A thunderstorm will do it. A snowstorm will do it. So will a blizzard or — heaven forbid! — a hurricane or a tornado. They all possess the power to take our power, i.e. our electricity, from our humble abodes and leave us praying to the electron gods that the telephone poles may be mounted by professionals immediately, so that they may receive the necessary repairs and allow us once again to play video games, watch MTV, shred on our guitars — make smoothies. Whatever.

Clearly a coup d’état can do it too, because after the attempted one went down in Turkey a weekend ago Incirlik Air Base — the installation used by the United States-led coalition to take down the menace that is ISIS (Islamic State, IS, ISIL, Daesh) — is still without any power.

Thankfully, the place has backup generators, so the flights are still going out. But still.

This from the Marine Corps Times:

On Tuesday, U.S. officials said they still have no idea when or if the power will be turned back on, but they said that base operations can continue with the generator power. Over time, however, there could be more significant ramifications.

“I don’t believe it’s a limiting factor right now,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said when asked about the issue Monday. “I think it’s safe to say over time that it could become a limiting factor.”

Air conditioners, food storage and preparation, and other daily living requirements depend on power as much as the runway lighting and air operations systems do.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said he was not aware if the base power issue came up in when President Barack Obama spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday. Carter spoke with Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik on Tuesday, and the Pentagon said they discussed the importance of operations at Incirlik Air Base, but officials refused to say if the power issue came up.

“If there’s no power at Incirlik or if we remain on generated power or generator power, that’s going to be a problem going forward,” Toner said. “But again, U.S. Central Command is looking at that and obviously has contingency plans in place to address that.”

Adjustments, naturally, have been made to ensure that operations can still be performed. But why was the plug pulled in the first place?

According to CNN and the nation’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, the flow of electricity to the base was terminated so that any conspirators against the government (many of whom were Turkish military members) couldn’t use them.