I was watching a documentary on what would happen if D.C. was nuked. It’s called COG....continuity of government. There are 17 radio stations set up to broadcast. And a line of succession is in place. There are different locations all over the place where government officials will go. There are military teams already trained for martial law.
But what about this? We’re sitting at home and the power goes off. No big deal. It happens a lot so we wait for it come back on. And we wait and wait and wait....then we try our cell phones and they don’t work. Even with a battery powered radio the airwaves are silent. If there was an EMP how would we know? When would we know?
“But what about this? We’re sitting at home and the power goes off. No big deal. It happens a lot so we wait for it come back on. And we wait and wait and wait....then we try our cell phones and they don’t work. Even with a battery powered radio the airwaves are silent. If there was an EMP how would we know? When would we know?”
A scenario that always makes me think of the excellent PBS series ‘Connections’, which began with the New York blackout of 1977 caused by one small relay.
Anyway, week after week Connections did a fine job of illustrating just how dependent we have become on the technology that we think is our servant.
I’ve thought for years that one of the few good things that the national government could do is to encourage less of a dependency on single suppliers, whether it be electricity, or water, or food. Of course no one in politics has shown the slightest interest in doing anything like that. In fact we have become more dependent upon things functioning without a glitch.
If there is something like an EMP in our future there is going to be mass death. And that mass death will come largely because we have become overly reliant on the technologies that make our usual life possible, and we have no backup plan in case it all collapses.
You would know as soon as you jumped in your car and it wouldn’t start. Or your other car or the neighbors. The planes falling out of the sky would be a big hint too...