Power outage planning for Penrith

The "90 days" story is a garbled version of something real

The viral claim is that the Pentagon ordered US military bases to plan for 90 days without the grid, which got spun into "a 90-day blackout is coming".1

The underlying document is FORTRESS America, a readiness plan requiring every military department and defense agency to operate independently for at least 90 days, including access to water, electricity, fuel and communications.1 Experts quoted at the time were explicit that the initiative is not an announcement of an active blackout, power cut or impending attack.1

A separate 90-day figure comes from CSIS war-gaming of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, which is a scenario study rather than a forecast.20

So the premise is overcooked, but the instinct behind it is not crazy, because Sydney's real exposure is bushfire and flood rather than cyber-war.

What actually breaks, and in what order

The chaos cascades, and every link in the chain depends on electricity.

Fridge and freezer. A fridge holds food cold for around four hours, after which it can begin to spoil, and a freezer should not defrost for around 24 hours.6 Cooked food that cannot be finished within two hours of a power failure should be thrown out.6

Mobile coverage. Cell towers run on battery, and Telstra has retrofitted 341 regional sites to extend reserves from three hours up to 12 hours.15 That upgrade targeted regional and remote towns with federal funding, so metropolitan Sydney should be treated as hours of coverage rather than days.

Money. EFTPOS terminals and ATMs need both power and a working network, and during the 2019-20 fires petrol stations and retailers went cash-only because networks and ATMs were down.5 NSW Energy advises holding cash specifically for prolonged outages when electronic payment systems fail.9

Trains. Penrith station is electrified, on the T1 Western Line, and has been since October 1955.21 A power failure on the Sydney network in 2025 stopped trains across the T1, T2, T3, T8 and T9 lines plus the Blue Mountains Line.23 Blue Mountains Line services run on diesel only beyond Lithgow because of electrification limits.22

Sewer. This is the under-discussed one. Sydney Water runs over 680 sewage pumping stations across more than 25,500 km of pipe to 16 treatment plants, and pumping accounts for almost 41% of the roughly 400 GWh of energy Sydney Water uses each year.14 A Galston resident described outages on his pressure sewerage system as a "genuine health issue" for his young family, with the risk of pumping sewerage back into his backyard.12 In 2015 a power outage in Sydney's south sent sewage flowing into Botany Bay.13

Water. Sydney's drinking water supply depends on electricity for pumping and treatment, which is the same energy-hungry pumping and treatment that consumes those 400 GWh a year.14

Food. Retail refrigeration dies, supply chains break, and the pantry becomes the only food source.6

Heat. Penrith Lakes recorded 48.9 °C on 4 January 2020, the highest temperature ever recorded in the Sydney basin.18 A multi-day outage in a Penrith summer is a heat emergency before it is a convenience crisis.

How long outages actually last

Full grid collapse is rare, and AEMC records only three black system events in Australian history: 1964 in NSW, 2009 in northern Queensland and 2016 in South Australia.2

The SA 2016 event is the best analogue for a serious multi-day Australian outage, affecting 850,000 properties and approximately 1.7 million residents.4 First customers had power back by 7pm that evening and most load was restored by midnight, but all customers had supply restored only by 11 October 2016, 13 days later.3 Some parts of the state were without power for more than two days.4

For storm and bushfire damage, restoration is usually far quicker. Endeavour Energy, which covers Penrith and the Greater West as part of a network spanning from central NSW to the Blue Mountains and the South Coast,10 had 78,000 customers impacted by the January 2025 storms and was down to around 100 customers still without power by 20 January.11 The Galston outage after the 2020 fires ran for a week.12

Read those together and the conclusion is that a 90-day outage across all of Sydney is not a real scenario, while a week or two of local disruption after a severe storm is a real one that has happened repeatedly.21112

What you actually need, for a household of two

Both official NSW sources land on the same planning horizon of 14 days. The NSW Food Authority recommends households hold enough food, water and essential items for up to 14 days,6 and NSW Health frames it as planning for a 14-day stay at home, possibly without water and electricity.7 The Red Cross and Australian Food and Grocery Council pantry list sets the water figure at 3 litres per person per day.8 For two people that is 6 litres a day, or 84 litres of bottled water for 14 days, which is the arithmetic that makes this tractable rather than absurd.

