“National Security: The administration moves an advanced missile defense system to Guam because it knows a single low-yield nuke detonated at high altitude could send America back in time a hundred years.”
I don’t buy this at all. 50 years ago we had vacuum tubes and core memory which would not be susceptible to EMP. Yes, we could suffer major damage but we would recover in months.
Utilities would be up again quickly, and many of us replace our high tech stuff every year anyway.
Yup, exactly. The scaremongers need to cut back on the espresso.
Do you remember Katrina? I do. All the MSM preached about was the ninth ward. I lived through it in South Mississippi. You didn’t hear much from us. Because most of us were without power for 6 weeks or longer. That includes cell phone coverage where I was as well.
We were too busy trying to get clean water (boil water notice is a joke when you have no electricity. unless you have a wood cookstove, firewood and access to reasonably unpolluted surface water), food (grocery stores were empty for weeks down here) and access to medical care (difficult when there’s giant trees down on your main road. For mile after mile after mile).
We dug out and recovered, eventually, because the rest of the country (thanks y’all!) came to our assistance.
How, exactly, do you propose to keep 300 million people provided with clean water, or even clean food in any sort of timely manner.
Cities would burn to the ground. You just think the ‘youth mobs’ are dangerous now. Wait till there haven’t been any food deliveries to their hoods.
How could utilities be up again quickly when the transformers that would be destroyed are largely made in China? At the very least it would be months before any power started coming back on line. What would YOU do to obtain clean water, food, and heat your home in that time. Not to mention simple sanitation. How long do you think your city sewer would work without a functioning sanitation plant?
“Utilities would be up again quickly”
Actually, I don’t think so. Reasons:
1. Government moves slow. They are still cleaning up in New Jersey from that hurricane.
2. The means of production themselves would be taken out. You can’t replace Part X if Part Machine Y is also broken. And every component has to be made by another machine, all broken. And you have to have electricity to run the machines, even if they aren’t.
3. Most transportation would be gone. Say goodbye to any vehicle after about 1980 or so.
Most of the people who think about this stuff say it would be a total disaster, and perhaps take a decade to reach even some semblance of normality.
Pray it doesn’t happen.
Tell me oh wise one, why does it take weeks and even months to get the electricity back up after something as localized, relatively speaking, as a hurricane?
Fine. Turn off your house power, cut up all your credit/debut cards, and throw out all your electronics. Then get back to normal with only the vacuum tubes and core memory you have and can find.
H.J.
Back around 2005, a major transformer (about the size of a boxcar) that was one of several first-line stepdown transformers for electrical transmission lines coming into Phoenix blew up.
Until it was replaced, there were constant concerns about having to go to rolling blackouts (middle of summer).
The nearest replacement was somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Transporting it to Phoenix involved transporting it by barge to Los Angeles, then putting it on a heavy-lift truck and driving it 400 miles at 5 mph.
Then, it had to be installed.
What happens if an EMP attack destroys half of all the transformers of that type in the country? Note that those transformers are particularly susceptible to EMP damage because they are attached to very long wires.
I have never believed the notion of EMP being a huge game changer. For starters, if it is really a weapon that could literally wreck entire nations and essentially cripple any nation on earth, and one that nations with Iran and North Korea could afford with their military budgets, then US, Russia and the vast majority of European and Asian nations, and possible numerous South American and African nations, would also have them in their arsenal.
An Electro-Magnetic Pulse would be devastating to the area affected by it.
Every electronic device that contains any kind of chip, from computers to cell phones to cell phone towers to the power transformer on the pole outside your house to your HVAC system to your vehicle electronics would be instantly rendered completely useless.
Imagine yourself in this position. No water (the utility can't pump because there's no electricity). If you have a well, here's still no water because your pump won't run because there's no electricity. And, the pump got fried by the EMP. Once you are out of food, you're out of food, period. Can't get to the store, your vehicle does not run because it's electronics got fried. Even if it did, there'd be no deliveries at the store because the delivery trucks don't run either. No electric heat because of no electricity. No gas heat because there's no way the gas company can pump gas to you because there's no electricity. And if you use propane, no heat either because the gas furnace won't run because here's no electricity. And if there was electricity the furnace wouldn't run because all of it electronics have been fried. And so on and so on. At the end of a week, if you weren't dead, you'd probably wish you were.
Do yourself a favor; buy and read the book, "One Second After." The author does an outstanding job of describing the aftermath of an EMP. Spoiler alert: The first outside help arrives after one year. In the meantime, 90% of the town residents have died, most through starvation, many through suicide.
... many of us replace our high tech stuff every year anyway.
True now. But not true after an EMP. No way to get to the store and all the electronics in the store were destroyed by the EMP.
You really need to research the EMP and it's aftermath.