If the Air force is currently worried about the damage an electromagnetic pulse can do, should you be, too?
“Officials at the Joint Base San Antonio in Lackland, Texas, issued a request for bids to carry out a survey of a facility called the Petroleum, Oil and Lubrication Complex,” reports LiveScience.
“The survey will identify any equipment that could be vulnerable to an EMP ahead of more detailed vulnerability testing, according to the request. After that, officials would figure out ways to keep that equipment safe in the event of an EMP attack.”
“You can use a single weapon to collapse the entire North American power grid,” said defense analyst Peter Pry, who served on the Congressional EMP Commission, which was set up to assess the threat of EMP attacks but shut down in 2017.
“Once the electric grid goes down, everything would collapse … Everything depends on electricity: telecommunications, transportation, even water.”
The threat posed by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) was once considered by the mainstream as simply the stuff of science fiction or lone nut jobs living in rooms lined with tin foil.
In fact, many experts still believe that since no one is testing detonating nukes in the atmosphere, and since anyone firing a nuke at us would be asking for all-out nuclear war, that the possibility is too far-fetched. But that doesn’t obviate the possibility of it happening, no matter the results. This dismissal of the threat also presupposed that anyone detonating a nuke over the U.S. would be a rational actor, and would care about any consequences afterwards.
Further, the danger to our national power grid isn’t only a product of what might happen if a terrorist group or rogue state fired a nuke at us.
Yousaf M. Butt, a physicist and foreign affairs officer in the State Department’s Space and Advanced Technology office noted in The Space Review, that “it is virtually guaranteed that a powerful geomagnetic storm, capable of knocking out a significant section of the U.S. electrical grid, will occur within the next few decades.”
“Historically large storms have a potential to cause power grid blackouts and transformer damage of unprecedented proportions, long-term blackouts, and lengthy restoration times, and chronic shortages for multiple years are possible.”
Worse, electronicdesign.com tells us that “you don’t need a nuclear explosion to generate an EMP. A study commissioned by the Australian Air Force concluded that the most likely way of creating high-powered microwaves (HPMs) that could be used as a weapon is via a device known as a vircator.
“These work by storing electricity into a coil of wires wrapped around an explosive and then discharging it. The flowing electricity creates a magnetic field, which is then compressed as the explosion occurs. This causes a low-frequency EMP that accelerates electrons to high energies.
“Such a burst could yield enough energy to disrupt computer chips and a plethora of electronic equipment that is the lifeblood of many warfare systems. But it doesn’t end there. Financial centres would be paralysed, medical systems would fail, aviation and other transport control systems would be thrown into chaos; the list is a long one. For many countries, the effect would be a commercial and social disaster – always a juicy incentive for terrorist organisations.”
Even the corporate media is onboard, as the mainstream media poster child USA Today ran an article warning of the dangers of an EMP attack way back in its Oct. 27, 2010 edition. Titled One EMP burst and the world goes dark, Dan Vergano leads with, “The sky erupts. Cities darken, food spoils and homes fall silent. Civilization collapses. End-of-the-world novel? A video game? Or could such a scenario loom in America’s future?”
Could an EMP come from the sun?
The approximately 11-year solar cycle (can be 14-15 years) will hit its maximum in the 2020s, possibly this year, or any of the next few years. Solar flares have caused blackouts in the past.
Auroraborealispage.net explains what can happen during a strong solar maximum:
Sunspots increase and harbor more energy. At times, this energy is released in the form of coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
A CME consists of plasma from the sun itself – electrons and protons – with an accompanying magnetic field. When these charged particles strike the earth’s magnetosphere, they travel down the magnetic field lines to the poles, colliding with atoms in our atmosphere along the way.
The energized ejected material can also strike satellites, causing drag and damage to electronic circuitry. GPS units and telecommunications may be disrupted. In a severe geomagnetic storm, astronauts and high-altitude jet passengers can receive higher than normal doses of radiation. Power grids on earth may fail as a result of the massive influx of energy.”
Bad actor threat
An EMP would shut down the nation’s power grid, silence communications and render everything containing electronics — from cell phones to airliners — inoperable. Water would cease to flow as pumping stations shut down. Grocery store shelves would be bare within hours. The banking system would crash.
Those in poor health depending upon machines to stay alive would be dead in minutes. Within days the weak and infirm would be dead from dehydration. As the crisis grew, riots would ensue and people would turn on one another. As an example of how bad it could get, just check out some of the headlines from the Black Friday madness at stores across the country. And those incidents stemmed from anxiety over low-priced convenience and luxury items — not things that meant the difference between life and death.
The Heritage Foundation issued a report, EMP Attacks — What The U.S. Must Do Now, that outlined the dangers of an EMP attack and suggested a to-do list for any administration and Congress to better prepare the nation for such an attack.
According to The Heritage Foundation, the U.S. must take steps to:
- Prevent the threat. Regardless of the mitigation and response measures, a massive EMP impact could have a devastating impact on the United States. Washington must pursue an aggressive protect-and-defend strategy, including comprehensive missile defense; modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent; and adopting proactive nonproliferation and counter-proliferation measures, both unilaterally and in partnership with allies.
- Provide resilience. Measures must be adopted to ensure the resilience of the U.S.-Canadian electrical grid and telecommunications systems, including developing limited redundancy and identifying means for the timely replacement of essential damaged parts or their rapid substitution.
- Plan for the unthinkable. The U.S. must have robust pre-disaster planning — with practical exercises that include top officials who rehearse a wide variety of contingency scenarios — that integrates federal, state, local, private-sector, non-governmental organizations, and international support.
- Protect the capacity to communicate. The U.S. must have the means to establish assured emergency broadcast as well as interactive communications both within the U.S. and across the globe. An EMP strike can easily obliterate America’s electrical, telecommunications, transportation, financial, food, and water infrastructures, rendering the United States helpless to coordinate actions and deliver services essential for daily life. In the words of former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, an EMP “is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies.”
Christopher M. Lehman Sr., special assistant for national security affairs to President Reagan, recently wrote in The Washington Times: “The good news is that there are relatively simple and inexpensive solutions available that can reduce and even eliminate this existential threat to our nation. Our power grid can be protected inexpensively by shielding the transformers and the control systems and provide a resilience that will allow a quick recovery from such an event. Our cars and trucks and home appliances can all be protected from the EMP threat at a moderate cost of a few hundred dollars.”
Will any of these recommendations be heeded by the Biden Administration? Of all the programs that government is considering, this is one concern that must remain front and center. And expecting that Congress and the President will screw it up — as they do most everything else — or ignore it in the face of their current communist agenda, it’s something that everyone must prepare for themselves.
How to prepare?
Consider what life will be like when your electronic conveniences — and necessities — are no longer available. Then store food, water, medicines, sundry items, guns and ammunition — and hard money for the barter economy that will develop later.
I always consider it prudent to grow at least some of your own food if you can and to store food and water for emergencies.
So why the focus on hydration and storing water? Simple, if you don’t pay attention you’ll become ill at best and the worst-case scenario is death. Water keeps the body working, and a lack of water will start to shut the body down until it stops working altogether.
The common practice is to have bottled water on hand, but water can also be stored in food-safe barrels and specialty containers that are manufactured for long-term water storage.
Even though you may already set aside plenty of water for an emergency, this is an area where having a backup plan is absolutely necessary. The way to accomplish this is to have a water purification system available. Every member of the family should have an individual water filter like a straw filter, and there should be an additional large filter for the family if possible. You can find all these options here and prepare according to your family’s needs.
Written by Bob Livingston
