It could all be over tomorrow. A truly modern threat.
The threat of an EMP – via natural event or deliberate attack – remains a grave one. Its potential as a WMD looms larger than any other weapons known to man.
Due to the dependency of modern society on electricity, supply chains and cities, an electromagnetic pulse wave poses a threat that really could kill or cripple 90% of the population.
It is a system wide reset that few are prepared for.
As WND reported:
Think this couldn’t happen in today’s America?
Think again, says former Defense Department security policy analyst and WND national security writer Michael Maloof. All it would take is an EMP attack to knock out all “life-sustaining critical infrastructure.”
[…]
“And if the electrical grid system is knocked out, it affects everything that depends upon that electrical grid. It could include our telecommunications, our banking and finance systems, our petroleum and natural gas transportation systems, our food and water delivery systems, our emergency services. It also affects all of the automated control devices that we take for granted every day, like the automatic control of lights, our surge system.”
He added, “It would be a nightmare you’ll never wake up from.”
The impact on life supporting-medical devices alone would be devastating to millions of people in the population.
It is a stark reminder that all the high technology of this world has been built on a fragile and very vulnerable foundation.
Such an event would also render hospitals unable to help their patients, as they rely on electronics. People with pacemakers or other electrical-based medical devices would suddenly lose their source of life.
“One thing people don’t really talk about is the impact it would have on nuclear reactors,” added Maloof, who wrote about the EMP threat in his book “A Nation Forsaken.” “When you look at what happened in Fukushima in Japan a few years ago with just one reactor, the impact on something like 147 nuclear reactors we have in the United States could be not only catastrophic, but cataclysmic.”
As SHTF has reported numerous times before, these effects could be minimalized if the government worked with the private sector to reinforce the grid, and protect critical infrastructure.
The problem is that this is very expensive, the grid is very old, and the powers-thatbe are much more likely to capitalize on the fear and horror after an event has already taken place… rather than simply resolve the issue with proper shielding.
Of course, that may change. But will it be too late?
The military has moved many of its vital operations, equipment and contingency forces back to Cheyenne Mountain to reinforce the continuity of their operations; numerous government agencies have taken similar measures.
But the vast majority of the population remain dangerously unprotected. Self-reliant individuals can, however, prepare for life off the grid, and even protect backup electronics in a homemade Faraday cage, as SHTF previously reported:
“Island yourself” from the central grid… that’s former FERC chief John Wellinghoff’s advice to individuals – preppers if you will – for surviving any grid downs that could occur from an EMP, a cyber attack or other event powerful enough to interrupt the highly vulnerable primary grid.
People are beginning to understand that they need their own onsite capabilities to island themselves from the grid. That’s because the grid’s external vulnerabilities will continue to be a problem until we do have substantial amounts of distributed generation. I have a solar photovoltaic system that provides 100% of my power needs. I am looking into how I can island myself off the grid. But it is not just me, the military is moving toward micro-grids at all of their bases because they understand the vulnerability of those bases to outages.
Let us pray that the day never comes…
Read More:
A Step-By-Step Guide To Prepare For Any Disaster
Military Readies Mountain Fortress to “Shield Against EMP Attack”
“Super EMP” Capable of Disabling Power Grid Across Lower 48 States
EMP Threat: ‘Within One Year 9 Out of 10 Americans Would Be Dead’
What Are You Going To Do When A Massive EMP Blast Fries The U.S. Electrical Grid?
It Took 22 Years to Get to This Point
Iowa's governor Kim Reynolds has extended that bird flu "disaster declaration" after the virus was...
President-elect, Donald Trump has announced that he will enforce tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and...
This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The End of the American Dream. While...
This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog under the...
Commenting Policy:
Some comments on this web site are automatically moderated through our Spam protection systems. Please be patient if your comment isn’t immediately available. We’re not trying to censor you, the system just wants to make sure you’re not a robot posting random spam.
This website thrives because of its community. While we support lively debates and understand that people get excited, frustrated or angry at times, we ask that the conversation remain civil. Racism, to include any religious affiliation, will not be tolerated on this site, including the disparagement of people in the comments section.
Why did they let the power grid get old. What are our taxes being used for other then to fed the fat cat government here and overseas ?
Well, if you ain’t ready for this shit mentally, physically, and spiritually already you are dead meat. All of us that post here have tried to warn people. Most of them think we are crazy. But who is really crazy?
Menzoberranzan
Things we will learn from an EMP.
How much stuff in life can you do without. What material things people are strongly attached to. What people are really made of. What they are willing to do to live.
I wonder how quiet it will become.
Hopefully pretty quiet, after the carnage of course.
“As SHTF has reported numerous times before, these effects could be minimalized if the government worked with the private sector to reinforce the grid, and protect critical infrastructure.
The problem is that this is very expensive, the grid is very old, and the powers-that be are much more likely to capitalize on the fear and horror after an event has already taken place… rather than simply resolve the issue with proper shielding.”
True, it would be expensive to shield now. HOWEVER, preventive measures will be much cheaper than trying to repair and recover from an attack such as an EMP. After reading the book, @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex, by Shane Harris, I am much more concerned with a cyber attack against America’s grid, and specifically the consequences of a cyber attack against our nuclear power plants.
Does anyone know of a map showing the locations of all 147 nuclear power plants in the US? I may need to relocate.
Wilson,
JUST type in “NRC nuclear power plants i the USA” and you will have several to choose from most are located east of the Mississippi river.
Menzo,
The Military knows there is a BIG possibility of this happening and they starting installing at MOST bases newer types of back-up power grids, most i saw were solar and would run between 50 and 90% of power needs of the base and these were completed about 5 years ago and i also know that the military has been testing hardening everything for about 9 to 10 years and many accomplishments have been made. BUT there is NEW technology out there that is being kept VERY quiet and that is what the Russians did to the Donald Cook and where we stand on that is WAY behind and they re frantically doing research and trying to play catch up. i will also mention that this tech. would be a world changer and so they don’t won’t it out to the public, would REALLY cut the need for oil! so enough said!
I hope you make it man.
I fear my neighbors for my doors are glass.
Then prepare to be standing on the other side of the door with a wall of lead.
