I think it would be more accurate if minutes were replaced with hours. How would people even know this was a global outage? They’d talk to their neighbors, and their neighbors’ neighbors, but it would take a long time to figure out it was a global thing. I’d guess most people wouldn’t even start to panic until several hours at least.

I live in a country where we have experienced countrywide blackouts, I would like to confirm that no such chaos were experienced.

I’ve been in many power-outages mostly from hurricanes but simple flooding and one snowstorm. People did not panic nor turn on each other. In fact they were often nicer and more helpful than normal. Because so many people needed help folks who could went out and looked for people to help. “Rednecks” unloaded their boats then used them to go down the streets, house by house, bringing people out! Folks without boats used what they had to evacuate old ladies and invalids with baby pools or big wash tubs. Since “it would go bad anyway” everyone with a freezer started cooking and giving or sending food away! Deer steaks, sausage, sea fish and sometimes vegetables too! It felt very good to see strangers come together just because they could!

In big cities this may happen but I think a lot of people would just treat it as a common black out and it would take days for chaos to happen

But if the traffic lights go out, we’re supposed to treat is as an all way stop right? At least where I’m from

I find it highly unlikely that this much chaos would break out form a mere 60 minutes of no electricity. People are used to the power occasionally going out for hours at a time. Plus people would have no way to know that it is a global power-outage so there would be no reason for most people to panic. I would give it at least 24 hours before people start looting gas stations lol

While stationed in Afghanistan in 06-07 it was so dark you could see every star in the sky, every night you could make a wish on a star.

During the 70's we had the catastrophe movies. Today we have the Infographics Show.

I’m from Puerto Rico and we spent months without power when hurricane Maria hit us. We ended helping each other up to survive instead of rioting.

Research has actually shown that people drive more safely when traffic lights are out, because they pay closer attention to traffic.

I remember the city wide blackout in NY when I was a kid. All people did was hangout outside. Light some candles for visibility. Light up some grills and cooked meats that were gonna go bad. We all just had a neighborhood wide cookout. As far as traffic went. People naturally just treated any intersection as a stop sign until police showed up to direct traffic. I don't think full blown panic would set in until at least a few days of no electricity. And there's no indication of when it'll be restored.

What causes this sudden lack of electricity defines the effects. Most importantly, are electricity generators that weren't on at the time affected and was most of the energy infrastructure destroyed. As an Energy Engineering student, I find these points the most impactful. Most important places have diesel back up generators and at least in Finland, coal plants could be activated in an emergency. I personally would hop into my car and drive to our family's summer cottage. During the winter it'd be a little cold, but when electric can be harnessed with both diesel and solar power and heating is done with propane and firewood, I'd be fine for the next 2 months. After those months, food would run out, in which case I hope to have found more food somewhere. Getting to the summer would mean survival, as the place is mostly self sufficient as long as food grows. Propane and diesel would last for a few years, so unless we can find more, running out of these would force us to leave.

Although this was interesting (albeit a bit over dramatized), you should really make a video on what would happen within 30 days with no power. This is the real deal, where society completely breaks down. German author Marc Elsberg wrote a pretty good and well informed book about that thought called 'Blackout'. Would love to see that video one day.

I’d like to bring something to light about generators in hospitals: all hospitals in the US are required to have backup generators. In addition, they are tested weekly, monthly, and annually and are REQUIRED to come on within 10 seconds of loosing power, they are also required to have 96 hours worth of fuel on hand to sustain 80% of their load (depending on how large the generator is, it could last longer) and most larger hospitals have thousands of gallons off site for emergencies. I work in an engineering department for a hospital, the last one I worked at was a level 1 trauma center with 650 beds and 30 operating rooms. We had enough generator power to supply the whole city if need be.

Seems like hour by hour would be way more accurate for this episode. Complete grid shutdowns happen all the time where I live and I have never experienced any chaos such as this. Many people also have solar attached to their homes and would experience almost no difference other than the fact that they would not be able to travel or buy things at a grocery store. Just keep food storage and you will be fine.

The second my fan goes off, I'd be awake.

