Leave the World Behind

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Have any of you ever been caught in a natural catastrophe? Have you ever experienced firsthand what it is like to endure a Category 5 or 6 hurricane? What about a tornado? Ever experienced in your life firsthand an EF5 twister? Have you been through a volcanic eruption? What about an out-of-control wild fire or a disastrous flash flood? Here’s one that is becoming more common, What about a total power outage for 3-10 days?

From February 10 to February 20, 2021, Texas suffered its most catastrophic major power-grid failure during an arctic blast from Winter Storm Uri. I went through Uri while living in Dallas, TX, at the time and it was bad, real bad. I had no way of saving all my electronic device batteries unless I went out to my car, started it, and hooked up the power adaptors to the devices. Doing this for a long, silent, semi-alone 10-days was quite difficult. It was the first time for me to go through a long blackout alone. Cell phone networks were still operating, thank goodness, but that lasted only as long as my batteries lasted and I’d go out to my car, fire it up, and recharge my phone. I needed to stay in touch with my Mom and sister 5.25 hours away down in Kerrville near San Antonio, TX. But I was also thinking when my cell battery was exhausted and I didn’t have a power source/outlet, then what? What if you use up all of your gasoline in the car during a much, much longer power outage and it will no longer start? Load up as much as possible with gas in small gas tanks then store them somewhere safe?

Eventually my brain methodically kept going, thinking through the possible (probable?) causes and effects of my situation, other’s situation, and then I thought of a more dark, sinister situation I learned during Hurricane Rita in 2005, an already Category 5 hurricane predicted to hit somewhere between Houston and Lake Charles, Louisiana. In 2005 metro Houston’s population was around 5.3-million people. Houston is the largest metropolitan area in Texas. Everyone in Houston, particularly in the south of Houston all the way to Galveston, Texas City, Dickinson, Kemah, Alvin, Pearland, Pasadena, Sugarland, and La Porte, all southern suburbs and towns near the Gulf of Mexico coast were urged by authorities to evacuate north or northwest as soon as possible. What did I learn and witness on the news? It was a seriously disturbing wakeup call to me.

The woman I was dating for over three years lived down in Friendswood, TX, another suburb of south Houston. She lived there with her two other younger brothers and their wives and children. The older brother and my girlfriend evacuated Friendswood two days early than the youngest brother, his wife, and three children who was trying to evacuate the day before of Rita’s expected landfall as she neared Houston, TX. Over the phone my girlfriend listened to her youngest brother and wife describe what they were seeing and experiencing live trying to get out of north Houston on two-lane Interstate Hwy. I-45N near Spring, TX, up to Conroe, TX, 40-miles north of downtown Houston.

Travel time/distance from Friendswood to Conroe, TX, thru downtown Houston, TX, in normal conditions and traffic – Google Maps

What they began seeing, moving sometimes only 10mph at the most or completely stopped, around them on I-45N was horrifying, bordering on total anarchy by hundreds of thousands of motorists. Cars, trucks, 18-wheelers (lorries in the UK) and motorcycles whizzing by up through the center of the highway in between vehicles or on the embankment passing all the other stopped vehicles with no regard for safety. Those with kids in the vehicles were beginning to urinate or defecate either in the median or off the embankment of I-45N. Adults would too. The brother and his wife also mentioned to my girlfriend how many people were absolutely disrespectful, angry, afraid, crazy and ready to do whatever it took to care for themselves and their immediate loved ones regardless of the higher risks to others. And in Texas the vast majority of Texans own weapons they carry or keep in their vehicle. My girlfriend told me she had never heard her brother and sister-in-law so scared shitless.

As I was remembering all those dark memories and thoughts in 2005, I couldn’t help but realize what might happen during Winter Storm Uri in 2021 if the power-grid was not returned to service in a reasonable amount of time. The entire state of Texas had no power for around 9-14 days depending on utility work crews available. I realized how much of our lives, our society is now utterly dependent on two facts of life: 1) electronic devices/machines, computers, cell phones, internet/WiFi, electrical electronics in our vehicles, ATM’s, satellite navigation and GPS, and 2) the power, the electricity to power all of it and/or the fuel, energy to run everything electronic. To say I wasn’t paranoid of others and their erratic mindsets was a lie.

I was very aware of human nature then and today when it is put into circumstances of life or death, or serious harm, and little to no control over it or the ability to stop it. Many people do not cope well. They do not start using their survival instinct or their brain, they panic, they freak the hell out and lose all rationale, safety, and typically all altruism and ingenuity. Lifeguards at pools or on beaches, or the U.S. Coast Guard seamen and women all know that those they try to sometimes rescue can try to pull them under, fight them in order to breathe and save their own life at your expense. That is human nature under extreme stress and panic.

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I watched a film today with the wife. It was on Netflix and it was about this exact same predicament I’ve described above happening to two families. The 2023 film is called Leave the World Behind and still streaming on Netflix. It stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Myha’la, and Kevin Bacon. And if any of you have not seen it I highly recommend it. Why? Because number one Barack and Michelle Obama are executive producers through their Higher Ground Productions banner and notoriety. Number two, it disturbingly shows just how dependent our current U.S. culture and society are not just addicted to electronics in every way of our daily lives, but worse still how much 21st-century military defense, arms, and equipment like modern drones rely almost entirely on computer electronics. This doesn’t mention the fact that our private or government businesses and agencies and commerce rely heavily on satellite navigation systems, communications, and GPS in transportation and shipping sectors around the world via thousands upon thousands of Medium Earth Orbits to Low Earth Orbits. And by the way, if you haven’t heard, highly advanced computer AI corporations have already produced, released, and operate systems that monitor, build, or hack into other sophisticated AI systems.

