AT&T’s outage is the reason I’m a prepper

Last year I had William Forstchen on “The Glenn Beck Program.” He’s the author of “One Second After,”a novel that explores what would happen if an electromagnetic pulse hit the United States. It was February 2023 when I interviewed Forstchen, and the World Economic Forum had just issued a warning about imminent cyberattacks. It was a timely conversation.

Fast-forward to this week. On Thursday, thousands of people were without cellphone service following a national outage of AT&T. On Friday, AT&T released a statement assuring everyone that the outage was not caused by a cyberattack.

How long do you think your community would uphold civility and the rule of law when they become desperate for basic necessities?

Now, I’m not saying it was a cyberattack. I’m not saying it wasn’t. But we should all consider whether we are prepared for one. According to our overlords in Davos, they are saying it’s a matter of whenrather than if.

Unless you’re a prepper like me, you probably haven’t considered what it would be like if we experienced a national cyberattack or an EMP. But William Forstchen has, and what he shared on my show was absolutely astounding.

Consider for a moment if we went to war with Russia. Not like that would happen, right? Suppose Russia were to launch a cyberattack that left large portions of the United States without electricity. It’s not like Russia has ever launched cyberattacks against America before. What do you think would happen in the moments right after that attack?

Let’s first take a step back and consider how vital electricity is for virtually everything we do. Forstchen compared our national infrastructure to a Jenga tower, and electricity is one of the blocks at the very bottom. “If that one block goes out,” he said, “the entire tower collapses.”

What would that look like? Your credit cards wouldn’t work. You couldn’t access your bank account. You wouldn’t be able to buy anything. You would have no heating unless you are prepared and have a backup generator. Chances are the phone lines would be down, so forget about calling 911. But that would be pointless anyway because your local hospital would also be without power.

But that’s just the beginning. The bigger issue is the supply chain, which would cease almost immediately. Unless you have a backup supply of lifesaving medicine, food, water, and other basics, you are in a very dangerous situation.

But you wouldn’t be the only one in trouble, and people do crazy things in desperate situations. How long do you think your community would uphold civility and the rule of law when they become desperate for basic necessities? What do you think people would do when no one could call the police and the police wouldn’t come anyway?

Preppers have a reputation for being a crazy bunch of people who are preparing for impossibly outlandish situations. But does that situation seem outlandish? Is it crazy to think that we could go to war with Russia? We are already funding a war against Russia, and it’s a short step from there to an active war.

Is it far-fetched to think that Russia, or any other capable world power, would launch a large-scale cyberattack on U.S. citizens? Russia has launched smaller cyberattacks on us before. Why wouldn’t it escalate if the opportunity presented itself?

“Prepping” is making sure your house is in order. Our leaders are playing with fire, and there are few things in our current time that we can control. But we can control some things. You can buy extra jugs of water. You can stock up on non-perishable food. You can get a power source that’s not dependent on electricity.

We may not be able to control everything, but we can make sure that our families are taken care of. That’s why I’m a prepper, and unless you trust your government to have your best interests in mind, you should consider being one too.

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