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In a previous post<\/a> Bron<\/a> wrote of the necessity of what he termed a \u2018planetary mobilities analysis\u2019 which examines all<\/em> Earthly circulations, including the movement of people, objects, animals, money, data, viruses, water, heat, air, soil, sediment – and even planets themselves \u2013 within a common framework. For Bron, all such \u2018entities move in diverse and complex patterns of motion, organised into systems of mobility that sometimes synchronise in mutual interdependence, sometimes disrupt each other\u2019. These points of disruption are crucial to the transformation and evolution of systems on a \u2018far-from-equilibrium planet\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Disruptions, crises, or emergencies \u2013 moments of rupture involving the \u2018scrambling\u2019 of established patterns and routines \u2013 also provide powerful points of leverage for (planetary) mobilities researchers. Disruptions reveal social processes\u2019 dependence on various circulations, and can bring normally opaque connections and vulnerabilities sharply into focus. As well as revealing aspects of everyday life that ordinarily remain below the threshold of conscious awareness, the scrambling of established patterns and routines also reveals much about the latent capacities of systems and entities, or how they might behave otherwise under different conditions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The floods which affected the northwest UK were not humanitarian emergencies involving mass death, but their effects were nevertheless far-reaching, for those that experienced them, dramatic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n The disruptions created by the storms and floods which affected the northwest UK in December 2015<\/a> underscored the necessity of \u2018planetary\u2019 mobilities analyses. The storms and their consequences may be seen partly as local manifestations of shifting, more erratic global weather patterns, exacerbated in late 2015 by an unusually strong El Ni\u00f1o<\/a>, which also resulted in floods in southern India which killed over 500 people, record-breaking temperatures in the US, and forest fires in Australia. Whilst vulnerability to turbulent Earth forces might be a condition shared by all life on the planet (Clark 2012), the precise ways in which events like storms and floods \u2018travel through\u2019 and affect human collectives (including uneven exposure to their effects), depends on existing social, technical and spatial arrangements, as well as on the sequence of events. The floods which affected the northwest UK were not humanitarian emergencies involving mass death, but their effects were nevertheless far-reaching, for those that experienced them, dramatic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On December 5th 2015 an extratropical cyclone named by the met office as storm \u2018Desmond\u2019 hit the UK. Flooding, high winds, and damage to infrastructure led to the suspension of hundreds of rail services across the country. Cumbria, Lancashire and the Scottish Borders suffered the brunt of Desmond\u2019s force. Storm Desmond created what meteorologists refer to as an \u2018atmospheric river\u2019, delivering moist air from the Caribbean to the British Isles. This resulted in the most exceptional period of rainfall to hit the region in 248 years<\/a> (34cm in a single day), with about 5,200 homes flooded in Lancashire and Cumbria, and approximately 1,000 people evacuated from their homes in the town of Hawick in the Scottish Borders. In the city of Lancaster and the surrounding towns of Morecambe, Heysham and Carnforth, 61,000 houses lost power after an electrical substation was submerged in flood water. Mobile generators had restored electricity to most homes by 7 December, when unforeseen damage caused up to 42,000 to lose power again, resulting in many being left without electricity for three consecutive nights. For many (myself included), this was the longest period ever experienced without power. Whilst power cuts are frequent, even in the \u2018rich North\u2019, outages of this duration, affecting areas of this size, are relatively rare occurrences, which qualitatively change their character and amplifies their effects. Paradoxically, the relative infrequency of such events has increased sensitivity to their effects when they do occur.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ‘Scrambles’ designate both interruption (as in a scrambling of signals), and hasty, military-like mobilisation (as in a scrambling of fighter planes).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n The \u2018shock\u2019 of the power cuts led to a series of \u2018scrambles\u2019. As Dodds and Nuttall (2015) explain, the term designates both interruption (as in a scrambling of signals), and hasty, military-like mobilisation (as in a scrambling of fighter planes). As such the metaphor provides a useful way for thinking through disruption events, which involve the sudden (de)mobilisation of a range of entities. Such movements and blocked movements are not symptoms<\/em> of disruption (or emergency), but productive of it (Adey 2016). The most discernible \u2013 and for some reason surprising<\/em> \u2013 difference made by the power cut, was the debilitating effects which followed from the scrambling of communications channels, as mobile phone masts and a local telecommunications hub were hit. \u2018Real-time\u2019 communications, the events drove home, have become indispensable to the orchestration of daily life, with everything from supply-chains, to work shifts, to family ties and friendship groups now dependent on the forms of micro-scheduling made possible by mobile connectivity. The interruption of reliable communications produced \u2018islanding\u2019 effects (Sheller 2013), with people suddenly isolated from the friends, families and colleagues with which they are now used to being in almost continual contact with. Indeed it felt as if the city itself had become an island, cut loose from an \u2018electric mainland\u2019. During this liminal period, cast adrift from our supporting electric lifeworlds yet anticipating the eventual restoration of power and resumption of normal life, people were described as running around like \u2018headless chickens\u2019 or \u2018zombies<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n #lancashirefloods<\/a> wow last 24 hours demonstarted our utter dependence on electricity and vulnerability to elements!