Posted on 05/04/2010 5:12:37 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
There is renewed alarm about the possibility of an EMP attack electromagnetic pulse on the United States because of Iran's work on a multi-stage Space Launch Vehicle, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
And experts forecast if such an attack were a success, it effectively could throw the U.S. back into an age of agriculture.
"Within a year of that attack, nine out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can't support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity," said Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy. "And that is exactly what I believe the Iranians are working towards."
A recent launch of an SLV by Iran has sparked renewed concern of an attack that could send an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to wipe out computer controls for systems on which society has come to rely, officials say.
As the G2 Bulletin reported last week, Ronald Burgess, director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, revealed that Iran successfully launched a multi-stage SLV, the Simorgh. The device ultimately could be equipped with a nuclear bomb, which the U.S. intelligence community assesses Iran is developing.
Officials also report Iran has been testing detonation of its nuclear-capable missiles by remote control while still in high-altitude flight...
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
The now abandoned radar and missile installations in east Europe were designed by Bush to discourage the development and launch of Iranian missiles with the capabilities discussed here. Obama’s elimination of this carefully crafted defense system has told Iran to go ahead and do it.
Yeah...if you have electricity or a wood stove. Guess which won't be available should this come to pass. The one the cities don't have.
Marking
Or a small, home made solar oven (tin foil,cardboard, small turkey roasting bag). The net has sites about sterilizing water using solar. These are small and can be easily carried.
I live in an area where there are several springs that nobody knows about. I’m better off drinking out of an Oregon ditch than drinking boiled Boston tap water. Wood is about the easiest thing to find ,well, after rain, around here.
Some, like the Amish still have those tools and skills, I had them as a boy back in the fifties and I still know how to do a lot of that stuff if I could get my hands on what is needed and keep someone from killing me for my last sandwich.
I don’t actually know how realistic the scenario is but I have had a gnawing fear in the back of my mind for years because of just what you mentioned. I fear that one way or another this economic crash is going to wind up FAR WORSE than the thirties because when the SHTF many of those who are so well off today will be the most helpless if we do have to go back to the old ways. Advanced degrees don’t make one unable to cope but those who have relied solely on their advanced educations and the high paying jobs that education garnered for them may have little or no real world survival experience. Maybe if I survive I will be the old guy giving instructions on how to grow crops with a team of mules and a hoe.
This old song may yet come back in style,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIWb8HJ5gLo
Doesn’t I-64 go right through “downtown” East St. Louis?
I just finished reading "One Second After" which addresses such a scenario as an EMP wiping out the entire electric grid in this country as well as frying any and all electronics.......
Don't be so confident that because you live in rural America you will be isolated from the after effects.........
Starvation and survival can turn even the most christian peoples into roaming bands of savages bent on one thing only, food.
Food will run out real fast in the cities and when that happens, the exodus will be for the countryside.
And your local hospital? With no electricity comes the end of life support systems and those people will die. With no electricity means no refrigeration and all drugs such as insulin will expire on the shelf or passed out immediately to diabetics who will eventually die when their personal stash of insulin runs out.......
There will be no more drugs manufactured so what's avail. in your local pharmacy will be gone within days of the event.......
All the people currently on anti-depressents will regress once their drug supplies run out with no more available at the pharmacy.
Just for grins ... Is that a non-fiction or fiction book?
LOL so true! Imagine the welcoming party just as you crossed the Mississippi River on the Martin Luther King Bridge. You’d be dead before you got to E Missouri Avenue.
“...it effectively could throw the U.S. back into an age of agriculture.”
There are days when this doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
Location, location, location. City people, government wards, the sick and helpless will be poked. Period. Suburbanites, not so much, but bad. Rural and remote areas will fare best, especially those who live where electrical outages are frequent and prolonged, where distances or terrain make "extra" services less probable.
Those who store food ingredients instead of prepared items will also do better, as will those with survival or "pioneering" skills. Unplugging from the grid and shielding/disconnecting essential electronics is possible, but not much use if there is no electricity to power things back up later. Small rural towns with diesel generators for municipal power, hydropower, etc., might be able to restore limited power to essential users like hospitals, police, etc., provided the enduser equipment still works (some will).
Low tech skills, equipment, and supplies are a very wise investment, like wood stoves, matches, gardens and old-fashioned preserving techniques.
People having to do labor in order to feed themselves and their families could improve the “national character” considerably.
EMP may fry SOME unshielded electronics and some electrical systems from power surges.
To cover the whole US, it would need to be a multi-megaton weapon detonated a hundred miles up, or a bunch of hundred-kiloton weapons spread over the country. It would produce damage to electronics that are turned on, less damage to stuff that isn't on. Car computers are mostly shielded by the metal bodies of the cars.
We may lose a lot. But anybody who detonates a nuke above the US will lose everything.
I just started looking,
but those with alternative power (solar/wind) need to think about “hardening” their inverters or having spares.
“One Second After” is a fact-based work of fiction.
In a hypthothetical future scenario, ‘someone’ uses various container ships to launch several EMP nukes over much of the western world.
The story revolves around a gentleman in a small town east of Ashville, NC. (Black Mountain)
The story literally begins one second after the pulses kill all the electronics.
It is technically sound except for one story element involving a particular piece of hardened government property. But aside from that it is technically ‘right’. IT is very much a story of honor, courage and commitment. It also gives you a view into a very plausible what-if.
I recommend it as a work of fiction at worst (far better than Dale Brown) and a life-changing societal commentary at best. It WILL move you emotionally at times.
Since most of the residential damage will come from voltage spikes on the power lines, if you are lucky enough to hear about an attack, the first thing you should do is go to the basement (best place to be anyway) and turn off all circuit breakers. If you're in a car, pull off and turn off ignition.
No electricity, no life sustainng drugs, no functional hospitals, no medical facilities, no manufactured foods, no transportation, no water. And with no functional sewage systems and all the dead bodies that will have to be dealt with, the old time diseases such as typhoid, cholera, yellow fever and many others will once again ravage the population with no means of protection via innoculations.
And here in Michigan with our winters and the dense population, how long will the wood supply last to heat all the homes that will be freezing? Heat will be the least of our worries......
I would say that if 30% of rural America survived the first year that would be very optimistic........
A good reason to have an extra propane tank for your backyard grill (or extra charcoal).
Um ... that presumes you have a warning.
Once the detonation occurs, you’re hosed.
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