Congress warned North Korean EMP attack would kill '90% of all Americans'

The Washington Examiner ^ | Oct 12, 2017 | Paul Bedard

[bitt]

Congress was warned Thursday that North Korea is capable of attacking the U.S. today with a nuclear EMP bomb that could indefinitely shut down the electric power grid and kill 90 percent of "all Americans" within a year.

At a House hearing, experts said that North Korea could easily employ the "doomsday scenario" to turn parts of the U.S. to ashes.

In calling on the Pentagon and President Trump to move quickly to protect the grid, the experts testified that an explosion of a high-altitude nuclear bomb delivered by a missile or satellite "could be to shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans."

[fwdude]

Unless you live where the mob will not go or find you, you are helpless without serious backup.

Bingo. That is the only viable solution in the event of complete societal breakdown.

Distance is the best bulwark against anarchy.

[fwdude]

Amen.

[fwdude]

I can’t agree with you more. All I’m positing is that an EMP attack CAN initiate widespread, violent lawlessness, which has a very good chance to hurt us, or even kill us.

That said, I have your back if that ever occurs. :)

[fwdude]

We’re doomed. Doooomed.

Well, ultimately we are, right?

A very wise economics professor once told me "in the long term, we're all dead." (This is in the purely material sense, not if you're a believer.)

[fwdude]

Thanks. I’ll check it out.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...Electrical equipment will be fine. If you don’t know the difference between electrical and electronic start googling...."

Absolutely untrue, FRiend. Anything that can hold an electrical charge is at risk. .

When the US tested a HEMP burst in the South Pacific, It caused power outages a thousand miles away, in Hawaii. It melted some telephones, even. Those phones were not electronic. They took a current anyway. They melted.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...What do you mean no agriculture? An EMP attack will not kill one cow...."

Are just trolling at this point?

Unless you live next to that cow, you are not going to eat that cow. There is no way to bring it to market. All modern vehicles possess non-hardened electronics for the timing of the engine. Those vehicles won't work post-EMP.

[laplata]

Thanks for the clarification on that.

[marktwain]

All modern vehicles possess non-hardened electronics for the timing of the engine. Those vehicles won’t work post-EMP.

---

That is speculation, not backed up by testing. The best information we have is that some vehicles will be affected. Some will not. Testing has been limited and incomplete.

The effect that you mention could happen, but it has a good chance of not being correct.

I do not think a single EMP strike can blanket the entire country. The U.S. is simply too large, and optimum heights for EMP strikes limit the distance they are effective over.

Make the strike too high, and it becomes difficult to get the EMP effect. You probably need 3-5 EMP detonations to blanket the U.S.

If you only get a partial effect in the U.S., say leaving the Texas grid intact, you do not get the 90% die off. You get some version of Puerto Rico writ large, where the unaffected U.S. has sufficient resources to aid the rest in surviving and rebuilding.

It doesn’t take much to get diesel to farmers in the midwest, and to get a few trains running again to distribute food.

It would be bad, but not the 90% catastrophe.

[T-Bone Texan]

One Second After was a very sad book. Everyone should read it.

The hard decisions made by the main character were appalling.

To fence off your town and let outsiders die so as to save your own people: most people have not even made the effort to entertain that philosophical scenario. It is too painful and unpleasant, and they are too weak.

A woman was violently gang raped, and they still would not let her in. They ordered her to move on at gunpoint, as she stood at the fence, crying.

The death of his daughter due to lack of insulin was heartbreaking.

Folks today as a whole are not strong and resilient. They are weak. They are not prepared to make hard decisions, or carry out those decisions.

[AppyPappy]

Hawaii was 800 miles away and everything recovered.

http://www.businessinsider.com/first-us-test-emp-weapon-2016-11

[T-Bone Texan]

"...Vehicles and agricultural equipment stored in metal buildings will be protected...."

Are you just making stuff up now? Because that screams "made up".

[Augie]

Any vehicle with metal bodywork is a basic Faraday cage, and would survive an EMP with minimal damage to the engine control systems. Older vehicles that don’t have electronic ignition/fuel control systems would be completely unaffected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

[RFEngineer]

Not inverse square attenuation

[Augie]

central_va is correct.

Vehicles and equipment that are located in metal buildings at the moment of an EMP burst would not be affected by the EMP.

[T-Bone Texan]

Yours is a simplistic answer.

If the building has no openings, and is completely sealed, and it is grounded,then it could act like a Faraday cage, protecting the contents therein.

If there are openings, or it is not completely sealed, or it is not grounded, then the protection you 2 posit would be severely degraded.

You need all of the above for a metal structure to act in a Faraday-like manner.

[T-Bone Texan]

So, you posit that glass windows will stop EMP?.

I have never heard that posited before.

Conventional wisdom is that any opening must be smaller than the waveform. Microwave ovens, with their metal screen enmeshed into the glass, are an example.

[rw4site]

I see you’re not a deep thinker.

No electricity, no fuel pumps working. Grocery store deliveries would cease shortly and store shelves would be bare in one or two days. EBT cards would be useless. Gimmedats would rampage. Think about it!

[Pollster1]

The threat is real, and the 90% fatality rate (after a year is very plausible. First to go are any folks on insulin, followed by all other folks dependent on drugs, like blood thinners.

Insulin dependence would be fatal. Blood thinners, blood pressure, and many other medications can be omitted. Particularly with the forced weight loss and the delayed threat from many conditions treated with prescriptions, I do not expect most missed prescriptions to be fatal in the short term.

Note: I think I have read everything Travis McGee has published, and I recommend all of his writing to others.

I see weak, entitled, non-resilient people for whom a messed up order at Starbucks is a life-changing event.

I expect those people to have a hard time, along with those who take diversity and gender fluidity seriously. I also know farmers, mechanics, carpenters, and many others, particularly in small towns, who deal with life when it comes at them. The people who camp, hunt, fish, sail, and otherwise spend time in the unpredictable world are much more resilient than those for whom trivia is cause for tears. I have many friends who expect to lose power for one or more weeks in the winter and have no problem dealing with life. Losing power permanently would be a problem for them, but one they know how to handle.

[Augie]

It was a simplistic answer - I was hoping that you’d be able to comprehend it.

I wasn’t talking about the anti-gravity-hover-in-the-air kind of metal buildings that they advertise in the back of Grit magazine, but those would work great just the same as there is no need for a Faraday enclosure to be grounded in order to protect the contents from electromagnetic interference.

I was talking about regular metal buildings that are built on the ground. Being built on the ground they’re, um... you know... grounded, as in connected-to-earth. That’s what grounded means. Doors and windows amount to squat.

And the car thing... I didn’t say anything about the glass. The glass has nothing to do with the metal bodywork protecting the ECM stuff. The bits that matter are under the (metal) hood between the (metal) firewall and the (metal) radiator/grillework, on top of the (metal) engine.

I’m sure you’ve heard stories of people who were in a car that was struck by lightning and emerge completely unscathed. It wasn’t the rubber tires that protected them from harm...