"When we lost telephone service and radio communication, some officers were stranded on their rooftops for four to five days, stranded in areas around the water due to rising water or displaced into other units or divisions, " Riley said.

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Then we did it again in the 20th century with the convergence of communication and energy: Centralized electricity especially the telephone and then later radio and television became the communication vehicles to manage a more dispersed Second Industrial Revolution, organized around the oil-powered internal combustion engine, suburban construction and the creation of a mass consumer society.

FORBES: Jeremy Rifkin's Third Industrial Revolution