The power grid remains down today for millions of Americans in the wake of a series of violent storms and "derecho" wind gusts. At least 10 people have died so far, and many are sweltering through high temperatures with no air conditioning or refrigeration.

But this is only a small drill compared to a real "grid down" scenario affecting the entire country. Still, this should serve as a reminder to us all that civilization is fragile, and if you're not prepared with extra food, water, backup power, communications and home defense, you may wish to take steps now to get better prepared:

(NaturalNews) Mother Nature has a way of interrupting our lives with not-so-subtle reminders to pay attention to reality. Over the last 48 hours, a blistering heat wave has swept across nine U.S. states, causing the power grid to fail for millions of residents. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has declared a state of emergency.

"Millions of people across nine states were reeling without power Saturday to deal with thermostat-popping temperatures after fierce thunderstorms pounded parts of the Midwest and Atlantic Seaboard," reports CNN (

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/30/us/extreme-heat/index.html).

"In storm-affected areas, many people had no electricity to run fans, air-conditioning and refrigerators. Even in places where power was not disrupted, people with no air-conditioning were advised to spend the day in a library or a cooling center to avoid heat exhaustion."

At the same time, a crushing, violent storm swept through Washington D.C., killing at least 10 more people and bringing down the power grid to millions more. "More than 3 million are without power -- and without air conditioning -- as crews work to clear downed tree limbs and restore electricity," reports CBS News. (http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/06/30/eastern-u-s-storms-leave-5-...)

"Power outages were reported from Indiana to New Jersey, with the bulk of the service interruptions concentrated in the Mid-Atlantic region. Earlier Friday, the nation's capital reached 104 degrees -- topping a record of 101 set in 1934."

Mother Nature's way of reminding us all to live in a state of ongoing preparedness

These events are often called "natural disasters," but that's a misnomer. These aren't disasters except for the fact that so many humans depend on the power grid for their very survival. Nature has, for millions of years, functioned just fine with forest fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and violent storms. It is only modern human civilization -- and its remarkably fragile state of existence -- that has turned such events into "disasters."

The disasters, therefore, are really man-made disasters, not "natural" disasters. If you stand in the path of a two-ton boulder rolling downhill, it's sort of juvenile to blame the boulder for whatever transpires...

Regardless of what you call them, these disasters are made far worse by the reality that most people refuse to prepare for the unexpected. These are what I call the "unprepared masses" who gamble with their lives, placing bets on the power grid, 911 emergency response, the water system, the food supply and all the other systems that (barely) keep them alive from day to day. They are inadvertent gamblers with their own lives. It's not that they intend to be huge risk-takers; it's just that they don't take steps to avoid risk and shore up their protections against the unexpected.

Three reasons why people don't prepare

There are essentially three reasons why people don't prepare against the unexpected. They are:

1) The dumbed-down masses. These people, who represent the great masses across the USA and elsewhere around the world, simply lack the intelligence or the desire to think ahead. They tend to be poorly educated (because investing in an education requires planning), poorly informed and live paycheck to paycheck. Their vision of reality is extremely narrow -- often extending no further than their next meal or two.

2) The "think positive" people. These people believe that acknowledging risk will cause it to come true. They believe that "staying positive" will physically alter the world into a state that somehow averts disaster for them. The best way to avoid negative things from happening, these people believe, is to refrain from acknowledging their existence. There's nothing wrong with being a positive person per se, but to do so in denial of a legitimate crisis is delusional and often destructive.

Reality has a way of bluntly reminding these people that they are not actually gods who can alter the physical universe. Mother Nature and her earthquakes, storms, tsunamis and heat waves have no concern whatsoever for whether individual humans think positive, negative or not at all. Interestingly, by the way, even the "think positive" crowd still wears seatbelts when they drive their cars, which is technically a contradiction of their own beliefs. Why not just drive down the highway without a seatbelt and "be positive?"

3) The procrastinators. These folks are often well-intentioned individuals who understand the importance of preparedness but nevertheless find their day-to-day lives too demanding to set aside the time (or money) to actually get prepared. To some extent, I'm guilty of this myself, and I'm sure this rings a bell with many NaturalNews readers. For some of us, lack of preparedness is a TIME issue, and for others it's a MONEY issue, but we at least universally recognize that we are all, to some extent, behind schedule on getting fully prepared.

My rough estimate is that 80% of the population are dumbed-down masses, roughly 10% are the "stay positive" denialists, and another 9% are procrastinators. There might be 1% carved out of all this who are actually fully prepared, hence bringing the total number to 100%.

Cover the preparedness basics NOW, before something truly big happens

The most positive perspective on all this is that these storms have given us a practice run on basic preparedness. If you're one of the millions of people who got caught with no air conditioning, sweltering heat, and all your frozen foods de-thawing in the freezer, you just got a -- DING! -- friendly reminder from Mother Nature to have a backup plan.

In fact, any reasonable preparedness plan must cover all the basics:

• Shelter
• Food
• Water
• Communications
• Defense
• Medicine
• Community
• Navigation
• Transportation

... and so on. I've spent the last several years working hard to help people get prepared for precisely such events. Here are the four available courses that I've produced, available now from Webseed.com:

• Be Prepared, Not Scared: Food Security by the Health Ranger and Robert Scott Bell - a well researched, downloadable program covering everything you need to know about food and water for emergency preparedness and survival:

http://premium.naturalnews.tv/Be_Prepared_Food_Security__NN.htm

• Surthrival with Daniel Vitalis and the Health Ranger - a large course featuring videos and downloadable audio covering urban survival skills, wilderness skills, light and heat, how to build your own water filter, discussion of reliable gear and more:
http://premium.naturalnews.tv/Surthrival_Vitalis_Adams__NN.htm

• Be Prepared, Not Scared: Financial Preparedness by the Health Ranger and Robert Scott Bell - a downloadable audio program giving you financial survival skills to avoid the worst of the coming economic collapse. Practical, step-by-step solutions to avoid losing your savings and your assets:
http://premium.naturalnews.tv/Be_Prepared_Not_Scared_Financial_Prepar...

• How to Protect and Defend Yourself by the Health Ranger - discussion of self defense, family protection, practical alert devices, firearms, cooperating with local law enforcement and more. Hard-core information on physical defense, alertness, protecting yourself from gangs and looters, etc. Downloadable audio plus streamed video:
http://premium.naturalnews.tv/Health_Ranger_Live_Defense__NN.htm

Enjoy these programs, and if you already own some of them, take time now to review them and shore up your knowledge and skills. We should all learn from this recent "grid down" event to make sure we have backup plans for when things go wrong -- as they inevitably do from time to time.

Stay safe! Stay informed. And stay prepared.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036354_power_grid_preparedness_heat_wave.html#ixzz1zOvKj28u