Posted on 05/26/2009 5:56:11 PM PDT by LiveFreeOrDieUSA
Sunlight fills the bedroom. It's past 8 a.m., and it's cold. Why didn't the alarm go off? The bathroom lights are out. The house is without power. The battery-operated radio plays nothing but static. The phone is dead. What on earth has happened?
In fact, what happened was not on Earth. It was above it. A nuclear weapon has detonated high over North America, an explosion so far up that neither the flash nor bang disturbed anyone slumbering in darkened bedrooms across the United States. Electrical systems and computers from New York City to San Francisco cease to function. City streets turn into chaos. Fires break out, and no communications are available to send trucks to fight them. The sick and injured perish in overwhelmed, energy-sapped hospitals. Survivors, unable to fill their gas tanks, slowly walk away from the dead zone, unsure where to go or what they will find.
This scenario may sound like the plot of a science-fiction movie, but Bill Graham, former science adviser to President Reagan, says it's a realistic portrayal of what would happen to the United States after a massive electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage.org ...
Yes, I read it. I still don’t look at anything quite the same way. Even if the possiblity is remote, it makes sense to at least try to be prepared.
The take away for me was that when things go haywire, like after a natural disaster, we tend to think in terms of hours, days, unfortunately even weeks, for life to get back to normal. Consider the possiblity of years.
Yep, just check all my personal home defense devices (while cleaning them) … not a chip in the bunch. Nor are the self-contained projectiles associated with them computer controlled. Guess I’m safe. ;-)
“Why does every idiot...”
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You’re talking about an explosion close to the ground. We’re talking about space buddy. The equivalent of hitting the broadside of a barn... with a rock.
I think you are pretty much correct. I am an EE and have been following this for quite a while. I don’t think small things like computers will get hit, but even if they do no one will care. The problem is that power transmission will be out for a long while. It will destroy the power transformers and other components that support the grid along with some generator facilities. Transformers take a long time to manufacture and replace. I would think in a large EMP event it could be up to a year to get the grid up.
While we are replacing the transformers we will have no electricity, which means no refrigeration. We would be back to the 19th century. This is something hard to imagine in a large city, however, I think it is very real. It will make 9/11 a walk in the park.
At the last IEEE annual meeting I brought this up with a few scientists. The subject of the meeting was the smart grid. There are lots of people pushing spending on the smart grid. At the same time there seems to be very little understanding of EMP and how dangerous it is. The response I got was that if this happens we are screwed.
It is possible to rework the system, at a cost, to protect the grid. Who would pay for the upgrade? Power systems are utilities or privately owned. I hate to say it but this will have to happen before anyone will pay attention. In the mean time as the guy said, we are screwed.
Give up, America!
Quit!
You cannot exist if we have even ONE nuke!
So you have 2400 big warheads and a few thousand small ones- we will defeat you with merely ONE!
Give up, don’t fight, surrender to our EMP threat!
Your puny technology is useless! Don’t build defenses!
(believe our propaganda!)
This is why my Ham radio, computer, and 1200 watt TEOTWAWKI generator live in a Faraday cage.
The US nuclear forces are hardened to resist EMP and submarine launched nukes would be immune to EMP. We thus we could massively retaliate against any nation that perpetrated such an attack against the US. However, the current occupant of the White House might just as well surrender.
It would take out a BUNCH of satellites. No GPS. (No DirecTV.) The military and the rest of us rely heavily on satellite communications these days.
Some power disruptions would be a big problem for city folks and the unprepared.
EMP would certainly be part of an assault against CONUS, but I can’t imagine who would have the balls to start something like that. I know that our nukes are EMP-hardened, so the counterstrike would be massive.
In any case, it pays to be prepared with good stores and self-defense options.
Just Imagine trying to harden every Cell phone and Cell Phone network,as well as every P.C. that's running in every business in the U.S.
Near impossible to harden all of those things.
No one is saying this. They are talking about EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse), which can cause the internal destruction of electronic and electrical devices. Not talking about destroying buildings, houses, people. Read about it here: http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm>
Yeah? And they thought, testing the first Atomic bomb, could ignite the entire atmosphere and burn the earth up...
This one needs to be filed in the fantasy file, right next to the Global Warming fantasy file.
Yes, it would take a 10 Mt nuke, not a 20 kt one (like NK just detonated).
“This one needs to be filed in the fantasy file, right next to the Global Warming fantasy file.”
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I wish you were right, but this is very, very real. unfortunately.
I see opinions go both ways on the danger, but it looks to me like the ones saying it is a real threat have a little better handle on the facts. I'm hopeful that more equipment would survive than the pessimists think, but worst case, the total loss of electronic infrastructure (or close to it) would create an incredible catastrophe. Coupled with other EMP strikes in nations that would be expected to launch major relief efforts (as in the online book Lights Out) and I would not be surprised to see 50-90% mortality nationwide in the first couple years. After that things would even out and we'd start to claw ourselves back out of the 19th century.
ditto - my thoughts exactly. It would be some nuke to take down everything from coast-to-coast. I believe other indications would have been noted in that scenario.
And most of them are in Washington, D.C.
DennisM, do you have any feel for the survivability of cars and similar transportation? What about the same hardware sitting on warehouse shelves? If cars start after an EMP strike, I think we’d muddle through OK with the loss of electricity. It would still be bad (especially in arid areas if they lost water pressure, etc.), but transportation will make a huge difference if it is still widely available. If vehicles could be quickly repaired with off the shelf replacement body computers, etc., that were fried, then at least a portion of the automotive fleet would soon be running again, and that likewise would mitigate the danger.
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