Movie Review: American Blackout Recap: Us Preppers Dont Look So Crazy Now, Do We?

"We are all only nine meals away from anarchy."- Lord Cameron of Dillington

"American Blackout" aired on 10/27/13 on the National Geographic channel. Per their website, "it 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".

What did ya think of the show? I wasn't sure what to expect. We follow several people through the ordeal. There's a pregnant women and her family, a kid at home alone, some college kids stuck in an elevator, a couple of yuppies, and a prepper family. Not everyone makes it through the 10 days. One guy beats another to death over a can of peaches. A woman faces a violent end due to some thugs breaking into her apartment. Thank goodness we didn't have to see that. I found the real life disaster footage from Katrina, Sandy etc interspersed between the stories to be effective.

Scenarios to think about::

Does your family have an emergency plan?
What about Bug Out Bags (BOBs)? Here's what's in mine: http://gmonster320.blogspot.com/2013/10/survival-preparedness-heres-whats-in-my.html
How much food and water do you have at home in the event the stores are closed?
If an event happens in winter, how will you stay warm?
How will you protect yourself?
Where will you go if forced from your house?
And just because you're prepared doesn't mean your invincible (as we saw from the prepper family in the show).

For a look at the top 10 US power outages to date see http://blog.ucsusa.org/2003-northeast-blackout-and-13-of-the-largest-power-outages-in-history-199 I was without power for 3 days in the 2003 widespread outage that affected the Northeast and Mid West. I was also without power for 7 days in 2012 following Hurricane Sandy. I must say that everyone around me was well behaved during both. But the longer the outage, the more that will change. Things can fall apart FAST!

Grade: 4 Monsters (out of 5). Hopefully it was an eye opener for many people about what could happen. And new episodes of "Doomsday Preppers" start Tuesday on NatGeo. See my previous reviews here: http://gmonster320.blogspot.com/search/label/Doomsday%20Preppers