Jason Hartman plays Flash Back Friday episode 193, where he interviews Dr. Robert Bristow, the Medical Director of Emergency Management at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Director of Disaster Medicine at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. They talk about his role in consulting with National Geographic on a film titled American Blackout. He illustrates what could potentially happen if a national power failure were to occur as a result of a cyberattack on the US. Later he gives tips on emergency preparedness.
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Welcome to this week’s edition of flashback Friday, your opportunity to get some good review by listening to episodes from the past that Jason has hand picked to help you today in the present and propel you into the future. Enjoy.
Announcer 0:14
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Jason Hartman 1:03
Welcome to the holistic survival show. This is your host, Jason Hartman, where we talk about protecting the people, places and profits you care about in these uncertain times. It’s my pleasure to welcome Dr. Robert Bristow to the show. He is the medical director of Emergency Management at New York Presbyterian Hospital, the director of disaster medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a faculty member of the National Center for disaster preparedness in the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. And he’s also a consultant to National Geographics movie or documentary. I don’t know what the appropriate term is American blackout, which has got a really amazing website survive the blackout calm and pleasure to have him here today. Robert, how are you?
Dr Robert Bristow 1:49
I’m good. Thank you. And I’m very excited to be on your show. Good, good, and I’m glad
Jason Hartman 1:53
the power is working. So let’s kind of dive into this very ugly scenario. Just people I guess Robert really need to understand that how integral electricity is to the entire planet nowadays? I mean, it is. It’s everything. You know, without electricity, the water won’t run. The sewers won’t work. Nothing really works without power. Your thoughts?
Dr Robert Bristow 2:22
Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I think we’re very dependent on electricity. Certainly there are places in the world and places in our country that are less dependent on electricity that places like New York, for example, a lot of our water actually comes from upstate reservoir system. So we’ll continue to flow for some time after the power goes out. But on the west coast, you know, when the power goes out, they lose water immediately. So you know, there are there are places where there’s more resilience, we’d like to speak about and emergency management where they actually have the capacity to absorb a certain amount of loss of power with minimal consequences. You’re right, most of the country is very vulnerable. And if we lose power, we’re gonna have significant problems. Right and, and also, it’s fair to mentioned, although this isn’t the plot of the movie that you consulted for, but
Jason Hartman 3:12
it depending on how power is lost, I mean, if it’s a solar flare, if it’s an EMP, some sort of electrical magnetic issue like that, that fries basically every electronic device, that’s a lot worse than just having the power grid not work. So, you know, like you mentioned with New York, because of the the topography that your water will flow, but if people’s radios don’t work and things like that, it’s it’s it’s worse, right?
Dr Robert Bristow 3:40
Yeah, that’s definitely a different scenario and a more difficult one to sort of plan for and respond to. So the scenario depicted in the in the movie is basically a cyberattack where our electrical grid is compromised. So there is some sense you know, even early on if people have the right in information that we do have some capacity to recover. You know, as soon as we can work out, you know how the system would attack and determine what the problem is and then reboot the system. So it’s a little bit different than a doomsday scenario where there is a situation that disrupts part or the entire world, and then all communications go out and fry our systems as you put it, and then there’s very little capacity to recover quickly. And basically, essentially, we build the, you know, everything that we have. So that’s a different scenario and a quite complicated one.
Jason Hartman 4:32
Right? Right. That’s, that’s a that’s the worst case scenario. That’s the that’s the Stone Age scenario,
Dr Robert Bristow 4:38
as I call it, yeah. It’s interesting. As I was watching, as I was watching the movie, I was thinking this is actually the worst case scenario, but you’re actually describing something that’s actually much worse. It’s worse than the movie actually. Yeah, absolutely.
Jason Hartman 4:51
Well, tell us more about the movie. You know, again, it’s entitled American blackout. Give us the general plot, if you would.
Dr Robert Bristow 4:57
Well, so the general plot is a cyber attack. Um, the electrical grid of the United States. And because of technology and because of the way the grid actually developed, there are some intrinsic vulnerabilities to our system. It’s a big system. It’s sort of controlled by three grids in Eastern or Western Texas grid, that are interconnected and sort of depend on each other to function optimally. So when one or two of the grids actually go down, we lose all three reds. And from a cyber attack, it would take quite a bit of time, and I think this scenario accurately predicts about the amount of time it would take us to sort of fix the problem and reboot the system. So we basically lose power in the entire country at a time and we’re at one of the times we’re most vulnerable in July, so it’s a very hot time of year in most of the country. And a lot of people are dependent on air conditioning, as well as other things to optimize their health. So you’re obviously losing electricity in July and January. is different than other times of the year? Yeah, yeah, that’s a very good point.
