The Pentagon FORTRESS initiative plans for bases to run 90 days off the grid. Here's how a lineman turns each piece into a calm, low-cost home plan.
The Pentagon FORTRESS initiative is a plan to keep major U.S. military bases running for at least 90 days without civilian power, water, fuel or communications, according to internal documents Fox News Digital reviewed and reported on October 25. The program was first announced on September 30, and it rests on one idea every prepper already knows: don't build your whole life on a single system you don't control.
The way I see it, the military is basically saying you can't trust the power grid, and neither should civilians. That isn't a reason to panic. It's a reason to be ready for both on-grid and off-grid scenarios: the normal days when the grid does its job, and the days your house runs on its own.
I'm a union lineman with 22 years on the grid. Most days it does its job. But big restorations take time, and I'm usually out on storm duty when they happen. So every on-grid and off-grid plan here is built for my wife and our three kids (two teens and a 10-year-old) to run without me.
Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell, who led the effort, told Fox News Digital: "We don't want to rely on standard civilian municipal infrastructure to run our national defense. We just simply can't. It's an intolerable risk." He also said: "Power is combat now. Without electricity, you lose communications, water, logistics, assembly lines and just basic military command structures."
The installation hardening pillar has a real track record behind it.
Just before 1 a.m. on April 16, 2013, someone cut fiber lines near a West Coast transmission substation, then fired on it with a 7.62 caliber rifle, according to the FBI. Seventeen transformers were damaged, and the utility put restoration costs at about $15.4 million. Customers kept their power because grid operators rerouted around the site. Repairs took nearly a month. Federal regulators then had the industry write a physical security standard for critical substations.
The slow part is replacement. The Department of Energy's 2024 report to Congress says large power transformers now commonly take 36 months to get, and up to 60.
Not every attack gets rerouted. In December 2022, gunfire disabled two substations in one county, and about 45,000 customers lost power. The utility had everyone back on five days later. As of late 2025, no one had been arrested.
Cyber is the other half. CISA, the NSA and the FBI warned in 2024 that state-backed hackers called Volt Typhoon had been hiding in the computer networks of energy, water and other utilities, in some cases for at least five years, to set up disruption in a future crisis. The 2026 U.S. intelligence threat assessment says artificial intelligence will likely speed up cyber threats. AI is adding load too: a Berkeley Lab report for the Department of Energy found data centers used 4.4 percent of U.S. electricity in 2023 and could use 6.7 to 12 percent by 2028.
A cyberattack on the grid isn't an EMP. Your phone, your power station and your radios still work. But a wide outage that drags on for weeks could hit a household just as hard, because water, fuel, stores and phone service all lean on the grid. In the first hours of a blackout, you may not know if it was ice, a worn-out part, a rifle or a hacker. For your house, the plan is the same. That's what I mean when I say you can't trust the grid: not panic, just a plan for both on-grid and off-grid days.
You don't need a pile of gear to start. Set a first-round budget of under $50. Several of the most useful steps cost nothing:
Our beginner's guide to prepping covers the first weekend. The five pieces below are how you grow from there.
FORTRESS envisions portable nuclear reactors, large-scale battery storage and microgrids for bases. The Army already has a separate program moving on the reactor side. In August, its Janus program picked five vendors and five Army posts to host nuclear microreactors, with a target of the first reactor operating by September 2028.
These aren't big plants with cooling towers. The International Atomic Energy Agency calls microreactors the smallest class of small modular reactor, typically up to 10 megawatts. The Department of Energy says they're factory built and small enough to move by truck.
The home version is solar plus a battery, sized for what actually matters. The goal: run the fridge, the well pump and your communications for a week.
For a real example, our home setup puts the kitchen fridge on an EcoFlow DELTA 3 Ultra. EcoFlow rates it at 3,072 Wh with 120-volt output only and up to 800 watts of solar input. On a fridge using 1.6 kWh a day, that's roughly two days from a full charge before solar (calculated). Add Starlink running all day and the pair needs roughly 3.4 to 4 kWh a day, so the same battery lasts less than a day (calculated). Starlink's power supply takes 100 to 240 volts AC, so a 120-volt station can run it. Running it only for check-ins stretches the battery. Our solar power calculator helps you size panels for your own loads.
