Photo credit: Janet Donovan
You may want to consider the National Geographic Building on 17th and M Streets as a destination in case of a blackout……….at least for the first 24 hours, after which it won’t matter where you are.
Monday night was the perfect setting for a faux blackout: Marshmallows roasting on an open pit, colorful ice cubes floating in martinis, matches and candles everywhere and food simmering on an open grill – a real cumbia scene if you will.
It was both elegant and amusing ….. magical actually…. at least for the first hour after which guests were corralled into the Grosvenor Auditorium to witness a real blackout: The world premiere of “American Blackout” airing on the Nat Geo Channel on Sunday, October 27th at 9 PM.
“American Blackout imagines the story of a national power failure in the United States caused by a cyberattack — told in real time, over 10 days, by those who kept filming on cameras and phones. You’ll learn what it means to be absolutely powerless. Gritty, visceral and totally immersive, see what it might take to survive from day one, and who would be left standing when the lights come back on.” Production Notes. Think powerless in all of its definitions.
Hollywood on the Potomac sat down with one of the major players in the film – Dr. Robert Bristow, Medical Director of Emergency Management, New York Presbyterian Hospital, NYC.
Photo credit: Neshan H. Naltchayan. David Lyle, Richard Reed and Dr. Robert Bristow
“A colleague of mine that I used to teach with in public health emergency management referred my name to the production company. They actually reached out to me initially as a subject matter expert, sort of around emergency matters particularly as related to hospitals and then they eventually sort of pulled me in to review some of the character development and parts,” said Bristow.
“I’m not an expert on cyber technology so I don’t know how plausible a cyber attack is or isn’t, but I do think that it is likely that we will have a significant black out at some point, either from a cyber attack or a super-storm or some other event. So I think that there’s a pretty high likelihood that we’re going to deal with either a partial or possibly a complete blackout at some point in the future.”
So, what would you do in a blackout? Dee Dee Myers, political analyst and White House Press Secretary during the first two years of the Clinton administration, said this: ” I would hopefully round up my kids and my husband and my dog. We always have a lot of batteries, a little bit of water. We have a lot of blackouts in Washington now – temporary, short, four or five days. So we make sure we have enough food in the house, so that’s always good. And, the gas stove works at least in the short term. Then we just kind of hunker down, call some friends, invite them over to dinner, cook on the grill outside with a gas stove and hope it doesn’t last very long.”
Photo credit:Neshan H. Naltchayan. Natalie DiBlasio and Dee Dee Myers
“This is the sole reason I joined wine clubs,” said Lindsay Drewel, PR rep. for National Geographic. “So I’ll drink some Chardonnay and hope for the best.”
We wondered, as a medical personnel, what is the worst scenario that Dr. Brisnow thought we might face in terms of the medial aspect of any blackout.
“Well, I think the scenario probably paints the worst case scenario where we’ve actually lost power in the entire country,” he said. “So from a hospital perspective, we’re looking at how we would standalone with the resources that we have available for a very long period of time. The Joint Commission, which actually accredits hospitals, requires us to have about 96 hours of food, water, electricity and other supplies on hand, you know, in preparation for some sort of event similar to the American black-out. Most hospitals are prepared up to 96 hours and have the ability to maintain their services.
After 96 hours, unless we get additional support from outside – from the city, the state, from federal government or local community – we would have significant problems maintaining our services and certainly would alter the types of care we would be giving and perhaps the quality of care.”
We also wondered if there is there some kind of government system in place that says to whom you can delegate supplies and medical assistance.
“Absolutely. We’ve done a lot of training on both at a city, state and federal level. So we have caches of supplies that have been pre-positioned and what we call vulnerable parts of the country and large cities that are maintained either by the city itself, the state or the federal government. We have done a lot of work and preparedness around the ability to sort of have access to emergency supplies during an event and even prolonged events like the one that’s depicted in the movie,” he remarked.
“What would be complicated in a national disaster is that the government would have to prioritize the supplies and resourses that they have – who would get them and when, and that could be complicated. I don’t know that we’ve pre-planned a disaster as extensive as the one depicted in the movie, so there will be some tough decisions made at all levels actually; the federal, the state, the city, and even the hospital and community level, about who would get which resources in a disaster.”
Photo credit: Courtesy of National Geographic
But don’t you think that’s already pre-ordained, we persisted perhaps unfairly…….protection for some, disaster for others.
“Pre-ordained,?” Bristow asked quizically. “I’m not sure I agree that a lot of this is pre-ordained. I think most of our plans are based on models that allow us to expand and contract based on what the scenario is, so there’s a bit of flexibility and adaptability built into the emergency response plans that allows us to sort of shift with the change in demands and needs of the disaster. There’s actually more flexibility and less hierarchy during disaster that exists during the day to day you know.”
What is your best advice for planning for this,? we asked.
“My best device for planning for this is individual preparedness. Individuals should think about what they would need to have on hand to allow them to optimize their ability to withstand a prolonged event. Following individual preparedness, family preparedness, community preparedness, I think one of the areas where we have a huge opportunity for improvement is the community coming together, which could be neighbors, communities, it could involve hospitals and EMS, fire and police to do some sort of joint planning and to think about that within that community, what resources are available and how they could use those resources to support the community during an event.
Even the Navy Seals are adjusting their priorities
We were, of course, curious as to how he has personally prepared for such a disaster, knowing what he knows now.
“I actually had the opportunity to travel to Japan after the earthquake, Tsunami and nuclear disaster, and one of the things that I found remarkable was the degree of community preparedness that actually existed there. There were these isolated communities who were affected by the disaster that really were without support from the city, state or federal government for about a week to 10 days, and because of the pre-preparedness activities and the ability to come together as a community after the event, they, when we arrived, seven days post event, they seemed to be able to meet the needs of the people in the community that had survived. I think we would struggle with that in the United States, so I think some work needs to be done on the community level to give us that type of resiliency.
What I plan to do, obviously, is to be in my hospital system or in my city working to respond and contribute in any way that I can. What do I plan to do is optimize my family preparedness to make sure that my children and my family has a plan and that they can sort of be independent you know. I’ll be in a lot of the outside support while I’m doing what I’m trained to do, which is I’ll be in a hospital or some sort of setting within the city.
When do you see this coming?
“Wow, that’s a difficult question. I hope not for some time, but I think what we’re seeing is more and more unusual and more and more complex disasters, so I hate to speculate on when it’s coming but I hope it’s later as opposed to sooner.” Second that!
