In this entry
Government offices lost power, communications and access to their records as the Turning spread. Citizens looking for help found that public employees were losing the same systems everyone else depended on. Requests could not be processed, messages could not get through and ordinary staff had to evacuate buildings alongside the people they were serving.
A government's authority could not keep an office functioning without electricity, staff, equipment and a way to communicate. Central records and distant decision makers became difficult or impossible to reach. People had to make immediate choices without the information they expected those institutions to provide.
For survivors, the failure changed what they were willing to depend on. Many had already lost confidence during the currency crisis. The Turning then removed the practical services they still relied upon. The city's rejection of a new centralized government grows out of that experience, even though its residents continue to disagree about how much organization corporations should provide.
