Imagine for a moment what a prolonged electrical outage would look like for families and communities across America. There’d be no calling or texting to connect with loved ones. No emailing with colleagues or using other technology to conduct business. No catching up on the news or enjoying a hot meal at the end of a long workday. Families would be forced to go without so many of the modern conveniences they rely on day in and day out.

Still, none of this comes close to revealing the full magnitude of a long-lasting disruption in the electrical grid. There are much greater, even life-threatening, consequences to consider. For a patient, a lengthy outage could mean not getting the urgent care they need. For someone in danger, it could mean not receiving help from authorities before it’s too late. For every single American, it could mean not having access to even the bare necessities of life, like clean water and food.