Bolt a section of a chain link fence over the glass doors to the frame. If possible double layer it. Just don’t cut off every exit.
You have time to change that. Do it now instead of the other “necessities”. My wife wanted a glass door and I said absolutely not, they’re way too fragile and insecure. The installer for our present door and entry installed extended bolts into the frames, He said the hardware that came with the doors, etc. were garbage, his words. Peace
Agreed.
The issue is handling family’s survival while avoiding or defending against the 280million who did not even plan for a winter storm with a weeks food in the house. Avoiding these desperate millions will be the 2nd most difficult, the first being your own survival and whether you make it to your evac location. Anyone remotely into preparedness will look at the 5×25 Rule as the first step.
You can survive 5 days without water and 25days without food, then it’s Game Over. What comes next is a crap shoot as after say 60days are the really good survivors and nasty diseases in the major population centers. There will not be many mass graves in the final stages so don’t even think about making recon or savaging Away Missions into them – it’s likely to be fatal slow or fast.
There will be resources to find later after 120days maybe…
DustyFae
Government does not own the power grid. Stick with me here and I’ll try to explain the series of events that got us where we are.
At one time in the 1970s and previously Public Utilities were privately owned but completely regulated. They generated the power and maintained the distribution system known as, “the grid”. They ran on a cost plus and petitioned the Public Utility Commissions of the various states to allow rate increases to maintain and when necessary upgrade the system. Costs were passed on to the consumer, electricity was as reliable as it could possibly be. In the 1980s the craze became “De-regulation”. PURPA allowed private entities to get into power generation. The traditional Public Utilities faced with competition held prices down and started to cut corners. Upgrades to the distribution “grid” we’re cast aside. It initially worked without a hitch because considerable “fat” or overkill was in the system. Remember they had very deep, almost unlimited pockets to operate with. Fast forward a few decades and the rubber is now meeting the road.
I read that nuclear power plants where only designed to last twenty years . Then they where to be sealed up and let sleep for one hundred years where it was believed we would have the technology to despose of them somehow. They are now pushing thirty five years? And starting to be toxic to workers. No new ones have been built and they are shutting down the coal plants. So what happens now? Planed depopulation? A fake coronal mass ejection event ? Doesn’t seem that hard to do. Turn everything off for seven weeks ? Almost two months with no power .gas food. That would free up some parking spaces. Do it early Sunday morning when the roads are clear. Shut off all the car computers.so we don’t clog the roads before we all comit suicide when the food runs out? Sounds like a solid plan. And maybe nesesary . As in a life boat situation?
The power utilities also saw what was done to the phone company. The phone company was required to give away their business. They were still tasked with maintaining infrastructure, but others got to profit from it.
Power companies saw this and backed way off on maintenance, and upgrades are only done where absolutely needed.
I believe power companies fully expect to be raped or nationalized by the government.
A nice little EMP event and the central government will nationalize our power companies to protect us……
Plan twice, prep once (aka measure three times, cut once)? 🙂
There ya go, nailed it nicely.
Once again we just saw that the “threat” is not from ‘without’ …but it is from ‘within’. Just as as ‘domestic enemies’ blew hell out of The Trade Center, they are now going to blow hell out of the grid, and after the immediately culling that follows the feds will (or hope) to have absolute and total control (with 1% of a very, very willing populace to work with).
Strike a chord with anyone else, or am I turning loony?
Most of the grid is owned by private corporations and not government agencies. To insulate the grid would require either private companies taking the incentive to do it proactively, or the government issuing new regulations requiring it. Either way, it will be the utility customers who foot the bill. As most people do not understand the need for such measures, it will be a hard sell to most people and so it would die in committee rather than become law.
Dusty
There are so many factors that go into that question. When you try to do new projects there are always protest. If you try to build a new power plant fed off of gas then people say it is dirty and will harm children. If you try to build wind mills then they kill birds and ruin the view. Nuclear they protest is unsafe and dangerous. Solar is too expensive. The war on coal is going to close all the plants on coal. Even the ones that have scrubbers and immonia injection systems.
If you try to build new lines then there are protest galore about the areas they are being built in.
The government permitting process for new projects cost millions. It is just there way of getting there money. Then there are the law suits that environmental groups are going to file. The meetings with the EPA and DEQ that take forever.
Old plants are closing ash ponds as we speak. That most would think is good for the environment. Instead environmental groups are throwing a fit because companies are putting treated water into there water sources. The water is cleaner than when they took it out due to the filtration they put it through. Still lawsuits are filed and the media goes right along with it. The media will publicize what ever lies are told because it causes fear and raises there ratings.
I will state my beliefs now. Working in the industry I say this. I do believe we should ensure that no pollutants are put into water sources, the air, ect. Do we have accidents yes. Impossible not too.That is just human nature and the fact that equipment breaks.
Nuclear is safe when done right. They have back up systems to backup systems to backup systems. The problem with an EMP event would be the spent fuel rod pools. Not the reactors. As soon as the diesel is gone for the generators then the backup systems shut down. Nuclear is the cleanest source of power.
Gas plants need more gas lines. In the winter homes have priority for the gas due to heating. It is like having an interstate. You can only get so much traffic on the line or road that you have. Gas plants have strict environmental regulations on NOX and CO that they put into the atmosphere. You are also not even allowed to put river water on the ground.
New coal plants should be left open. They are clean and have strict emissions standards themselves. In fact the whole industry does. Technology allows the coal plants to meet the standards. Billions have been spent on scrubbers and ammonia injection systems.
If the government would use the tax money they get off of the electric bills and stop extorting money using regulations then EMP protection could be easily done.
People also protest if there electric bill goes up. There are so many different things happening here. Then fines are given out to the electric companies if power is not restored in a timely manner. Hearings are held after hurricanes and such. It is just a racket. A big fight for money by all involved. Hope this answers your questions.
Wars and more wars…in todays money all the wars since the end of WW2 have probably cost around $5Trillion.
WELFARE. WELFARE, WELFARE and Vote Buying schemes of all variety!
