also spends a great deal of time discussing the Mormon Church with its extensive system of storehouses and canneries, and its ongoing emphasis on preparation.
“While conceding all glory to the Almighty, [the Mormons] are firm believers in the precept that God helps those who themselves, and no group in the country approaches anything like the extraordinary scale and geographic scope of their efforts,” Koppel writes. He spent three days in Salt Lake City interviewing Henry B. Eyring, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Richard E. Turley, assistant church historian, about preparations the church has made in the event of member needs as well as regional calamity.
The Mormon church has long advised members to keep at least a three-month supply of food and water on hand for emergency needs, and Koppel spent an evening with a Utah family, eating a home-cooked meal from their food storage. He later visited one of the Church’s vast network of storehouses and a church-owned dairy operation.
But not even the Mormons have focused particular attention on preparing for the aftermath of a disabled grid, Koppel advises. He urges ordinary citizens to contact government and industry leaders to demand that the electric grid be protected. Unfortunately, he says, the question is not if a cyberattack is in our future, but when.
*Lights Out* is a well-researched, thought-provoking book. The question is not if a cyberattack is in our future, but when.