The Psychological importance of San Gerónimo B substation

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What happens to Caracas’ economy if the San Gerónimo B substation collapses?

The San Gerónimo B substation is a critically important node in Venezuela’s national power grid, responsible for distributing approximately 80% of the country’s electricity, including a significant portion that serves Caracas from the Guri Dam.¹

If the San Gerónimo B substation were to collapse, the economic impact on Caracas would be catastrophic and immediate, likely leading to a widespread and prolonged economic paralysis. Here’s a breakdown of the anticipated consequences:

1. Massive and Prolonged Power Outage: The most direct consequence would be a massive loss of electricity across Caracas and a large part of Venezuela. Given the substation’s central role and reports of limited redundancy in the Venezuelan grid, restoring power would be a monumental task, likely taking an extended period.
2. Business and Industrial Shutdown: With no power, the vast majority of businesses, from large factories and offices to small shops and restaurants, would be forced to shut down. Manufacturing would stop, service industries would cease operations, and commercial activity would grind to a halt.
3. Financial System Paralysis: Banks, ATMs, point-of-sale systems, and electronic transaction networks rely heavily on electricity and communication. A widespread blackout would paralyze the financial system, making it impossible to conduct transactions, access cash, or manage finances.  
4. Disruption of Essential Services: Water pumping and treatment plants require significant amounts of electricity. A power collapse would quickly lead to widespread water shortages. The telecommunications infrastructure would fail as backup power runs out. Healthcare facilities would struggle to operate critical equipment without reliable generators and fuel.  
5. Transportation and Logistics Halt: Traffic lights would not work, impacting road transport. The Caracas Metro, a key mode of public transportation, would shut down. Fuel pumps at gas stations require electricity, halting the distribution of gasoline and diesel needed for vehicles and generators. This paralysis would prevent the movement of goods and people.
6. Loss of Perishable Goods: Without refrigeration, food in homes, supermarkets, and storage facilities would spoil, exacerbating existing food scarcity issues and causing significant financial losses.
7. Supply Chain Breakdown: The inability to produce, transport, and sell goods due to a lack of power and transportation would cause supply chains to collapse, leading to severe shortages of all kinds of products.
8. Collapse of Formal Economy Activity: With businesses closed and transactions impossible, the formal economy would largely cease to function. This would result in massive losses in revenue, wages, and tax collection.
9. Increase in Informal Economy and Potential Crime: While some limited informal economic activity might persist, the desperation caused by the lack of essentials could also lead to an increase in looting and crime, further undermining security and stability necessary for any economic function.

In essence, the collapse of the San Gerónimo B substation would pull the plug on the economic life support for Caracas and large swathes of the country. It would transform the city into a state of prolonged standstill, where the basic conditions required for a functioning economy are absent, leading directly to an economic collapse far more severe and widespread than the collapse of a single building.

What are the psychological impacts?

Building on the severe economic and practical consequences, the psychological impact of a collapse at the San Gerónimo B substation, causing a prolonged, widespread blackout in Caracas, would be devastating and multilayered. It would amplify many of the psychological stressors already present in a crisis-affected environment.

Here’s what the psychological impacts would likely include:

1. Heightened Fear and Panic: The sudden and widespread loss of power, knowing its central source has failed, would trigger immediate fear for personal safety, especially in a city with existing security concerns. The darkness, inability to communicate, and uncertainty of duration would fuel panic.
2. Overwhelming Stress and Anxiety: The inability to perform basic daily tasks – cooking, storing food, accessing water, communicating with family, traveling, working – creates immense, chronic stress. This constant state of anxiety about survival and the well-being of loved ones is debilitating.
3. Profound Helplessness and Loss of Agency: Relying entirely on an external, failed system for basic needs instills a deep sense of helplessness. Individuals lose their ability to control their immediate environment and circumstances, which can be psychologically crippling.
4. Increased Frustration and Social Tension: The shared hardship and inability to resolve immediate problems lead to widespread frustration. This can easily boil over into interpersonal conflicts within families, neighborhoods, and the broader community as resources become scarce and anxieties run high.
5. Exacerbation of Depression and Despair: For a population already facing economic hardship and uncertainty, a complete infrastructure collapse removes any remaining sense of normalcy or hope for improvement. The loss of livelihoods, the visible breakdown of society, and the grim prospects can deepen existing depression and lead to widespread despair.
6. Acute and Chronic Trauma: The experience of living through such a collapse, potentially witnessing looting, violence, or simply the struggle for necessities, can be deeply traumatizing. The prolonged nature of the event would likely lead to chronic trauma responses.
7. Isolation and Breakdown of Social Support: Communication failures (phone networks, internet) would cut people off from their support systems – friends and extended family. This isolation, combined with the erosion of trust during crises, weakens the social fabric essential for psychological resilience.
8. Physical and Mental Exhaustion: The constant stress, anxiety, disrupted sleep cycles (due to heat, lack of fans/AC, security fears), and increased physical effort required for tasks like fetching water or searching for food would lead to severe exhaustion, further impairing coping abilities and mental health.
9. Moral and Ethical Stress: Desperate circumstances might force individuals to make difficult moral choices regarding resource acquisition or survival, leading to significant psychological distress and guilt.

Finally, the psychological landscape of Caracas after such a collapse would be one of severe distress, marked by pervasive anxiety, trauma, and a breakdown of the social and personal resources needed for well-being. It would be a humanitarian crisis with a profound and lasting impact on the mental health of the population.

San Geronimo Google Maps Profile:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Eq6tMja7CuQQWrLV6?g_st=ac

1. https://youtu.be/df0xcGUIe_s ↩︎

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https://apnews.com/general-news-42d3c5c6d3d842b183b509e29bba87e4?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share