As someone who lives in an area that loose electricity for weeks at a time after a storm. The cell phone towers have in our area have battery backup and generators that will generally will work for a week. Amateur HAM radio operators routinely communicate with the ISS with their own radios, most of which can work on battery power. Gas stations have their own generators and before that, people would bring their personal generators to power the fuel pumps at gas stations. Most people have enough food in their homes for a week or two. Things will be fairly calm until the food runs out.

I highly doubt this much chaos would happen in the first 60 minutes. Unless everyone instantly knew for certain that this outage was permanent, I imagine people would give it a day or two at least to wait it out. I think it would take several days before this level of panic and destruction.

Nah, i bet it'd be less catastrophic than this. I lived in South Aus in one of its worst blackouts - for 4 days. We were all fine and very little went wrong.

I’m sorry, but in which universe does society break down within 60 MINUTES of losing power? Am I missing something here?

It’s crazy to think that here In South Africa we have something called load shedding and basically we have periods in the day where the power goes out and due to that many businesses and facilities have planned for that.

This is a weird scenario how they talk about everything falling apart in an hour. I live in Michigan and not that poor of an area and we have lost electricity for 4 to 5 days a couple times in my life. Everyone around here just has backup heating and knows how to deal with not having electricity for at least a couple days so I'm thinking a lot of these scenarios is not going to happen until that point. The first day would probably not be that crazy

I'd love to see this become a series like the "I survived a nuclear war" series and see how people would deal with no electricity at all, permanently.

I see what happened here, the electrons are on strike for better working conditions.

Power failures happen locally at times and NOTHING like all the hyperbole of elevators falling/cars not stoping at intersections happens. Almost EVERYONE has had their power go out for an hour or more in a city, town or neighborhood and they were inconvenienced at most.

I'm confused, in this scenario, do batteries work or not? If not, then cars wouldn't be running, they need spark plugs, hospital generators can go for days (blackouts happen), planes would fall out of the sky, etc. If batteries work, electric cars wouldn't immediately stop. Gotta do your research better, guys.

I live in the Philippines. Electricity often goes out. Often for hours, sometimes for up to 12 hours, rarely longer. Around Christmas 2021, we (large parts of central Visayas) were hit by a typhoon and we didn't have electricity for 26 days. Since then, I have installed a solar power plant and always have power, even of the grid goes down. Truth is, sure, a lot of inconvenience, but logistics would soon be operating again, since those systems can run on low power equipment.

People lived without power for centuries. We can do it again if we need to.

7:44 I was on the island of St. Maarten for both of the strongest hurricanes on record (Hurricane Irma and Maria, both a category 5+) and when it was finally over and the skies were clear, I was able to see the Milky Way as there was very little to no electricity anywhere on the island, so there was no light pollution and I must say, you can't put into words how beautiful it is. I was mesmerized by the sight of it to the point that I was upset a week later when the electricity came back and I couldn't see the Milky Way anymore

Something to consider: A world-wide loss of the power grid could only be caused by a massive Solar Flare/Coronal Mass Ejection. Either of those events would not only fry the power grid, it would also fry the electronics in vehicles such as cars and jet planes.

The fact that scientists could be saying that Wi-Fi will go out for months😂

Me as a South African surviving two days without electricity

Having went through the 2003 blackout. Everything was pretty peaceful. Neighborhood stores even gave away refrigerated and frozen foods like crazy because they knew they wouldn't be able to keep them long. This is absolute panic that would likely never happen in this way

Even if its during the day, people will realize there's no electricity because the WIFI will stop working.

I was curious about the gas pump thing, and it actually turns out that I learned two things that weren't mentioned in the video. A lot of gas stations are actually required to have backup generators or similar provisions because of past disaster situations like hurricanes where the scenario he just described unfolded. The other thing is that even though the electrical pump wouldn't work, there is actually a hole in the tanks where a manual pump could be attached and pump the gas out if needed. I mean, if you think about it, it wouldn't be possible for thieves (especially in the old days using old-timer methods) to siphon gasoline from other people's cars if there weren't ways to pump gasoline without electric pumps. The reason why this is important is because a lot of portable generators are powered by gasoline, not just cars. If they can find a way to keep the gasoline flowing, then that potentially means at the very least cars and portable generators will keep working even if they can't get the grid back online, which really improves the situation significantly, although it is still very bad. With regards to radio, while you mention the big broadcasters not having power, you seemingly forgot about ham and CB radio... which can in fact transmit using non-grid based power, and there are licensed ham operators who are actually are trained to coordinate to try and relay information in the event of mains power going down in a large area. So, depending on the country, there is at least a possibility that mains power going down would not necessarily force people all the way back to the 1800s, but perhaps result in a lot of analog and mechanical technology from prior to 1980 or so getting used to keep things going, and a lot of people horrified at how useless a lot of newer stuff is without the Internet, compared with how robust the older analog stuff is.