GrumpyGrandpa,
You hit the nail on the head. If the politicians weren’t so busy spending our (the productive taxpayers) money on vote buying welfare schemes, there would be more than enough money to fix the real problems in this country. We need to restrict the rights of those living off the public dole. If you receive government handouts for say more than 6 months, you no longer have the right to vote. By doing this the welfare class couldn’t just vote for their handouts. I see no problem giving a helping hand to those who come on temporary hard times, but I do have a real problems supporting a welfare class of healthy able bodied persons from cradle to grave.
Texas, this is definitely part of all the problems we all face from our out of control behemoth government , not just the potential of an EMP. And I agree with this article it is very possible if not likely going forward. I too have written about it at length and considered all the ramifications several years ago at my site. One thing not mentioned in the article is that we have already had a CME that would have wiped out the grid previously. But we did not have a grid perse’ at that time in the 1800s. A CME would have the same affects as an EMP and it could also happen any day ?
Bottom line is that we are all far too dependent on electronics in every aspect of our lives and it likely will bite us in the ass. Perhaps sooner than most consider or want to realize. And it can be a world wide phenom.
CORPORATE WELFARE, CORPORATE WELFARE, CORPORATE WELFARE…and lobbyists-buying schemes of all variety
Dusty, The Reason they let the Power Grid get old is due to things like Reagan and Bush Family’s energy deregulation. When they inflated energy costs, companies liked to trade and flip energy, but nobody wanted to take responsibility for infrastructure replacement, It is costly and time consuming. Its was all about the Next Quarter to beat estimated profits. That would be a drag on the stock price. So letting it go and band-aiding it, and patching holes, was the name of the game. Bush didn’t care, he and Cheney were looting everything else. This all happened in the 80’s 90’s and 2000’s. Remember the Enron Pump and Dump Scheme. Enron’s CEO KennyBoy Lay, as GW Bush used to call him, lended GW BUSH his private Jet to go campaigning in. Oh, and when the whole thing crashed, people lost their life savings. Bush claimed he did’t even know Ken Lay. It was a pump and dump from the get go, and nobody was fixing the grid. And now same with the Municipal Drinking water systems Grid, that are polluted and dilapidated. Cities cannot afford clean water or the infrastructure, as they are facing bankruptcy. Rome is burning. Puerto Rico defaulting on Loans, Venisuala collapsing they can;t afford the paper the money is printed on. Its OK to take a few steps back with a Power Grid failure, and reflect, of inventing better ways of producing your own infrastructure off their Shitty Grid. Our technology has increased so fast in the last few decades, that it is out of control, and all the products are out there for complete off grid living. My taxes are $100 per acre per year off the grid. So letting the grid collapse is a good thing, maybe people will talk to each other again, exchange info instead of texting across the room. I have all these young hot Millennial chicks asking me, “If I have “WhatsAPP?” I’m thinking, lets just talk on the phone and meet up and have sex. The young are not learning interpersonal skills. Their Cell phone’s are like a pet dog or cat, and… you get the point,….Way too many chick out there right now popping way to many pills. When the Grid fails all these women will be going Batshit and loosing it, cause there will be no pills had. Or Ice Cream.
Anyway, The Loser Unprepared Clueless Dolts out there will surely be the first to die in any collapse, grid or otherwise. Besides the medically disabled, all those living in high density population centers will quickly perish. Oh the Humanity…
~WWTI… Got your Ham Radios set up yet and self powered? How about checking the air in your spare tires. It looses up to 10 Lbs a year. Oh the Humanity!!!
I REALLY DON’T CARE. If you knew how difficult my life has been the last few years… like, who cares? Really..
You ain’t seen NOTHIN’ yet.
“Used for”? Get away, slave!
The military has moved many of its vital operations, equipment and contingency forces back to Cheyenne Mountain to reinforce the continuity of their operations; numerous government agencies have taken similar measures.
Because when The Soviet Union fell, many felt we were on the verge of a New World Order and things were going to be different. Capitalism over Communism, victory. Utopia
My, how times have changed.
Somebody still wants to be King of The Hill.
I believe that an EMP event would cause major damage in the country, but I an skeptical regarding an entire country blackout
for an extended period of time.
I work for an Electrical District that distributes power from a nuclear power plant. Don’t be skeptical, it would take years for us to get large transformers as they are no longer made in the USA. I’ve checked into this and if an EMP or CME happens, we’re screwed. Not fear-mongering, just a fact.
you are right, and China is one of the largest manufacturers. They are not about to “get on it” for our needs, and so it would take them decades, and we needs about a square mile of copper (which is under Arizona somewhere), for new wiring (or do they use nothing but the aluminum-looking stuff these days)?
Me, I like my twin propane-fired Generacs and having mucho propane …but eventually even that will turn into pollution and delve us into the darkness too.
That’s just it. They’re all made to order, get in line.
How do you make a transformer WITHOUT electricity?
This is the way the world ends – in a pile of dead batteries.
Watching,
Yes it would be harder to make a whole country blackout, they ONLY need to do the most heavily populated areas and so THAT is where it will happen IF it at all, and depending on how it is done, will decide HOW long it will take to recuperate from it. there are so many scenarios and they ALL have some merit so take your pick and hold on for the ride!
Or another false flag.
http://youtu.be/Ac72x6pDTiM
Good show James, very informative.
HOWEVER NEWS FLASH WMD WAS IN IRAQ.
I was in Fallujah when they found 20 containers of MUSTARD GAS in 2008.
They also found more WMD in the country.
THE N.Y. TIMES did a article about 2 years ago, and they talked about a GAG ORDER that was imposed……….
Do I fear another FALSE FLAG?
YES I DO, and I am scared SHITLESS ………..
REMEMBER 36 Arab Training Camps are operating in this COUNTRY.
All I can say is PREP PEOPLE, PREP………
I also fear that a lot of people are going to die.
mmmmmmmmmmmm
DustyFae, I think that it is a matter of being by design. Those same ‘fat cats’, for some insane reason, think they’ll be immune from the horror that could (and maybe, will) be visited upon the rest. And those same taxes are not only ‘feeding’ them; the same dollars are being used to provide the fantasy for those people in terms of shelters and bug-out plans they intend to use.