Tier 1, this week, no cost

An SES emergency kit, whose published list is specific: a battery powered radio with spare batteries, a torch and spare batteries, cash because ATMs and EFTPOS may not work, at least a quarter tank of fuel, non-perishable food and water including a can opener, a first aid kit, printed emergency contacts, photo ID, insurance documents, and USB or cloud copies of key papers.5

The Hazards Near Me app, which is the NSW Government's channel for local emergency information, plus AusAlert, the new national warning system that began rolling out in October 2026 and pushes alerts directly to compatible mobile devices.17

Both of you signed up to Endeavour's outage notifications, and registering as a life support customer if anyone relies on powered medical equipment.26

Charged power banks, because NSW Energy's pre-outage list is explicit about charging phones, power banks and USB devices.9

Tier 2, the genuinely useful spend

A home battery with solar, because this is the one purchase that changes the shape of a multi-day outage when you have a fridge, medical gear, internet and lights to keep running. Two things make it much less painful right now: the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program gives a discount of around 30% on the upfront cost of installing small-scale battery systems from 5 kWh to 100 kWh,19 and from 1 July 2026 NSW's virtual power plant incentive covers batteries with capacity up to 50 kWh.25

Two warnings from the official guidance deserve serious weight. Do not attempt to rewire your house to incorporate any external power generation source such as a battery or an external or portable generator.9 And a generator in suburban use is genuinely dangerous, so it must never be run indoors or in a garage, and the gas stovetop or oven must never be used for heating.924

Gas keeps working, and your gas stovetop still cooks during most power outages, which takes cooking off the list of things to solve.24 The kitchen does need ventilating, because the electric exhaust fan will not be operational.24

Tier 3, the things people forget

Water beyond drinking, because 3 litres per person per day is the drinking figure and hygiene water is extra.8 If the sewer is not pumping then you cannot flush either, so two buckets and a camp shower solve a lot of the problem.12

Cash in small denominations rather than a single large note, because cash is likely the only currency.5

A car with fuel in it, since if trains are down the car is your transport and fuel is what constrains it.5

Heat management, because in a Penrith summer a blackout on top of 40 °C is the actual emergency, and having somewhere cool to sleep matters more than any other single item here.18

Morgan's needs, since school closures, food, boredom and a device with charge are the difference between a manageable week and a bad one for a household of two.

The one thing worth arguing about is fuel rationing and the supply chain. Australia is currently at Level 2 of the National Fuel Security Plan, "Keeping Australia moving", with fuel supply continuing to operate but localised supply disruptions occurring.16 Level 4 of that plan is "Protecting critical services for all Australians", prioritising fuel for life-supporting services, utilities and emergency services.16 A grid failure pushes in exactly the same direction as any major disruption, which is that fuel gets scarce first for the critical services rather than for your car.

What I would not do

I would not stockpile 90 days of food, because official guidance says 14 days and a 90-day stockpile buys nothing you cannot get more cheaply later while eating your money and your shelf space now.67

I would not buy a generator without thinking hard about fuel, because a generator sitting in the garage is a carbon monoxide risk and a petrol line item, and if petrol is rationed to utilities and emergency services it will not be the thing you reach for on day nine.916

If it actually happens

• Call 000 for emergencies, 132 500 for SES, and 13 77 88 for Service NSW.17
• Report the outage to Endeavour on 131 003 and check the outage map.26
• Assume fridge food is gone by the morning of day two, and use it in the right order, freezer first and then fridge.6
• Assume the sewer may not be pumping, so know where your toilet alternatives are before you need them.12
• Assume mobile coverage is a day-one problem rather than a day-three one.15
• Assume cash is the only currency you have.5
• Assume trains are gone and your commute is your own problem.2123
• If it is a hot day and the house is heating up, leave, because that is the correct answer and it is available.18

The honest summary: the 90-day story is a garbled military readiness document rather than a forecast,1 and Sydney's actual exposure is a week or two of local disruption from storm or fire damage that happens every few years.1112

A few thousand dollars of battery plus a properly packed SES kit and two weeks of pantry covers essentially all of it.519 What you cannot prepare for is fuel rationing and supply chain collapse at 90 days, because at that point you are not managing an outage, you are managing a societal breakdown, and the plan for that is to have a place to go and people to go to.16