Watch Leave the World Behind available on Netflix and get a harsh reality check about the high-tech world and nation we live in and under. Then if you can return here and share your thoughts about the film and just how closely it accurately reflects our present American lifestyles of hyper-dependence on energy, power, electricity, and computer system networks. Are we in control of our lives and our future? Is our current president and administration really intelligently capable of protecting Americans or themselves given the still ongoing 6-month War with Iran?

The Professor’s Convatorium © 2025 by Professor Taboo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

11 thoughts on “Leave the World Behind”

  1. Saw the film a couple of years ago.

    Loved the scene on the beach with the ship.

    When disasters such as you describe are a reality it must be terrifying.

    We have had years of electricity Outages but it has been revealed much of this was down to corruption.

    This miserable state of affairs has stabilized, thank the gods, but our much neglected infrastructure is now causing some serious issues. Roads, water etc.

    Our weather is nothing like what you lot experience up north so we are fortunate in this regard, but being ‘powerless’ is a very uncomfortable situation, which is why solar is the way to go. I would dearly live to be completely off-grid but that much solar and the batteries etc is a bit rich for me at the moment. Medium to long term we will aim for.

    As for food.. another tough one but one I have made a start with growing a fair amount.

    Also a good idea to learn how to can and pickle.

    No electricity needed. Well, not to preserve the harvest.

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    • “As for food.. another tough one but one I have made a start with growing a fair amount.

      Also a good idea to learn how to can and pickle.”

      Have to agree with you Ark. I think everyone should learn some advanced basics of gardening food and storage for shelf life. I’ve done decently myself with my herb garden, but that’s about it. Grateful we have a 7-cubic foot deep freeze to store food. It has come in quite handy during these harsh economic times here in the U.S., nearly a life-saver in some cases. 😬 But then… I must remember that it too runs on electricity and once again we are heavily dependent on the power grid. 😟

      If we had more property around us, I would definitely start a small veggie garden—fruit would probably be far too difficult in this arid, windy, drought/flood-ridden region of the Texas Hill Country. I’d need to learn from the former Native American tribes what foods grow best here in this harsh climate. Sadly, there are not many around at all; scarce if I am honest. We haven’t had any rain now since around mid-July. My 55-gal rain-catcher is now only a third full and we aren’t finished with August (hottest month of year) and I suspect September won’t be kind either. 😕

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  2. I have often recommended that if Americans truly want to stop Trump, billionaires and the trillionaire, and other such oligarchs, all they have to do is turn off the power grid, turn off the electricity. My thoughts were these:

    One, the “ruling class” cannot survive a total power outage. Their lifestyle would disappear, and they would not have the grit to stay alive on their own. They depend so much on employing others to do their “dirty work” for them, they would starve of hunger, disease or other disaster-related events, such as roving bands of flesh-eaters, violent offenders, etc. Regular people might panic for a short while, but they would realize quite quickly that they would have to survive by their own wits, and regular people would know or learn how to do that.

    Two, all those “wealthy assholes” have very little real money, not that money would be worth much in a world without electricity. Their wealth only exists in computers that tell them how rich they are–without computers that run on electricity, all that money would disappear, and everyone would be on the same level. Those wealthy bums would not be survivors, but regular people would.

    You, PT, are talking only natural disasters, which in reality could happen anywhere, but not everywhere at once. Turning off the power grid could shut down the whole country all at once. It would be a purposeful move, and yes common lives would be lost, but it would not take too very long before the people join together again and reproduce a new nation, or nations, where all the oligarchs would be extinguished, and the ‘poor would inherit the world.’ Fiction, definitely, but it is not so far away from reality as some might think!

    Peace to all.

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    • “Turning off the power grid could shut down the whole country all at once.”

      Or loosing the power grid as we did in 2021 for 9-14 days, but it lasting around 30-45 days would jerk the population, and the wealthy oligarchs, into a completely different mindset, not all of them good, of course. 🙄 I’ve often called my nation the “Disunited States of America” and one man and one political party started this severe polarization in 2016 and 100-fold since 2025. 🤬

      But your “fiction” you speak of rawgod would be an enormously painful one for most Americans, especially if it lasted more than 3-months. This I’m certain of.

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  3. Yes, our modern technological civilization is incredibly fragile. Most people take it for granted, unfortunately, and are totally unprepared for disasters (natural and otherwise) which cause it to fail. It is disconcerting to live with this sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.

    I once experienced an EF-1 tornado near Augusta, Georgia. It scared the crap out of me but that’s all. On October 17th 1989, I was aboard a commercial airline flight to Memphis, Tennessee on a business trip when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area. The airline crew did not inform us. When we checked into our hotel, the clerk said, “you left there just in time!” We had no idea what she was talking about. When I turned on the television in my room, I saw the huge fire in the S.F. Marina District, the collapse of the Nimitz freeway in Oakland, and the partial collapse of the S.F.-Oakland Bay Bridge. I was in shock. For three days I couldn’t reach anyone back home because the telephone lines were down. When I finally did, I was relieved that everyone was alright. They had gone through hell for about a week, though. When I returned to my apartment in the Oakland hills, the place was a mess but no permanent damage.

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    • Robert, see… you have a good idea and recollection of just how fragile American society is and how easily we forget and take it for granted. And what many/most of the wealthiest top 1–10% fail to comprehend in their ivory towers is that their opulent lavish lifestyles are directly and indirectly reliant on the level of consumption and spending of the masses. They don’t fully realize that they are monumentally outnumbered by those masses they look down upon. And they cannot indefinitely nor protect their families and wealth, material wealth especially, from wave after wave after wave of the peasantry. Civil revolt is more brutal upon the few elites than it is for the many lower classes; they are more adapt at survival.

      Sheesh, talk about anarchy day in and day out, eh? 😳

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