I say, okay…….. let it happen. We shall see who survives and who is rooted out like a diseased ingrown hair.
There are tunnels through out DC. I’d presume the tyrants will all be in place to transition underground at the allotted time. From there, it’s hard telling where they will end up. It’s my understanding there are tunnels that go great distances with ample goods and servants in place. I suspect brothels and alters to worship their God and to sacrifice their first born…….
They are shutting down so may power plants , it wont take an EMP to cause problems .
It seems the old Agenda 21 plan has been forgotten by many , but its still worming its way into everything .
An EMP will simply speed up the process .
The Achilles Heel is distribution not generation.
Stacking up on Silver. The last great Bull run was about November 2010 at $17 range and within 6 months to May of 2011 silver shot up to $48.48 per Oz. That’s a $31 Pop, triple digit, in 6 months. I see the similar events setting up again, and talking place for the same returns.
Right now the NYMEX and NY Globex shorted the hell out of silver today and the Hong Kong Market trading on Silver is erasing that Shorting loss. So back up here we go again. Shorter’s are getting crushed with margin calls. Oh the Bleeding and Humanity at the NYSE. They must be fit to be tied. lol The Strength in the Chinese Yuan is crushing the Jap’s Nikkei market 518 pts down today so far..
~See this 10 year chart to see this illustration of the 6 mth 31 pt. gain in 2010 and 2011.
http://www.ebullionguide.com/price-chart-silver-last-10-years.aspx
And today’s trading chart action around the world. http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html
~WWTI… BTW/ An EMP has NO Effect on my Stack of Physical Silver. But imagine what Silver will be worth in an EMP with no credit cards, or EBT or cash.. Its a proven barter material for thousands of years. On or off the grid.
Yes, but a bowl of food from me is going to be EXPENSIVE. Better stock up on that silver. As food gets scarcer, you’re going to regret not buying 25 year shelf life food. A wheelbarrow full of silver won’t be able to get you a saltine cracker. I can’t eat silver. Nor will I trade ANY of my food away. Not for every bit of gold or silver someone may offer.
Your brilliant finally someone who understands
The magical unobtainable part that would prevent a restart of the US Power grid are those super sized transformers that put power from the power plant into the high voltage transmission system. These transformers often operate at near max capacity. An EMP could fry those transformers.
They are huge custom designed monsters that take a very long time to build.
On a brighter note. If we had a huge EMP that fried these transformers, likely the government would declare a state of emergency on those transformers that would let the military see to their manufacture and delivery. Military police and the army core would be set on every aspect of their manufacture with the authority to bring all resources, people, machinery, parts etc together to make it happen. It isn’t pretty but it works.
Normally when these transformers are made custom parts can have very long lead times. So imagine you are a supplier of a part and you tell them it will take 16 weeks to make. The next thing you will see is a detachment of Marines at your company who will ask why it takes 16 weeks. If you lack power, the military will bring you a generator. The military will literally hold a gun to your head and say make this part now. No excuse is acceptable. If a key employee is on vacation, they will find them and deliver them to work.
I worked for a defense contractor, a critical part on an active duty piece of equipment was down. We needed to make a new one. We were hours from having a “Component Emergency declared”. And this part took months to build. But we were able to help them locate the same part on other equipment that was out of service for refurbishing. That part was taken, and we were given a rush order to replace it. The emergency was avoided. Point is we were in meetings being prepared for what was about to happen, yes we were expecting MP’s at the door by morning.
Would we be down for years? Not in my estimation. Getting the grid back up would become a modern day “Manhattan Project”, unless of course the PTB want us down?
You can survive without clean water for a few days and without food for a maybe a month. They would have to build them quickly. My view is the military will quarantine all the cities and let no one in or out.
You state the obvious on a prepper web site?
To non preppers I would say; take the first step and build up a 30 day supply of food and water.
Those 30 days give you time to learn and MacGyver alternate food and water sources. It also gives the slow moving government time to respond.
Example: Why would I keep iodine pills on hand for use if there is a radiation accident or attack, especially in view of the fact that the government keeps millions of doses on the shelf for just such a disaster? In the three most recent examples of radiation disasters, Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, the government in all cases took upwards of a week to get iodine pills they had on the shelf to people. Because of holes in government response plans, and damaged communications it took even longer for people to get this critical treatment. Let me add the most critical time to get iodine pills is in the first few hours after you become aware a radiation leak has occurred. After a week you might as well almost not bother, because you are already phucked.
PT/PO,. The main transformers need a 2 year lead time, for them to be built and replaced. That was right out of the EMP Government Report. I read its entirety. But it did not include the human factor of Grid down. That is more of a worry..
Extra Transformers are like Condoms. A good prepared Guy, carries a 6 pack of condoms in his pocket,… A guy can get lucky more than once a day you know. I asked my aging buddy, “Whats in his wallet?” He said without hesitation, “An old condom with an expiration date of 1984.” I said, Sorry about your luck.. lol
~WWTI…
One of the things that management (military or civilian) resorts to in a crisis, is throwing resources at the problem. This works, sometimes, but often results in a slow-down in the overall process. Their thinking is “If it takes 9 months for a woman to produce a baby, dammit, get nine woman in here and git’r done in ! month !”
Stupid is as stupid does…
<bb
The Manhattan Project created three attamic bombs in just 4 years using 1940’s technology. One of the bombs was a plutonium bomb, it used an element that did not even exist in measurable quantities that had to be created in a nuclear reactor and refined. Prior to the start of the project none of this had ever been done.
I don’t believe an EMP event would be as catastrophic as many believe. If you have basic preps I see no reason to expect to die. Yes many will die.
Our liberal government will be wringing their hands trying to decide who should live and die? On one hand they need the producers, but on the other hand they have the entitlement slave voter class they have been building for decades to keep them in power? The slave class in the mega cities will be the first at risk of immediate death.
…and I see you are also paying attention to the ‘things’ that are taking place far in the background. (Nice digging)! Up until your post, I’ve not heard ANYONE put an EMP and Agenda 21 in the same sentence, Bravo! 🙂
Please hurry…
Same shit, new day.
