Short of living on a giant petri dish, you’d be hard pressed to find a more ideal environment for the spread of germs than in a pressurized airline cabin that hauls thousands of passengers each day.
If Covid-19 evolves into a more aggressive virus, suddenly the airlines and the airports become a health hazard. They elevate community spread. Industry fails.
Once the airlines are grounded, all modes of public transportation will be shut down. The cascading effect is very plausible. Given the worst-case scenario, not only will our transportation industries fail, but the supply chains fail, and the American people will fail too.
Our expert guest is Don Trumbull. He’s a former air carrier owner who understands painfully well the dark challenges our U.S airlines face. In 2008, he developed defensive measures to secure emergency air travel in the grid-down environment. Today, he is well aware of the difficulties we face with covid-19 and our U.S supply chains and is here to give us a sober dose of reality what our airlines are facing.
Q and A:
- If community spread elevates, can we fly safely? How can we avoid the coronavirus if someone’s infected on board?
- If the Airlines and public transportation go down, this means national quarantine/home quarantine/reduced workforce is likely. What happens to our supply chain? 350 million people need food. Wouldn’t this cause mass panic?
Answer: 25% reduction in workforce = 50% reduction food. Anything over 25% = cascading effect/severe loss in supply chain.
- What if it did get worse? Nobody’s prepared for the worst-case scenario. What’s the solution?
Answer: I think most Americans can see the PROBLEM. Fatally unprepared at the backend. Relying on HOPE alone.
SOLUTION… Two-Pronged Approach:
While our government agencies mitigate the front end (initial isolation, quarantine the sick, slow the spread, develop vaccine), we need Responsible Defense at the backend.
- For deadly pandemics: Communities, towns, and states need an emergency backup infrastructure of food/supplies. For EMP/Solar flare, and all threats that can destroy our infrastructures, we need a bit more, but we can go step by step. Our first bite at the apple is emergency food/supply reserves. We need it now. First step.
The SAFE STATE Project is promoting the standardized countermeasure that can defend us from supply chain failure. Need Trump. To Make America Safe Again, this is what he needs to do. He can bypass the SWAMP. He can defend the people and empower the states.
- What would a Safe State Look Like?
Answer: A Safe State would defend its populace from loss of supply chain, communication, and transportation. Emergency reserves, the protection of local supply chains for local populace. No panic. Strong and ready.
- Which states could become Safe States? Are there some that can’t?
- Betting our lives and freedom on hope alone goes against our natural instincts. It’s distinctly un-American. Airplanes have backup systems to prevent catastrophic failures, but we don’t. Why are we in this position?
DON TRUMBULL is an author and a former air carrier president and director of operations.
Following a ten-year mission exploring the vulnerability of our U.S. air carriers/supply chains to the catastrophic threat of solar flare/electromagnetic pulse, in 2019 his broader findings inspired a civilian countermeasure system called the SAFE STATE Project.
An achievable on-site defense for individuals, communities, and emergency services, the SAFE STATE countermeasure is a low-cost alternative to hardening the critical infrastructures.