<\/p>\n \u2014 extreme mobilities (@extremobilities) December 6, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the night of December 5th I remember reading about the floods that were affecting the region via my twitter feed, seeing the lights in the room flicker, and preparing myself for a possible power cut. I remember assuming, bizarrely, that as my laptop\u2019s battery was fully charged my surfing would remain uninterrupted in the event of a power cut. Minutes later the lights went out, and a split second after that my connection went dead. \u2018Of course\u2019, I remember thinking, our wi-fi depends on a router plugged into the mains downstairs! Our on-going research has shown that many, including even the most technically literate, were similarly caught off-guard by the power cut\u2019s effects on communications. Whilst on a conscious level, we are aware of communications\u2019 systems dependence on electricity, the fact that so many of us were surprised in this way, despite what we knew or what we thought<\/em> we knew, reveals the powerful hold of habits and unconscious assumptions over people\u2019s engagement with technology. The events revealed an embodied, reflex assumption that communications are somehow autonomous from electricity. Perhaps the proliferation of \u2018mobile\u2019 phones and computers, or devices not directly tethered to electrical sockets, has helped nurture such intuitions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The events revealed an embodied, reflex assumption that communications are somehow autonomous from electricity. Perhaps the proliferation of \u2018mobile\u2019 phones and computers, or devices not directly tethered to electrical sockets, has helped nurture such intuitions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n Yet paradoxically, whilst our devices may no longer be tethered to plug sockets, the growth of mobile systems and \u2018cloud\u2019 services has increased reliance on immobile infrastructure (Mackenzie 2013; Starosielski 2015), as well as produced additional demand for electricity. \u2018Portables\u2019 require lengthy charging, and their increasing significance in daily life has moored social relations more deeply into electricity infrastructures. These developments have occurred rapidly in terms of the pace of technological innovation, but in too slow and incremental a fashion for people to consciously appreciate – until failure occurs. Without digital connectivity, \u2018old\u2019 technologies returned to the fore, as queues formed outside phone boxes, as students went to contact families, with many using a phone box for the first time.\u00a0The local radio station<\/a>, which had its own generator, became a crucial node, gathering and disseminating news to a city lacking reliable information channels. As well as demonstrating dependence on infrastructure, such events also demonstrate the relative autonomy of social life from specific infrastructures, as people were able to improvise and route around failure (Lin 2014).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As well as interrupting therefore, the jolt of the power cut also mobilised or generated<\/em>. Civic agencies and institutions rushed to put emergency plans into place and a fleet of diesel-fuelled generators were scrambled into position from around the country. The fracturing of digitally mediated social networks often led to people turning to those physically nearest, housemates, neighbours etc., reanimating dormant connections and face-to-face sociality, as people rushed to find friends and loved ones, or knocked on neighbours doors, offering candles, hot water, blankets, gas cooking etc. Many, with nothing left to do in their homes, converged on the centre of town, or took to their vehicles and roads without functioning traffic lights, either just to go for a drive, or flee the powerless zone. Many just took to their cars for heat and to access information via the radio. I remember the roar of vehicle traffic contrasting with the eerie quiet indoors, as the familiar hums and whirs of domestic heating, cooling and entertainment systems suddenly fell silent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two questions seemed to recur throughout the period: \u2018who\u2019s in the same boat as us?\u2019 and \u2018who can tell us what\u2019s going on?\u2019. With the sudden communications failure, many people were left clueless as to the geographical extent of the power cut. Some in more rural locations described not knowing whether the failure affected only their street, village, region, or even the entire country. For all they knew (which was nothing at all without communications!), the blackout might be affecting the whole world. From our location on a hill close to the town centre, we could look out the window and see complete darkness around the city, but lights in the distance, leading us to infer that the power cut was likely confined to the city. Some, myself included, had intermittent but highly unreliable mobile signal. With occasional signal (and a \u2018dumb\u2019 phone with longer battery!), I was sometimes able to contact people outside Lancaster, although not people inside. Relying on people hundreds of miles away for information on what was happening in our own locality \u2013 indeed ultimately, in our own homes – felt profoundly disorientating. As it turned out however, those in the powered zone, and as the tweet below shows, even the power company themselves at times, were more or less \u2018in the same boat\u2019 as us regarding \u2018what was happening\u2019. National news media focused on the more devastating, but also easier to visualise flooding that hit parts of Cumbria particularly badly, and updates from the power company\u2019s twitter account were often outdated or at odds with what people were experiencing. Coordinating complex systems like electricity grids is an extremely challenging undertaking, especially at times of crisis. No \u2018god\u2019s eye view\u2019 is possible, especially as events have a tendency to move faster than information can be gathered and relayed, both within the organisation, whose heterogeneous character is both revealed and exacerbated at points of disruption, and to the wider public. Indeed as it turned out, occupants (like ourselves) had the best \u2018view\u2019 of the situation, as like a shock, we experienced the return of power long before outsiders, including the power company, were able to inform us of its restoration. The scrambling of established routines induced circular searches for information, and as typical of disruptions, fantasises<\/em> regarding \u2018outsiders\u2019\u2019 possession of, or access to, superior knowledge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n @chrisgggggggg<\/a> Hi Chris, we tweeted as soon as we knew. Those that went off knew before us here. Sorry \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n\n
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