I lived through the east coast blackout of 2003. There wasnt much panic but we had a radio to listen to and get news from. Everyone came outside and got to know eachother better and helped eachother. Stay stocked up on water and canned food because our grid is very fragile and power companies aren't required to protect it. It wouldn't take much for a few terriosts to destroy the right electrical equipment to turn the power out for months.

Your timeline is too compressed. It would take about 72 hours for the water & sewer systems to breakdown due to lack of power. Also, building code requires that emergency lighting be able to keep hallways lit for 90 minutes, so just about every "nite-light" in a multistory building has a battery inside of it waiting for a power failure. Also, these are known problems, many cell towers, most hospitals and every police department has back up power of some sort. Cell towers will work for hours, at least; hospitals for days without issues. Municipal communications *always* have power failure protocols, even if that just means that the Chief of Police is sitting in a squad car with a mobile transceiver. This assessment is overly pessimistic.

In regards to lifts, or elevators, they're balanced so the counterweight is heavier than an empty or lightly-occupied car, so if the brakes were to fail on a power cut, they would actually go up, not down if below that load, and they would have the resistance of the machinery above (multiple cables passed over a large capstan connected to a motor that will be acting like a brake) to slow any uncontrolled ascent or descent so wouldn't be a sudden trip (assuming any at all) to their doom, unlike in the very unlikely event of a snapped cable...

those people who live with their faces in front of their smartphones would be the first ones to go crazy because they can't get their social media fix every few minutes.

Hospitals are required to have backup generators that kick in instantly and provide power to the vital systems. You will notice the red outlets.

02:40... emergency lights are not tied directly into the grid for this exact reason. They are backed up by internal batteries with a 24 to 48-hour lifespan before draining. (yes, as an engineer who built most of the major buildings in Reno, Lake Tahoe and Parts of Vegas in Nevada over the last 30 years I will be marking timestamps and leaving comments)

There is just so much wrong with this video. I'll accept the magical power outage around the world, but not really if generators and batteries are still working. Would power grids with battery backups still work temporarily? Hospitals cannot run out of power, as they have backup generators that kick in instantly. Also people know what to do at intersections when the power goes out, it becomes a four-way stop.

From my experience. In 2018 hurricane maria hit puerto rico so bad and i was there. We were months without electricity through the whole island we just used generators for cooking be we still managed to it it was kind of hard of all lives lost in the hospital due to lack of electricity but everyone was cooperative during the time.

Some gas stations, public buildings, and homes have solar panels and backup generators. Love the video.

Where i live power outages happen very often, nothing ever happened, sometimes half of my country was out for days, and never was there any accident

For nuclear reactors, they all have emergency power generators to keep the systems on, and another thing you forgot, is emergency coolant. Basically a huge water tank, ready to be used in the case core temperatures get higher than they should.

Something like this happened here in Italy in 2003. At 3,30 am the whole of the country, with the sole exception of Sardinia island, went into a blackout. The reason was identified as the fall of a tree in Switzerland, at 3:01 in the morning, which would have damaged some power lines to which Italy and the Swiss state are connected (so much so that the phenomenon partially affected Slovenia as well), and the load was distributed on the remaining lines, which in turn found themselves overloaded and shut down. Electricity was restored not any sooner than 9 am in the northern part of the country, while the central and southern part had to wait longer, like mid/late afternoon or early evening. Still it didn't cause any major accident, the worst of which being people being stuck in elevators, trains or subways, and general problems with trasportations. I remember it quite vividly as I was out with friends, I was in the main square of town and I saw the starriest sky of my life on that occasion.