GMAFB
An EMP attack would destroy the civilization we are in now….it might be a good thing. Times were much simpler about 100 years ago, especially in rural farming country. I could dig it.
I would do pretty well in an EMP. Its the other masses that are unprepared is the Human X Factor, especially when they are out of food and looting. Have lots of ammo and high capacity magazines to protect your shit.
~WWTI…
Hard to see how loss of cooling at all of the nuclear plants will be a “good thing”.
Post EMP you hear distant screams of a young girl in the silence of the night, it sounds as if she is being attacked and fighting a losing battle for her life. A gang has entered her home, proceed to rape her, and finally cannibalize the body. Are they heading your way next? Are they highly skilled?
A hellish reality is difficult to find favorable.
100 years ago appendicitis was usually if not always terminal. There are some good medical advances in this era even though there are crooks plentiful in the industry.
I saw someone throwing away an old microwave the other day, and all I could think was Faraday Cage.
I live in one of those remote areas that are a preppers dream.
But, no electricity for an extended period and this green little valley would revert to the high desert within a few months.
They call my valley “magic”. Might be just an illusion.
Important thing to balance is whether this is a ‘pulse’ that might take out power over several hundred miles, or if it continues for a full day and takes out the whole planet. One means you survive for a couple weeks until help comes – the other means you best have a real quiet hide out, lots of ammo, and some way to discreetly grow new food supplies – because help is not ever gonna come.
Emily,while I agree a more simplistic life would be nice,getting there via a emp/what have you disaster will be very brutal/ugly/bloody.I would like to see humanity do it at their own but determined pace while keeping the really needy tech but hardening it and finding and using alternitives.
I won’t hold me breath on that and tis why I and millions to degree that they can prep,would be glad though to have prepping a waste of time as all goods/skills/gear still gets daily use for most part.
Yeah WD , I agree , life can be hard enough now .
I sure as hell dont wanna see all the suffering an EMP could cause. The simple life aint so simple anyway .
No matter how much we think we know the learning curve will be brutal
Kulafarmer.
The sad part about the learning curve is that it don’t have to be brutal.
How many lives have we saved with all the info we have passed on. All the articles Mac has written and had other authors share their info.
The best part is that info will be used by those who know that bad times are ahead and want to learn skills.
yea, simple life, the real life not just the month long excursion, will be work, work, work, from dawn till dusk. my bones hurt just thinking about it
“a more simplistic life would be nice”
No it wouldn’t. The “good old days” weren’t so good. Like expectancy was 47 years old in 1900. Even the Amish, personally living without electricity benefit from a society with it.
Cheap available energy made the modern age modern. Nothing facilitated that more so than electricity.
I’d love to see a 50% die off. Way too many stupid dopes on this planet that serve no purpose whatsoever. Like planet squatters sucking air and freebees off the rest of us useful tax payers.
~WWTI…
Most of this EMP destruction is myth. It will bust the grid and it will blow some very unattainable (1-2 year delivery) pieces of hardware. However, it won’t blow your computer. It probably won’t blow a lot of things that they’re so worried about. But, as far as energy delivery? Yeah, EMP and poof, gone.
But, your tablet will still work and your computer. Get a solar charger. Oh, sure, there will be no internet but people will adapt.
I have a generator and 110 gallon of fuel to pump water and keep my freezers alive until I eat it all.
Thw worst thing will be in the cities (hehe, like its not bad already, right?) They’ll be eating each other inside of a week without lights at night.
Yep… 9-meals away from Cannibalism. You can bet on that. They will start with pets first, then other humans. That’s what will happen in the cities. All hell breaks loose and everybody goes ape-shit in 3 days.
~WWTI…
Solar EMP will kill anything connected to the electrical grid, phone lines, or cable TV lines.
Nuclear EMP will kill the above plus all micro-electronics except those in Faraday cages. Some cars will die permanently, but some others will quit and can still be restarted.
Well, yes and no. It will all depend on how things are wired and the quality of the circuit breakers in the system and building. Also, many modern electronics devices have something called a polyfuse. This fuse disconnects in an over current situation, but slowly resets the connection if left to sit for a day or two without power.
Additionally, we all carry super computers in our pockets that spend most of their time untethered from the grid. Many of them will survive as well, depending on where they are at the time of an EMP and how large an antenna they have. So, my advice is to add valuable apps to your phone that can work without the cloud and that run off either internal memory or an SD card. If you have Google maps, the latest version allows you to store the map of your local area natively so that you can still have a GPS without a cell phone connection. Many other GPS apps have similar provisions. Also, try an app called “Weather Signal”. It turns your phone into a weather station using whatever sensor array your phone comes with and does not require you to share data if you do not want to. These two recommendations are for Android devices, but there should be similar ones for iPhones as well. Oh, and speaking of Apple, there is an app for the iPhone that lets you use the CCD sensor of the camera as a rudimentary ionizing radiation detector as well as one that lets you count pulses from an old analog geiger counter. These could also come in handy as I believe they were developed post Fukushima for the needs of the people of Japan. I am pretty sure you can find a geiger counter app for Android as well, but have yet to find one I liked.
Good post. Thanks.
An EMP wouldn’t do anything to household electronics? lol… You DO realize that in an EMP all THREE WIRES suppying power to your home (ONE OF THEM IS A GROUND WIRE) are going to pump in as much power as they are hit with, INCLUDING the ground wire (which is why every electronic part you own that is hooked up to “ground” or “earth” is going to fry (because it was not designed to handle zillions of volts or amperage or ‘whatever’.
It’s as simple as that …and your 110 gallons of fuel, if you are frugal, MIGHT get you down the road 3 months, if you insulate the hell outta the freezer. Then what? Smoke or salt the meat? Both? Start now, not when you’ve no time to do anything but survive!
This is probably closer to the truth.
Most will die of dysentery and cholera long before they starve to death. You and your family don’t need to die this way: calcium hypochlorite. Cheap and last for a long time (thousands of gallons).
I call it the SHTF EVENT HORIZON.
HCKS.
Yes,we are all phucked.. good riddance.
I think solar is a great idea but wouldn’t the solar panels and other parts to the system get fried from an EMP? Maybe a couple panels in a 55 gal drum for back up be a good idea? And what would the batteries do in such a scenario?
