How long can our infrastructure (water, electricity, etc) last in a zombie apocalypse?

[magnemoe]

We really should be far more concerned about solar flares and EMP attacks than zombies, in the event either one occurs the aftermath would look much the same, but the way we get there would be very different.

If there's a repeat of the 1859 Carrington event, that will knock out most of the world's power grids and fry most of our communication satellites. Almost immediately, industrialized civilization starts falling apart. Commerce grinds to a halt as most transactions are electronic, food distribution stops, communications cease, and water supplies that require pumps soon shut down. After 2-3 days the majority of the population who were completely unprepared for anything because they expect Mommy Government to come to the rescue might as well be zombies, as they'll start ransacking everything for food and water.

Depending on the time of the year of the event, mass dieoffs might start immediately from extreme heat and cold, or might not begin for up to a month as disease and starvation begins to take its toll.

The aftermath is highly variable depending on where you are in the world; in places like Europe and North America, 80-90% of the population might die within a year, in backwater undeveloped regions without ubiquitous access to electricity, there'd only be minor disruptions that most could easily cope with.

This could be entirely preventable, and the power grid could be hardened to withstand such a catastrophe, but governments and the energy industry can't seem to be bothered, because money, and effort, and lazy.

There are other things that might bring about a grid-down situation that would mean "game over" for industrial civilization, too, like an economic collapse that locks up most of the financial system. The world that most of us live in is far more fragile than we like to think, and the veneer of civilization is thinner than most of us suspect.

In this setting you would do something the communist fanboys would love. You would go central control, and focus on the primary needs. Power might be an problem as its an immediate need many places and is very dependent on automated systems and it will take time to patch around.

Do not see the issue with food except the wastage then power fail, this will mostly affect animals and frozen stuff. Yes food quality would be way down with lots of the manufacturing plants down.

We are after all talking an martial law setting here.

The most critical as in life and death issue would be how hard transportation would be hit, modern engines require computers.

Here poorer countries with more older cars might fare better. Another issue is how hard its to patch around this for critical systems luckily many ships use pretty old fashioned engine designs.

Outside of transport the losers will not be the rich areas, it would be fragile countries power is down, communication outside of the military system is down it would make rebel groups way stronger, it would also make it easy for military commanders to go warlord, some might even do it for good reasons knowing the poor country would not be able to buy food.

Its another issue with food production way lower food prices will go up, now who counties IoU will you trust most, who would you like for friends afterwards and who can hurt you if desperate.

Her you will get the serious zombie effects, lots of warlords and not enough food to feed everybody.

Backward rural areas with enough local food will do well here we agree. That is unless you get spillover from other areas like an old truck with gunmen.

An economic collapse is not an issue of this magnitude its an depression. Its en very strong vested interest in keeping civilization running.

Has civilization breakdown followed by mass starvation die-off ever happened locally in modern time and relatively modern countries? Not politically planned as an way to deal with problem provinces and people as in Soviet or China.

Not that its no mass starvation deaths in Syria, that is outside of sieges.

[peadar1987]

We really should be far more concerned about solar flares and EMP attacks than zombies, in the event either one occurs the aftermath would look much the same, but the way we get there would be very different.

If there's a repeat of the 1859 Carrington event, that will knock out most of the world's power grids and fry most of our communication satellites. Almost immediately, industrialized civilization starts falling apart. Commerce grinds to a halt as most transactions are electronic, food distribution stops, communications cease, and water supplies that require pumps soon shut down. After 2-3 days the majority of the population who were completely unprepared for anything because they expect Mommy Government to come to the rescue might as well be zombies, as they'll start ransacking everything for food and water.

Depending on the time of the year of the event, mass dieoffs might start immediately from extreme heat and cold, or might not begin for up to a month as disease and starvation begins to take its toll.

The aftermath is highly variable depending on where you are in the world; in places like Europe and North America, 80-90% of the population might die within a year, in backwater undeveloped regions without ubiquitous access to electricity, there'd only be minor disruptions that most could easily cope with.

This could be entirely preventable, and the power grid could be hardened to withstand such a catastrophe, but governments and the energy industry can't seem to be bothered, because money, and effort, and lazy.

There are other things that might bring about a grid-down situation that would mean "game over" for industrial civilization, too, like an economic collapse that locks up most of the financial system. The world that most of us live in is far more fragile than we like to think, and the veneer of civilization is thinner than most of us suspect.

I think you're overstating this. 80-90% of people dead? No chance.

Another Carrington event would trip a lot of circuit breakers, shut down huge areas of the grid, and probably fry a lot of substations and blow plenty of fuses. It would be expensive, but electronic gear, important servers and the like, are surge protected. The conductors in cars and consumer electronics aren't long enough for a dangerous EMF to be induced.

The power grid would be massively damaged, it would probably take months to years to get it back functioning at full capacity. The manufacturers of fuses are going to have a windfall the likes of which they've never seen before, but your light bulbs aren't going to start popping, and people certainly aren't going to start eating each other in the streets.

[magnemoe]

I think you're overstating this. 80-90% of people dead? No chance.

Another Carrington event would trip a lot of circuit breakers, shut down huge areas of the grid, and probably fry a lot of substations and blow plenty of fuses. It would be expensive, but electronic gear, important servers and the like, are surge protected. The conductors in cars and consumer electronics aren't long enough for a dangerous EMF to be induced.

The power grid would be massively damaged, it would probably take months to years to get it back functioning at full capacity. The manufacturers of fuses are going to have a windfall the likes of which they've never seen before, but your light bulbs aren't going to start popping, and people certainly aren't going to start eating each other in the streets.

I forgot it was an Carrington event, to would not affect stuff who is off grid and powered off like cars. I was thinking of the high attitude nuke EMP effect who as I understand will affect smaller stuff too.

Lightning hit in power grind is pretty common, its also an higher power effect. It can get light bulbs pop.

I ones repaired an pc where the power was hit by lightning.

This was back before 2000 and the pc was the old design, not atx, so it had an physical power switch who saved it for an direct hit.

It was however connected to an stereo on standby, it was black burned inside. the pulse reached the pc from an line from a soundcard to an input on the stereo.

The effect transistors on the soundcard popped and the motherboard was dead. Rest of the computer was fine.

Know as we replaced the cpu and memory, it was an insurance issue and they might have gotten some damage but they was used in office until obsolete.

For each step the pulse used energy, fuses popped cutting the tail of the pulse, then it used most of it energy in the stereo, it passed trough the sound card but was now so weak it was not able to pass trough the bridge chip and do damage to cpu or memory.