I think a big factor of how bad things get also depends on where you live. A derecho took out power around here for 2 weeks. This is the Midwest. Despite going a long time without basic electricity, there were no riots. Everyone just went to work again after a few days and everyone either grilled out or ate what they had. Food drives were setup. Businesses were still able to get back on top of things again very quickly and while there was some chaos at first, everyone seemed to quickly adapt. Mind you, lots of backup generators were used and due to powerful storms in the past, it is possible our infrastructure had a slightly easier time. I think if something were to fry everything the yes different story but again, there are a lot of things to consider is all. I think the smaller towns would have an easier time while the bigger cities would have something more like what you see happening in this video.

So wrong--you are saying within the first few minutes of the power going out millions of baby’s will be born with nurses holding cell phones for lights. Hospitals have generators that run for more then 4 hours plus emergency lights would come on for hours. Stuff like this wouldn’t happen unless the power was off for months. We had a blackout for 8 days and our hospital didn’t loss anyone

Apparently the infographics show has never heard of batteries or generators. Subways and exits all have emergency lights that run on batteries.

This video doesn't really consider generators. Most important buildings and many residential places will have power at least for a little while.

Back in the day when power outages were frequent here in Ireland and we had a shop and gas station my dad invested in an industrial sized generator which operated on diesel and he got an electrician to wire the generator into the house, shop and gas pumps! He also had about six ten gallon containers full of diesel to keep the generator going until the power came back, and our house, shop and gas station was the only place that was fully lit up in the entire area! You have to think on your feet guys! Px

I live in a country where there was a country-wide blackout for 2 days, and nothing of this happened anywhere, people were calm and even helped their fellow neighbours. There were even gas stations who used pump systems with backup generators and donated the gas to hospitals during this time to ensure people wouldn't die. Even more, we didn't know this was a country-wide blackout until a day later, and only because a veteran with a radio caught a signal from a neighbour country, were they told that our government was already working on fixing the problem.

Panic doesn't set in in the first 60 minutes, first few days will be moderately normal, but will quickly degrade after that. And, how are all the cell phones still working if something knocked out all the power, cells would be dead too.

I can see elderly and disabled or those in bad situations (elevators with no safety precautions, etc) being that chaotic in the first 60 minutes alongside the hospital chaos but I am almost certain it would take longer than one day (if not several) for the entire human civilization to realize it’s a global crisis.

Thank you for this video it help us to be ready in everything.

The moment I saw an unplugged laptop (presumably working on a battery) turned off along with the electrical power cut, I wondered at the outset how many inacuracies are still coming.

As for international communications, every government would be able to fall back to shortwave radio. For that matter, many 2nd world nations still use shortwave broadcasting to distribute information (and propaganda); and it takes amazingly little power to get a AM shortwave station broadcasting, and only batteries for the public to receive.

I refuse to believe a human will not be able to figure out the flue on a fireplace. They might not know what it's called, but they'll QUICKLY figure out what it does and how.

Our house was built in 1915. It has a large lot, suitable for growing food, and a creek bed where we could dig a well. There was a outhouse here in 1915 too. The house itself has high ceilings and large windows to cope with hot weather, and two fireplaces for heat. With a little bit of warning, we could prep for survival.

1 hour after power out: "Ok, start burning the money." Maybe after several months but cmon.

I remember back in high school, when there was a power outage in the whole country for 17 hours. People went nuts, my father used to be an engineer for the Indian Railways at that time, and we were so worried about him. Phones weren't working, people were happy at first, but after a couple of hours, we were completely cut off. Thank God, there were no looting or vandalism. As soon as the power was back on after 17 hours of outage, the train carrying my father was back running. We were so relieved when we saw my father in front of us.

Look up the 2012 derecho in West Virginia. All power was out for at least a week for several counties and some places didnt even get power back for a month. I remember that very well and definitely learned from it

@2:02 I sleep with a fan on all year long just for the white noise. The deafening silence would most definitely wake me up.

I’m calling bunk on most of this one, as an electrician, specifically one who’s spent most of their career in a hospital, I can say that per code (in the US at least) back up generators start as soon as electricity is lost or the quality of the power dips. At most some systems will be down for 10 seconds, critical circuits transfer immediately and most life maintaining equipment have a battery back up internally or installed in such a way that you don’t even notice the power blip. Also the fuel tanks for these generators are typically large enough to last at least a day or two without refueling if not longer. A lot of critical infrastructure also has back up generators that start as soon as power is lost. I know of at least one manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania that is powered entirely by generator, it’s not attached to the grid at all, so they wouldn’t even notice. And most elevators have an inertia triggered mechanical brake. So the days of elevators plummeting to earth, at least in the civilized world, are a thing of the past.

