[z3n]

"Food, gas for cars or generators" ~~~ So I understand that they're will be a run on food and gas. It's inevitable. Well, maybe not gas, as I suspect a lot of people will be staying home and telecommuting where possible. But why generators? Other than the fact that you may have a staffing/personel/support breakdown in a full pandemic panic, but why would there be any problem with the grid?

[BobL]

“Other than the fact that you may have a staffing/personel/support breakdown in a full pandemic panic, but why would there be any problem with the grid? “

I agree, electricity production should be about the last thing to go, and I suspect that critical workers would be given a isolation-type suits and told to report to work (or else). I’ll be watching China, though, to see how well they can maintain services in Wuhan.

[Hulka]

If those that work power generating facilities end up sick/dead, the grid will go down eventually.

[21twelve]

“Other than the fact that you may have a staffing/personel/support breakdown in a full pandemic panic...”

Yes.

“Do I go into work and maybe get this virus” or

“I’m sick and I need to stay at home” or

“My child (wife, parent) is sick and I need to take care of them.”, or

“With the quarantine I need to stand in line at the store/pharmacy/gas station to get what I need.”

[Vermont Lt]

There are videos on line of the areas in WuHan. There is no one on the street. This means people are not going to work. This means that means stuff wont get fixed. The theory is that in a complete shut down, there will be shortages in the delivery of materials used to make things run, maintenance will not be done and the cascading effect is a shut down.

That is the theory. I am not, for a second, saying that is going to happen because of this virus. Please do not suggest that I am. This is a hypothetical reason why you would want a generator.

In my area where we’ve lost power for a few days at a time, this is a good reason to have a generator. Any time there is a storm coming, I dump the cans into the truck, and get the cans refilled. It helps keep everything topped off and fresh.

Again...this is hypothetical. I am not in a panic. I am not creating drama. My background is in Emergency Management and Telecom plant construction. Then I did infrastructure risk management. I did a ton of planning and every time I would present it to the contractors doing the overall risk plan-—I would get the “what if this” crap. My mind was trained to pretty much think it through to, “What if aliens came to earth....” Ha ha.