I would keep extras of everything stored in Faraday cages. For really large items, cover them in plastic, then aluminum foil, then more plastic, and then more foil. I have done this to my older cameras, radios, computers, and backup hard drives.
I sure would miss cold beer on a very hot day.
Couldn’t care less about T.V.
Zeer pots:
ht tp://www.instructables.com/id/A-Practical-Zeer-Pot-evaporative-cooler-non-electr/
like it!!! thanks for the link. 🙂
Yea a good article to wash the last one down.
Not the reactors i’m worried about. Its the cooling ponds for spent fuel rods. Reactors can scram, ponds don’t.
I have a Min of 6 filled LP Gas Grill Tanks, stacked back. Love to have more.. That will be a very usable item in SHTF. How else you gonna make heat for a meal. Build a fire in the rain? You better have 5 ways to cook food, as a few ways will fail… Prepping prevents failure, frustration and mental collapse. The weak are too stoopid to prepare. They put their their faith in Faith. lol
~WWTI…
No doubt a lot of people will leave comments on this site who would love to see an EMP leading into economic and social collapse. They are aching for mass suffering, hunger, disease, and misery. That way, for once in their life, most people won’t be better off than them. Then you have the fruitcakes just salivating at the prospect to shoot someone. They would shoot a person in the back at a hundred yards even if the person is minding their own business. They will drive by and shoot a lost child standing on the side of the road. You see, these people are shaped by the failures in their lives; and the only way they want to fill the emptiness in their meaningless lives is to take glee in the misery of others, and harm anyone they can victimize. Take warning, no doubt some of those who leave comments here may be like that. If an encounter is inevitable with someone like that don’t fight them, just be smarter than them, they can be preemptively taken out.
As for the marauders, they will succeed initially but won’t last long either, in every culture and society they were not tolerated long and were eventually worn down and exterminated. Another are the ones who think they are tough guys, my experience has always been they are the easiest to out-think and beat, actually you can make them beat themselves.
These are only a few examples. The point is, there will be a lot of bad people, and when you have an adversary you must work the situation in a way so they are the ones who exhaust their resources, their energy, and their strength. There is nothing wrong with avoiding a fight, even if you know you will prevail. The important thing is you preserve your resources, and decide the best terms for a course of action (risks, how, when, etc.) to assure success in all challenges.
Only complete idiots WANT a grid down situation. Fools think they’ll be one of the survivors because they were a “prepper”. Luck will play a significant role in any such disaster.
Tom
I guess I am one who would like to have it all go to hell in a hand basket. Mainly because there are too many people who live off of other peoples hard work/money and they think they are entitled to it. Everyday there are more and more of them getting on the Gravy Train. As for our government and financial institutions doing what is right? They are running the country into the ground and as long as it don’t affect people they will continue to go on with life as if nothing is happening. The country needs a shake up and don’t act surprised when it does it to itself. I stopped being a Bleeding Heart a few ears ago. You are working to pay taxes to support their lifestyle that may be better than yours. Obama is giving illegal aliens more money than those on social security and we payed into this plan. Is that right?
I agree the anger and hatred is going to be great. People are going to lose it and do things they would normally not do. Those who would not listen to reason are going to pay the price in spades. The good part is I don’t have to lift a finger because the people they bring here are going to turn on them.
We need more Mexicans and Muslims to tell us how to live.
Strong men’s hearts will fail for the fear of what’s coming. If the grid goes done we know what’s coming. Mass suicide? Canibalism? Fires out of control and unstoppable ? Plan on your house burning down. Triple layer dry wall your preps. If you can’t bury them. Or buy a steel shed for your back yard. Remember this time it’s not by flood it’s by fire.
I believe its fire for Northern Hemisphere and water for southern this time around.
And a round we go……wheee!
If one is to quote scripture, it might be wise to read the rest of the prophecy’s which pretty much point to the return of Jesus. If one is saved at this point, none of this matters. Getting right by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is first and foremost by the longest measure, infinitely important.
the thing is we will not quickly shift to a pre electricity 1800 lifestyle. Did You know in the late 1800,s there was electricity in Toombstone Arizona and you could get a ice cold beer? However we simply don’t have the trappings and folks with the know how to revert back to the 1800,s. Think of the number of blacksmiths it would take to just shoe the horses & mules necessary to grow feed & food and transport it. It would be chaos and mayhem. And be a stone age existence.
I agree Old Guy. People always like to say that an EMP would throw us back to the 1800’s but they are flat wrong.
99.9% of the population don’t have the well rounded skills that would be needed to survive such an event. It really would revert to a prehistoric existence, with a few pockets of well prepared people being overrun by the have-nots.
Unfortunately, as far as your horses go, I don’t see them surviving more than a few months into the ordeal. With millions starving, it’s what’s for dinner.
Wormdirt, I doubt the nonpreppers would make it even 10 miles from any urban area. Even for traveling food and water are must-have items and they’re not going to find any. I can picture a bunch of them trying to drink water from a stream or pond without having some means of purifying it first, then they get sicker than hell. Especially if you get water from a pond. Even if you purify pond water first, there’s not a filter anywhere that can get everything out of pond water and you’ll still get sick from it. I speak from personal experience. ALWAYS get your water from a running source, purify it, and you’ll be OK. And the land whales? Hell, they couldn’t walk a quarter-mile without having a heart attack. As HCKS would say, they’re ‘phucked’.
It would be neat to watch the roving gangs on the electric scooters from Wal-Mart. Terror coming at ya at 1 MPH.
some of the horses would survive. There are thousands of wild mustangs roaming free out west on BLM land. Its in the middle of no place. No roads little water rough terrain. They might get reduced in number but pockets of those would survive.
Hopefully you can catch them.
And then somebody will have to know how to break them to the plow.
If they have a plow.
Mustangs are notorious for being untrainable. Which is why most of the adult horses captured by the BLM end up being sold and slaughtered in Mexico (or Canada) for dog and cat food.
I agree. The hordes will eat the horses. Sadly.
If this does go down, I am gonna be one mean SOB without snuff.
Grow your own tobacco.