I live in the NYC area, when Sandy hit I was out of electricity for 3 weeks and what I saw was amazing. I’m in telecommunications and for the first time I saw the community come together and help one another. I left my wife and newborn at home with my generator and new solar system to go get the internet back up in my area. Gas was short and while there was some strife after a couple weeks on line for gas I thought it brought out the best in our country in a lot of ways. I have more faith in this area of the country that we would prevail from something of this magnitude. That being said I like some of the videos 😂

Makes sense to me and another thing Jason Voorhees at camp Crystal lake, Freddy Krueger on Elm street, and Michael Myers on Halloween have never been scarier than these series of KZfaq videos. 😳😵‍💫🥺

I live in Australia and experience bushfires a lot so my family always has a survival/emergency box with food matches and other things incase we have to evac

or you know we will all do what we normally do when electricity goes out

Here where I live, we experienced complete blackout for over a month (some areas reached 3 months) because of a typhoon that passed by, utility poles were completely toppled over and sidewalks were filled with wires that were still attached to them. It wasnt as chaotic as the video, but of course there was EXTREME boredom bc we were all so reliant on the entertainment of our phones. We also didn't have water because it was mostly powered by electricity and so we all had to rely on water pumps or wells, which thankfully, some areas were abundant with. Drinking water was also quite hard to find, and people would start lining up in water refilling stations as early as 1AM to fill their gallons with drinking water since half of the refilling stations were closed, the prices for it spiked as well. Gas was a huge problem too since most gas stations were wrecked, a long line of cars would also start lining up as early as 1 AM or as soon as the gas station closes. My mother and I lined up for the gas station at 4 AM, and we had to wait 7 hours before it was finally our turn. To summarise, really the only troubling things that I could still vividly remember was the lack of communication, the heat (sometimes its harder to sleep bc i always sleep with at least a fan on) , having to sleep really early because it gets really dark and there's nothing else to do, water, gas & finally extreme boredom. It was more of an extreme & irritating inconvenience rather than complete and utter societal chaos. The positive side to it was that people went out more often and so alot of socializing happened, even for me. As an extremely shy person, I made new friends.

This reminds me of a book called Dies the Fire. Except it takes things to more of an extreme. Some event causes electricity to quit working, period. Once the survivors who we're following manage to establish a new settlement they then have to take things such as hunting as defense into consideration. Because it's not only electricity that's stopped, gunpowder and steam power no longer work. Oh, and a villain with fantasies of building a kingdom causes problems for everyone. The writing does get ridiculous at times but I think it does a decent job of seeing what a new civilization might look like.

It is absolutely amazing how much we depend on electricity, fire and light in general!

I don’t think anything would happen until after everyone figured out what’s going on.

If there was a global blackout of this magnitude, I would do everything in my power to make sure I don't survive.

There's no need to panic, but we're also out of coffee. Ok panic!

The thing about hospital generators taking time to kick in just isn't true. The generators are tested to start in very short time. This short time is bridged by online ups (big battery). In Czech Republic we have the time for generators to start up in 2.5 minute. The online ups can usually last for at least few hours.

Also, our government has many plans for strange events, they would have a plan for at least the first week. They have a plan for aliens landing, I'm sure they have thought of a solar storm. Firefighters actually have a part of their training book on what to do when meeting an alien:)

Every store better have enough toilet paper.

As someone who stays in a region where electricity goes off for days sometimes, nothing will actually happen to you but the office and business will surely go to a big halt. But despite thr drawbacks there is a good thing, you get to have a good social life with your frie5snd families.

I’m honestly loving these “First 60 minutes of when ___”

60 minutes later everyone's house is on fire and they are burning their money to keep warm? I've been through power outages longer than 60 minutes. Classic The Infographic Show getting the timeframe off by orders of magnitude. 😂

8:43 Instead of going into survival mode and getting the things you need in ur inventory, you could just go in creative and have everything in ur inventory

My family and I went without power for 4 days. It was during a severe ice storm in the early 90’s. No cell phones and landline phones were down too. There was no way to know if it was localized to our town or the whole U.S. as the roads were too dangerous to travel far. No rioting happened. Luckily my family used propane, as did most people in the area, so we still had heat. Everything went back to normal afterwards. The portrayal of events, in this video, is simply ridiculous.

