The Day the Screen Went Dark
If you’ve been listening to Flow of Wisdom for any length of time, you’ve heard me come back to this idea again and again:
Our systems work—until they don’t.
This isn’t about fear. It’s about awareness.
Recent events have made that painfully clear. The 2026 outage involving Verizon left over a million people without service for hours. Puerto Rico endured a 100-day power blackout that forced hospitals, homes, and entire cities into survival mode. Even emergency alerts and payment systems failed.
And pop culture didn’t imagine this out of nowhere. In Leave the World Behind, the warning was simple: when communication fails, confusion spreads—and panic follows.
So let’s cut through the noise.
Here are 10 practical things you can do if another major outage hits—not to scare you, but to steady you.
1. Keep Physical Cash on Hand
When power goes out, so do ATMs, card readers, and mobile payment apps. The Federal Emergency Management Agency specifically recommends keeping emergency cash because electronic systems are often the first to fail.
https://www.ready.gov/financial-preparedness
Ask yourself: If my phone stopped working right now, could I still buy food?
2. Print What You Can’t Afford to Lose
IDs, insurance policies, mortgage info, medical paperwork—if it only lives in the cloud, it doesn’t exist during an outage.
FEMA advises maintaining physical copies of critical documents in case digital access disappears.
Redundancy isn’t paranoia. It’s planning.
3. Rediscover the Radio
When cell towers go quiet, the radio still talks. This is why I would tell my students, when they say “radio is dying.” I laugh because in situations like this, the world will rely on the radio to get its information.
The Federal Communications Commission emphasizes that broadcast radio remains one of the most reliable ways to receive emergency information during outages.
If you don’t own a radio, remember this: your car radio still works.
4. Know the Limits of “SOS Mode.”
Most smartphones can still attempt emergency calls when networks are partially down. But here’s what many people don’t realize: 911 may not be able to call you back.
The FCC has issued advisories about this exact limitation during network disruptions.
That means you need a plan—not just a phone.