I talked to a farmer who said you need a special kind of horse to pull a plow. And we don’t have any. A regular riding horse can’t do it. You will need fifty gallon drums of feed corn to get through this. Forget about MREs and cans of beans. Bulk animal feed in fifty gallon drums.
A work horse requires grain to be able to maintain his weight & strength. And where is the harness and horse drawn equiptment? nope we will be doing everything by hand. The early white men trappers who went west traveled by foot or on water in a canoe or raft. it was the 1700,s and pretty close to stone age. The natives they encountered living a stone age existance.
Will be hard to find those big draft horses-the gentle giants of the equine world.
Mules too.
If you do find any-guard them with purpose-people will only look at them as a big meal. 🙁
As a nuclear power plant engineer, I’m impressed at the amount of disaster and security preparations being invested in nuclear plants across the US. I live 3 miles from work and I’m confident that it will be one of the safest places to be in the event of a SHTF scenario.
The answer to the emp threat is to learn to live without electricity. The old days there was limited mechanical engineering compared to now. We now have geothermal good water filters. Solar ovens for cooking. We are light years ahead of the pioneers. There are better gardening techniques that use less water and labor. The earth is designed to meet our needs. Electric folks is a modern convenience. Plenty of people through out the world live without it. Life will continue and people will adapt to their new reality. its simple you will adapt or die. I like a simple life it will be a nice change.
I believe that if this EMP thing happens 90% of our days will be filled with very hard work trying to feed ourselves. The rest of the day would be doing things by hand like the wash, cleaning the floors, shoeing the mule etc. No room for video games here boys.
Ever see a night picture of the world?
One of the darkest spots is North Korea.
they have the worlds largest standing army,
and thanks to America liberals are developing
EMP and nuke systems with frenetic glee.
In America the brightest spots are
Liberal cities, just in range.
I think it is called natural selection.
I won’t miss the liberals.
When my wife and I were dating,I think she and her family were one of the last ‘true’ hillbillies(this was in the Smoky Mountains).Her dad was a proud,stubborn man who preferred the simple life…..no electricity,no running water,very few amenities at all.They grew probably 90% of what they ate,she and all 13 of her brothers and sisters enjoyed excellent health.To say that their life was brutal would be kind indeed.My wife has often stated that folks who speak wistfully of returning to simple times….well,they’d probably be in for a real letdown.And these folks lived all their lives working the land.Yup,we as a nation would be in dire straits without our power.Much of the knowledge base is gone,the concept of a hard days work is meaningless to much of the young folks,yup,not good,folks………
Even if you are totally off grid wouldn’t an EMP destroy your charge controller and inverter plus anything electrical you had connected to it?
If so..then do we need to have all this stuff stored in some huge Faraday cage until after the “Event” ?
IIRC, when the jetliners were grouned after 9/11, daytime temps went up and nights got cooler because the (insulating?) effects of jet exhaust were absent. Minor but measureable change that I though was interesting. Then add smog disappating from lack of many millions of cars running when the fuel stops. Heat from all that electricity will stop. Just thinking out loud here, no big brainstorm or anything.
“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”
Just your basic weather will start killing many- no AC, not even fans…
I always thought about building an underground home- naturally cool in summer, relatively warm in winter…
In the South and SW, people will literally be Going Underground to survive temps.
Nobody has to go anywhere, and I live in the South. We didn’t have AC when I was growing up, and we had summers where it was over 100 some days. The schools didn’t have AC either. We didn’t even have fans in school, unless we made them out of notebook paper. The first school building with AC that I ever had classes in was at college, and not all of them had it. So we had dogs wandering through during lectures sometimes.
Just do your work early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Close the blinds on the sunny side of the house. Open the windows, especially upstairs.
I haven’t had AC for a few years now and I’m fine. People just think it’s a necessity.
The dogs were wandering through classes because the doors were left open for ventilation.
This was at Chapel Hill during the early 1970s.
I used to live in St. Louis. Summers there could be truely horrible. I now live near El Paso- I understand, people have always lived around here, but in adobe, not framed hotboxes. It gets to 105*+ for days.
I swear nowadays they go from air conditioned cars to stores to cars to homes. Maybe you are right and we would just have to aclimate. But I think many would just keel over and kick the bucket.
But thx for the positive “we can adapt” comments, I will try to take them to heart.
But the people in the south are lucky compared to the cold east. I always worry about freezing in the winter. Sure, i got wood, but never enuf and too hard to cut as i am very old now.
Glad I have my BOL in Nova Scotia. Assuming a strike was over the heartland, of the US, google to see a typical radius of a strke’s effect. N.S is left totally unaffected. And no, it is NOT super cold there, as it is moderated by the Gulf Stream. No, it ain’t Miami.. but it also isn’t Yellowknife either, with daytime highs in Jan. right around the freezing mark
Hi all I’m back home for about a week now. Wow what a trip I was given a Buffalo hide winter coat a traditional willow bow and 3 flint tipped arrows all fully functional. The bow they’ve adapted is a short recurve made from willow sinew and horn. Id say they they are pushing 45-50 lbs @ 28″ very respectable. The coat is extreamly heavy guessing 50+ lbs.
Was a long drive home but I was glad to get here. My stripes I got will be permanently scared in a few spots my cheek bone has a micro fracture but will heal up. Other then some minor bumps scraps and bruises my Dr says I’ll be fine.
Not really much else to tell we finished the hunt , our party took Buffalo cow elk cow and moose. All pretty easy I learned a few new tricks for stalking elk. All in all it was truly an amazing experience. I’d really recommend if any of you have an opportunity similar I highly suggest you drop everything and go.
Beaver,sounds like a hell of a experience,that said,the odds of anyone having that opportunity are very unlikely to say the least.
That said,I do believe we get caught up in daily grind to a point were we do miss the signs of new opportunity that are many times obvious,we just need to open our eyes a bit.
Glad you made it home in one piece and had a rite of passage most will never get a chance to experience except vicariously thru anothers tale.