Stair lifts for the elderly have one or two 12v battery backups built into the base of the chair, it can go up and down the stairs several times before the batteries run out.

If all electricity stopped, that would include cell phones and the yellow lights of the vehicles mentioned. A lot of this wouldn't happen, but the medical situation is entirely probable

When my dad was taking flight lessons he was taking a night lesson, flying over the uninhabited, completely dark Suisun Slew. The CFI asked him what he would do if the engine quit. He was told he shout establish best glide and find a spot that you hope is clear of hard stuff, then just before you land turn on the landing light. If you like what you see turn to a clear spot and land. If not, turn the lift off and land. Either way you are going to land no matter if you want to or not.

This is why I liked the series "Revolution" its about what happens when the power goes out on planet Earth. It only had two seasons and ended on a cliffhanger but was good. Although a hacker COULD in theory do what you are suggesting, ONE key element of a global black out would be an EMP (electro magnetic pulse).

I was 15 when hurricane Katrina happened we were without electricity for almost 4 months. It took about 2 days before things turned to chaos. The storm ended but days one and two the nights were dark quiet and hot but night 3 the night had a orange glow from fires and the never ending sound of gun shots in the distance and the voice police officers driving around yelling over loud speakers saying help wasn't coming to not call 911. I lived in a small town in south Mississippi I couldn't even imagine how bad it should of been in a large city. New Orleans Louisiana was like a purge movie in less then a day

In my country the power goes out for at least 2 hours a day and often at night. And I can say that most of these things don't happen. We once chilled 7 days without power, and there were definitely no injured pedestrians.

I guess whoever wrote this is too young to drive. I have never, not once, seen anything other than slow caution at failed traffic lights. Indeed, people will come to a stop and for the most part fall back to the most basic of road rules, give way to your right (or left if you drive on the right side of the road). It's actually pretty amazing to see a multilane intersection operating based on just common sense. People have self preservation instincts. They are not going to just go barrelling through major intersections with failed traffic lights, otherwise the 1977 New York Blackout would have been a vehicular bloodbath.

My guy, you didn’t think this video through. Infographics Show: “Total Global Power Outtage. Discuss.” Lithium batteries:”Am I a joke to you?” Fossil fuels:”umm…ok.” Green energy: *left the chat in disgust*

Really depends on country to country. Not all becomes so chaotic.

Yeah, we lost power for almost a full week a few years ago and pretty much everything was fine. While a global power outage would be different for sure, this is overly dramatic. This is especially true since they're operating under the assumption that backup systems are still working, so it's not some sort of event that destroys all electronics, just the grid itself. Also, nuclear missiles have backup power.

Me: *starts the video* Also me: *makes sure I have my flashlight on my nightstand, along with lighter and candles*

A thing about the traffic lights. They went out on a major street where I live and the cars just greeted it as a four way stop however crossing it was somewhat scary

ppl know to stop when a stoplight is out. happens all the time and it would be pretty rare for everyone to just run the intersection and hit each other. also if electric cars stop working (why? they run on batteries) then why would cell phones still be able to use their flashlights, which run on batteries, since ALL electricity went out?

LOL why would the screen go black on a laptop? You might lose internet, but it is running on battery,,,or maybe batteries dont work anymore either, but then the cars would have stopped immediately.

Lived in an area affected by the northeast blackout of 2003. Lost all power and cell service for about 24 hours. Nobody panicked. Yes the night sky was more visible but in the industrial areas that had refineries or other chemical processing they had to flare off the gasses and products to prevent explosions. That filled the skies with black soot over the horizon and massive flames from the flaring of the flammable gasses filled the skies with orange glows.

I look forward to this video popping instantly to mind the next time I get on an elevator for the foreseeable future.

There have certainly been enough situations where power was out for extended periods at busy intersections and with no traffic police around. In every one of those situations, people simply switched to self-management, which consistently worked far better than this video seems to claim.