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al_borland06/16/20251 replyview on HN

The power grid went down in a large area of the US about 20 years ago. The biggest issue I saw was the gas pumps didn't work. Cars were lined up, many abandoned, just waiting for the power to come on some they could get gas. I was in college at the time, but home for a few days. I heard rumors that the power was on west of us (where my school was), so I just started driving west, hoping I found where the power was on before I ran out of gas. Thankfully, that worked out.

But if the power, and the gas stations, don't work anywhere. It won't take long before we start running out of food and other utilities start to fail.


Replies

tcoff9106/16/2025

It’s absurd that we don’t require gas stations to have generators on-site. They have all the fuel they need to power them right there!!!

Now nobody else can get more fuel for their generators when the gas stations don’t have power either.

This was a big issue during the power shutoffs during LA fires this year.

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