Jason Hartman 6:03
Well, how does the cyber attack work? And I don’t know, if you This is not your field, you’re a doctor, you deal on the emergency management side. But I mean, I don’t understand. I mean, how can someone in say the Ukraine initiate a cyber attack against the US? I mean, what do they do to do that? Do they go to a website for a utility? a, you know, an electric utility company and hack it somehow or what? What really happens? I don’t understand, I guess.
Dr Robert Bristow 6:31
Yeah, I’m an expert. Yeah, I’m an expert in emergency management. So that might be a better question to someone that actually better understand the the systems that actually drive our electrical grids. But what I do understand now is that all of the grids are run by computers, right? So it’s a very complicated system. It’s based in three specific areas that are run by computers. And so what what would happen is and they also vary you know, their their normal security systems in place. Don’t allow people to access the actual computer technology that’s running the grids, or the computer program designed for it. So the scenario actually is some very smart guess good, you know, computer person that’s, that has determined a way or come up with a way to actually penetrate all of those securities in place, and inject something like a virus or alarm into the computer program that’s running the grid. And then that would do is it would cause an automatic shutdown of the actual grid. Right, once the system is aware that it’s been it’s been violated, the securities have been violated and that the systems aren’t, aren’t functioning optimally sort of triggers a shutdown of the grid. So you know, it’s there are a lot of Dr Robert Bristows, you know, does that technology exist? Is there someone that’s broad enough to be able to penetrate the safeguards we have in place, and we sort of call this scenario, a low risk, high impact where Because what we think we know is that it’s very unlikely that someone can do that, particularly more places like Ukraine. But it’s it’s like someone does develop the capability to do that it will certainly have a tremendous impact on the country. You know, someone can actually has that much information, knowledge and technology, they can penetrate our computers that ruin our grid, when he caused them to malfunction, shut down. Very scary scenario. Very scary scenario. Well,
Jason Hartman 8:28
what would happen in a national power failure scenario, tell us about how that works. And, of course, all the emergency services would be massively impacted. Give us sort of the details on how that unfolds.
Dr Robert Bristow 8:42
Well, So interestingly enough, this is something that we think about a lot and emergency management and particularly in New York, we’ve had a couple of power outages in 1977 in 2003, and then we had significant challenge has been supersonic, Superstorm Sandy, where we lost power for several days. Part of the city and several of our major hospitals are impacted by the flooding and loss not only manpower but their backup power. So this is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time. And what we’ve done is sort of developed the ability to sort of sustain our services, you know, from a hospital and city perspective to the best of our ability for a minimum of 96 hours and possibly longer hospital x, you’re not required to the Joint Commission, which is a body that regulates hospitals and credit fam, to demonstrate that they have get in a blackout scenario, other major scenarios that would impact the community, we have the ability to be self sufficient for up to 96 hours, meaning we can generate our own electricity, our food, our water, our medical supplies, to continue to take care of our patients and staff and respond to the event. And most of us has actually tried to go beyond that 96 hour mark, particularly in areas that have been affected by disasters, to sort of optimize our services. So the city again, we weren’t very good. closely with the Office of Emergency Management in New York City and your State Department of Health, great in your Hospital Association, which represents the interests of the majority of hospitals in New York City area and the government that State Department of Health as well as the federal government, primarily the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. So we do joint planning, money flows and analyses set up the system to sort of help us prepare and meet some of our identified goals. So at least in a few, a few days into the blackout, you know, things we would probably have enough support based on our pre planning, pre positioning of resources to sort of maintain most of the services and provide people with what they need, you know, if we go into week two, then, you know, most of our planning hasn’t reached quite that far. So we would have significant challenges, you know, thinking about how to provide people with again, just basic things like food and water and a cool place to rest. So I’m Some levels were really prepared. And some would argue that we may be over prepared, you know, as we’re thinking about these catastrophic events that could impact us.
Jason Hartman 11:10
But my real concern is that I think hospitals and governments are really doing their best not consensus that the community and individuals aren’t doing what they could be doing. If I think there needs to be some awareness within the community, and I hope this will come through in the movie that in a catastrophic, catastrophic event and like that national blackout, you know, obviously, there will be some resources that are available for people, but there are limitations on their resources, particularly as time progresses. So, to the extent that your individuals and families can do some pre planning come up with their own plans of how they would take care of themselves and their loved ones, and even more importantly, communities, community could sort of come together and do some joint planning that dignify resources they have in their community that would support them so they could go Resilience within, you know, the individuals, the families and communities that would allow them to actually better weather the storm without needing outside assistance, the more people that can sort of be self sufficient during a 10 day blackout, the less strain and demand there is on the system that’s trying to respond. Yeah, you know, that’s an absolutely important point that I just want to reiterate, some might say, although they’d be, they’d be, you know, way off base, that the concept of survivalism is a selfish concept. No, it’s actually a very, very self less concept. Because if you can take care of yourself, and you won’t become a strain on the system, you leave an opening for other people to get help. And if everybody just adopt that mentality, I mean, God, you look at the Mormons, and if you were in Utah on a disaster, gosh, you’d probably fare pretty darn well, hardly any inconvenience at all, because everybody’s so prepared, you know, and they’re not a strain on the system. The best thing you can, you know, it’s kind of like the old saying, the best thing you can do for the poor is to not be one of them.
