The topic of trust in the power grid of Germany came up today via Focus (the German news magazine). It's an interesting article, and I'd highly recommend it (all in German).
The topic to take home over this survey report is that almost half the German population say that they don't think the government (meaning local, state and federal) are prepared for a long-term black-out (meaning longer than 24 hours.
From all the years I've spent in Germany....the longest power-outage that I've ever witnessed was roughly 24 hours. In an average year, there's probably four outages....usually lasting twenty to sixty minutes each. Most tend to lead back to a storm and a lightning strike in the local area.
If you bring this up with older Germans, they can all remember outages in the 1960s where power might have gone out six to twelve hours, and that was the 'norm' a couple of times a year.
The problem here is that the grid is more complicated than ever, and is depended upon in various ways that didn't exist forty years ago. An example of this.....the E-cars that are now part of local society. Another example is the dependence on the internet, and the need of power to recharge smartphone batteries.
The heating systems? Most run off natural gas, but they require power to circulate the heated water in the basement....to the radiators throughout the house. In a harsh winter? You could be standing there with zero heat by the 24th hour, and pretty hyped-up about the situation.
The local emergency plans? In general, they'd use the local gym in the middle of town, with some emergency generator providing some power, but it's only big enough for maybe 10-percent of the village.
An event taking out power for four days? It'd trigger massive chaos, and cause people to question the competence of the government to react to problems.
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