That same station can't touch a 230-volt well pump. At our family cabin, the pump is a 3/4 horsepower, two-wire, 230-volt submersible, and a Honda EU7000iS runs it from its 120/240-volt outlet. Franklin's manual puts the minimum generator for a 3/4 horsepower two-wire pump at 4.5 kW (3 kW plus 50 percent, calculated). If you want battery power for a 240-volt pump, you need a system with true 240-volt output and enough surge to start the motor, connected by an electrician. Our guide to portable power station home backup goes deeper.
Bases are getting microgrids that can disconnect from the civilian grid and keep running. That's called islanding. As a lineman, this is the part of the news I care about most. Your house can island too, but only the right way.
Rooftop solar alone doesn't island. The Department of Energy says grid-tied solar switches off when grid power cuts out, for safety. To run on its own it needs a properly configured inverter and battery storage.
A generator or power station islands through a transfer switch or interlock. OSHA says a generator should connect to a building's wiring only through a transfer switch installed by a qualified electrician. An interlock kit physically stops the main and generator breakers from being on at the same time. Either one separates your house from the street before your power goes in.
Never backfeed. Plugging a generator into a wall outlet sends power back out through your panel. CPSC warns it creates an electrocution risk for utility workers and for neighbors on the same transformer. Crews may be working on your lines. This rule is not optional.
Run generators outside only, at least 20 feet from the house with the exhaust pointed away, per CPSC. Our generator carbon monoxide safety guide covers setup.
Your internet only islands if its power does. Starlink's dish talks to satellites and needs a clear view of the sky, not a local cable line. But the dish and router go dark with the rest of the house unless they're on backup power. Starlink's install guidance recommends a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to ride through brief outages and brownouts.
At home, an island means a regional blackout stops at your property line.
FORTRESS sets a requirement of at least two qualified supply or production pathways for the military's most critical dependencies.
Your house has single points of failure too. Give each one a backup:
FORTRESS calls for strategic reserves of munitions, fuel, critical minerals, electronics, spare parts and medical supplies.
You don't stock everything. You stock what breaks and what heals.
The med bag. Start with Ready.gov's list: a first aid kit, prescription medications and non-prescription basics like pain relievers, anti-diarrhea medication and antacids. Ready.gov notes that about half of all Americans take a prescription medicine every day. Ask your doctor and pharmacist how to keep a small buffer of daily medications. Our first aid essentials guide walks through the kit.
The parts bin. Look at your critical-loads list and ask what fails first. Common picks:
Label the bin and keep it where anyone at home can find it in the dark.
The 90-day standard is a planning assumption: assume resupply gets cut, then work backward to fuel and medical stockpiles. Parnell said, "You don't want to be making these decisions in the middle of a global multi-front conflict. We have to have a plan."
You don't need 90 days to borrow the method, but three days is a starting line, not a finish line. Ready.gov's baseline is several days of food and water. The American Red Cross goes further: a 3-day supply in your go-bag for evacuation, and a 2-week supply of food and water at home, at one gallon of water per person per day, plus a 7-day supply of medications.
A long outage is the one to plan for. Ice, a damaged substation or a transformer that takes months to replace can keep power off well past a long weekend. So build in steps: get to three days, then two weeks, then a month. Add one week at a time with a few extra cans on each grocery run and a couple more water jugs, so it never hits the budget all at once. Along the way, war-game a few scenarios as a family:
Give everyone a job sized to them. In our house, my older son handles the generator, the power station and the water. My wife handles all the other prep. My daughter takes care of our two cats. Our 10-year-old handles the flashlights and batteries. Then run a real test, and run at least one of them without me there. With storm duty, that's the version that matters.
Hegseth announced a companion effort the same day. Project Meridian is a 120-day study, overseen by chief technology officer Emil Michael, with Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich named as co-leads. It maps future battlefield technology and capability gaps, with findings due January 28, 2027. It's a planning study, not a home program.
Parnell's line was "Power is combat now." For a soldier, maybe. For a civilian, power is continuity. It keeps the food cold, the water running, the medicine safe and the phones, radios and internet on. As Parnell said, without electricity you lose communications.
Life as we know it runs on electricity. Without it, we're sent back in time. That's why you plan for it now.
So plan for both on-grid and off-grid days. Make your own power, keep two ways to get what matters, stock what breaks and what heals, and practice for the long one. Do it one small step at a time, with a plan your family can run whether you're home or not.
Adapt. Prepare. Evolve. Stay calm. Watch on.
*Written by Mike Sasarak, a union electrical lineman with 22+ years on the job. He sees how power actually fails, and what families need when it does, on ordinary workdays, not just big name disasters.*