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“Most of the military equipment is EMP hardened. So they would be able to provide some emergency services right away. “

They don’t have the supplies to make it last. ie they can meet their own needs- Food. fuel. but ...

Service members will also be concerned about family members at home but can’t reach cuz the lines are dead at the family end.

The military will be our only non-self-served hope for social order. But they cannot be our grocery store.

For instance there is no way the soldiers posted at Fort Benning could serve the needs of MEtro Atlanta, or even Columbus.

After 4 days there’s no fresh water in Atlanta (save the creeks and rivers.) There’s no food after 10 days. There’s no fuel, no lights at night; no police or fire response. The lords of the flies will emerge rapidly in Atlanta and the US Army cannot stop it.

The military will likely welcome encountering local well-regulated militia who are maintaining local order and securing the peace.

They don’t have the supplies to make it last. ie they can meet their own needs- Food. fuel. but ...

My point was that the military could use HEMMETS to move electricians and supplies of cables to start repairing the electrical system. Not everything, but they could get critical services up and running again. The Nuclear carriers and subs are EMP hardened power stations, use the military to tie them into the net and you can start bringing the coastal cities back on line, at least enough to get the water running again.

Railways could be back up and running at reduced capacity in a few days. Sure they would have to use train orders instead of CTC and they would need to put back the caboose in order to have a conductor or switch man manually throw the turnouts. Locomotives last an average of 40 years so some of the old GP-38s and GP-7s that have low tech electronics would still work. Especially if they were not in operation at the time of the pulse. And you might even have to rob the old steamers out of Strausburg. Low speed and reduced capacity but they would be able to haul some food from the grain elevators and cattle ranches into the cities.

"and anything connected to electrical cables, which act as giant lightning rods or antennae — will be affected by the pulse. " However equipment that does not have power running through it at the time of the pulse will be much less likely to be damaged. Now a car with its battery has power on even when the ignition is off. But cars on the lot with the battery pulled don't. And older diesels without electronic fuel injection are darn near immune. So some civilian vehicles would be back on the roads immediately afterwords. Not many, but we are talking absolute minimum survival here. A few truck loads of grain or a C-5 food drop might leave a city hungry, but they can keep them alive.

The military will be our only non-self-served hope for social order. But they cannot be our grocery store.

They don't have to run the grocery store. They just have to keep the people from taking more than their ration. It is going to be Ethiopian food distribution in the cities. And that is something that the military can do.

After 4 days there’s no fresh water in Atlanta (save the creeks and rivers.) There’s no food after 10 days. There’s no fuel, no lights at night; no police or fire response. The lords of the flies will emerge rapidly in Atlanta and the US Army cannot stop it.

The US military has big portable generators for use on their fire bases. Now those won't power a city, but the will power a water pumping station. And they have the HEMMETS to move them to where they are needed. They can bring in the local technicians and their own electricians to fix the damage to the pumps. And they have the discipline to keep Lootie from raiding the power station to keep his Heineken cool. Four days would be tight, but again they would have some water back up. Even if they have to haul it out in tanker trucks for distribution. Again their trucks will run because they are EMP hardened.