Dr Robert Bristow 13:09
To help them not
Jason Hartman 13:10
be one of them, well, that’s the second best thing. That’s the second best thing. But the first thing you got to do is just take care of your own needs. So you don’t you don’t, you don’t take from the collective and the collective can afford to serve somebody else. So
Dr Robert Bristow 13:25
anyway, there’s actually a very interesting I think, my favorite plot and character argument movie that revolves around a prepper in Colorado, who’s obviously done everything he needs to do to prepare for exactly the event at hand. The problem is you’ve done it independently in isolation without involving the community. And as as you see as the month progresses, his even though he’s well prepared since he hasn’t involved the community that community begins to encroach on Yeah, right. And actually compromise the resources that he’s that he actually has available and creates a lot of movie drama, where there’s Concerning conflict and violence, so, again, it’s it’s good to be individually prepared, but there needs to be a real sense of community, like people are working together with the resources that they have. Because if that’s not in place, then there’s a real tendency to move toward anger and frustration and even violence. You know, as a scenario continues to develop, I had the opportunity to travel to Japan, right after that enormous disaster that we wouldn’t have thought possible in the modern era where they had an earthquake, tsunami and a nuclear disaster happening at the same time. And I got there about day seven, and we went into some of these communities that had been dramatically affected, that had essentially been cut off from the rest of the country in the world. And they were actually doing okay, they had they had there was enough sense of community they had in anticipating a similar type of disaster. They’re not quite the proportion that they were experiencing. And they had identified places where they could house the survivors. They had departed. ordered food in the community, and they were working together in a very cohesive way to actually take care of their needs without needing additional government assistance. So that was a beautiful example of actually what’s possible. And I think we need more of that in this country. And then we need people to sort of think about that. And we need particularly in cities like New York, where often it’s hard to identify communities, right. So that’s what I think we need more of, and I hope that the movie will sort of move the needle a little bit so that people begin to think, wow, you know, this might be possible and, you know, what can I do? individual planning through the level to protect my stuff.
Jason Hartman 15:41
Tell us what happens with with the emergency medical people. I mean, how do you staff for disasters? How do you prepare I mean, what goes on and he gives us some insight here as to the internal workings of your training and, and what happens at the hospitals. I mean, you mentioned 90 days. Six hours for self sufficiency, which in the overall scheme of things isn’t much, but it’s certainly better than nothing and probably better than a lot of countries. But what happens in your training? What What else do you guys learn? That would be interesting to know for the listeners?
Dr Robert Bristow 16:14
Well, it’s been a lot of work on staffing, right? Because hospitals can run without staff. So we’ve done some research trying to better understand who would come to work and what would be some of the barriers to come into work. So one of the things we’ve done is we’ve really encouraged our staff to have their own emergency preparedness plans with their family, so that they feel comfortable coming to work into their families, okay. I’ve actually thought through scenarios, they have supplies on hand so they feel comfortable leaving their family and coming into the hospital to actually work. The other thing that’s really interesting in hospitals in the southeast that have had recurrent weather events, hurricanes particularly, have developed things called ride out and recovery games, so they pre identify people that I’ve had on Complicated lives or willingness to sort of be in, in the hospital during an event, to actually, they will come in prepared to stay for a few days or longer. Obviously, this would be a scenario where there would be, they would actually come into the hospital prepared to actually stay for a few days, they will be part of the ride out team. And then another group of people that would get in front of the Recovery Team that would then come in at some point and relieve those people. at a hospital level. We’ve done a lot of planning, making sure that we can house and seed and provide what those staff members need to allow them to do their work.
Jason Hartman 17:35
Yeah, that’s that’s a good point. And it’s a good point that they that there’s a focus on making sure they have their own plan, so that they’re willing to leave their families and come in and help others. Yeah. Very good point. So Robert, very interesting topic here. When will the movie be out? or How can people see it?
Dr Robert Bristow 17:53
The movie will actually come out this Sunday on National Geographic Channel at 9pm Eastern Standard Time. It’s going to be a national premiere so they can watch it on the National Geographic Channel. It’s a website you’ve mentioned that has a lot of useful information.
Jason Hartman 18:09
So survive the blackout calm. And Robert Bristow, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr Robert Bristow 18:13
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.
Jason Hartman 18:18
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