I keep telling everyone that a real large scale national or international apocalypse that occurs will not be a single event like the movies, but a confluence of events that occur in different times and places. A single one type, one location event can usually be contained, but multiple events of various types will quickly overwhelm resources available to stop them.
Let’s look at America for one that could be shaping up.
It would be hard to miss the current news on ebola in Africa. It started out this year as a low-key event buried in the small news articles. One village. Only a few cases. Then another village. Then another city. Then a country and another and another.
Much of the latest news deals with an American doctor that has contracted the disease. He works for a medical ministry run by Samaritan’s Purse. I’m familiar with them because my family and my church have supported them for years. Aside from his diagnosis the big news now is that he’s coming home to the US for treatment. Articles abound about him, how he’s being transported, why, and a plethora of other topics.
He’s coming to Atlanta. It makes sense because the CDC is there. Atlanta is also considered by many to be the nexus point of the world. Since 1988 it’s been the world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic and since 2005 for take-offs and landings. On average, this means over a quarter of a million passengers daily. The Atlanta metropolitan area is also the ninth largest in the country and home to over 5 million people.
If something happens and the disease gets out, this is the worst place in the world for it to happen.
Examine the potential trouble spots for something to go wrong as both he and more patients are brought to America…
- Transport from site to airport in Africa
- Transport by plane to Georgia with a team of medical specialists and crew on the plane
- Transport by ground or helicopter from Dobbins Air Reserve Base to the hospital
- Transport from there to the isolation unit
- Time in the isolation unit as a team of medical specialists work around the clock to help
- People including scientists, family, friends, security, and others who will be near the isolation unit or have access to biological samples
- Eventual disposal of the remains
Can you imagine the hundreds of people involved in this and the potential for human error?
Can something go wrong and unleash a mutated ebola virus on Atlanta? Absolutely. Can it spread beyond Atlanta in a matter of hours? Absolutely.
What if something goes wrong here at the same time as another odd event in the US?
In Toledo OH there’s a problem with the drinking water. A toxin was found in the treatment plant and over half a million people are without drinking water. The OH Governor has declared a state of emergency. It’s an ordinary toxin though, the erstwhile microcystin, caused by an algae bloom in nearby Lake Erie. Here’s the kicker- residents were advised not to even boil the water.
I wonder if that if that also includes showers, washing cars, recreational swimming, watering gardens and lawns, and feeding pets.
What if 500,000 people came down with something that mutated from this little bug at the same time as an American outbreak of ebola? What if the two affected areas met in the middle and both diseases mutated even more? Are there a few large metropolitan areas between Atlanta and Toledo or nearby?
Absolutely.
Sample Tweets if you repost this article…
#Ebola makes landfall in the US
#Atlanta has their first #ebola patients
Unsafe #drinkingwater in #Toledo OH?
This message was written by Dr. David Powers. You can always find me at www.drdavidpowers.com. Thanks for reading!