The reality is the truth is harder to handle. The airconditioned and heated comfort is not a normal natural lifestyle. The truth is hard work little comfort. luxury is only for those who have the means. Our modern world has made the facade that enables us to avoid facing the truth. We are spoiled as Americans. We have comfortable lives. This is fact. I suggest people face the truth now. Do it a little at a time because you can now. Take the stairs walk to the corner store make meals from scratch do a garden kill your meat and butcher it. Do things the hard way it will make you understand all the labor that goes into reality living. Modern people always shy away from manual labor its the reality many will have to get used to. The truth is many are so over weight and out of shape to preform the new reality will be extremely hard for them. For me I’m used to work moved 15 yards of dirt in a wheelbarrow in a weekend myselfrecently. Split and stack fire wood by hand do my garden all labor. people need to get used to sore backs aching body’s headaches it is reality. I believe you can condition your body to handle the hard labor but don’t wait till shtf start doing it now. I work with guys that don’t look all that fit but they are conditioned to do the labor and do it daily. We all live with the aches and pains.
Been waiting 26 years for this fucking EMP for christ sakes.
Or just some “major event”.
Hurry the fuck up already!
First it was 1992, then it was Y2K, then 2004, then 2006 then 2012, now 2016. Ugh, on with it already.
I’m in my little cabin typing this, and losing net and electricity would be such an insignificant thing for me its hilarious.
I’m so goddamn ready to watch the tech-addicted zombified masses commit suicide or go crazy cuz they cant deal, and just kill each other or waste away. Pathetic lot, who wouldn’t know how to survive a night in the woods.
Replace electric providers with electric equipment?
All circuits will be destroyed, you would need a manufacturing plant.
I wish we could get this all over with.
I’ve been following solar activity for quite some time.
Check out this site. Tons of awesome information, none of it BS.
They’ve actually correlated solar activity (sun spots and coronal holes) to causing earth quakes.
Suspicious observer has a daily short video every morning summarizing what happened over night and what we can expect in the next 24 hours.
“Eyes open, no fear, be safe everyone”
h ttp://suspicious0bservers.org
SolarGuy out
It would be one thing to suffer an EMP “pulse” (of a few nano-seconds) from either the sun or a man-made device.
But could you imagine trying to survive in an environment that was constantly bombarded with EMPs being thrown out by the sun (and no end in sight)? Perhaps this is what folks mean when they say that the next destruction will be by fire (and the sun is the biggest fire that I’m aware of …it is able to burn my ass and it’s 98 million miles away, so far it takes light 8 minutes or so to get here. (That’s a long ways and a “sustained EMP” has not yet been brought into the realm of possibilities …and holy moly wouldn’t THAT be a bitch)?
MAD would sill be in effect. Any EMP strike would have a return address. Just a couple of Trident Boomers would absolutely destroy any aggressor.
We kind of missed the target on 9-11 and bombed the wrong guy. Not sure an EMP attack could be properly traced either, not that it would matter to the psychos in DC.
That an EMP attack is possible is without question. What is in question is the likelihood of such an event which I would put pretty low on the odds scale.
If you’re going to prep for something, you might want to gear up for public unrest and riots given the high emotions and level of violence already occurring this election cycle. I can only see that getting worse as the election draws closer.
Miss Liza Jean I agree without any differences. What is of concern is that with the recent ‘surge of events’ that place Trump in the forefront and Hitlery taking a back seat to MANY things (not to mention The FBI is still awaiting to bring her in for questioning and answering lots of very hard questions about why did she lie repeatedly (because they have the proof making this one a riot).
I fear “the feds” will or may well induce public chaos, rioting, senseless killing, raping …there will be no safe place within a city and that goes up exponentially if you are a woman. The sexier the worse your problem.
There has to be a far deeper reason as to why the major news agencies (this year) have done nothing but report steadily on the elections, and about nothing regarding anything else. This is because they DO NOT WANT ANYONE TO KNOW HOW BAD IT REALLY IS GETTING …and the longer they can suppress it the better off they are, and the worse WE are for it. (Once again their claims of “for our own good” suck canal water).
Like you, I am expecting a federal assassination, made to look like a nutty civilian or ‘whatever’, and then the biggest bunch of shit you’ve ever seen (martial law in DC, NYC, all of Baltimore, Maryland. Nobody gets in or out of all major cities.
By the way, it was mentioned, by myself earlier in another post, that giant forklifts were being purchased (federally) and I surmised they could be used to move cars that are dead on highways from an EMP. Screw that. THEY would do nothing more than have big ole snowplows QUICKLY making paths throughout all cities, whether or not the vehicle has passengers upon impact or not. They don’t mind killing 3,000 people so they don’t mind killing millions …after all, they already have and are now shooting for ‘multiples-of-millions’ or all but 1 percent of the present populace (USA or global is beyond me nor do I care, but what a future that would NOT be for so many innocents coming into the world as of right now). Think about it because the most important we need to do as “whites” is to increase our numbers, and this is NOT to be done by having sexual relations with blacks or “different breeds”, but with white men from white families.
Is that some sort of problem lately as I seem to see more and more gorgeous women with black men. The black men knock them up, move out, wipe them out financially, never pay child support and go right out and knock up another, and another, and another (in between wasting a brother or two). That goes double for Chicago, which is nearing to be the largest metro-ghost-city in the world. If you are black and on the street after 9PM your chances of seeing the sun rise are very, very slim. (My cousin’s son is stuck up there at the moment (Navy) so I get good info for that area). Once he finishes Nuke School I’ll have more answers than I do now? lol… Y’all be safe y’hear?
We are already in a nightmare straight from hell in our collapsing Globalist Fascist Police State controlled by psychopathic monsters, an EMP would be a blessing and a sign of hope.
Look out possible emp,nuclear,tsunami,depression 1929 style, poisoning from above, no money, no food, no water, robot transhumanism implant, transgender toilet sharing future, Astroid, alien attack,vaccinated world ahead. Please make sure you have prepped and prepare accordingly.
What would happen after an EMP attack?
ht tp://forums.stardock.com/357651/page/5/
”
What would happen after an EMP attack?
By Draginol on June 27, 2009 12:29:52 AM from JoeUser Forums JoeUser Forums
After reading the book One Second After we had an interesting discussion over on JoeUser about the subject.
One user said that humans had adapted and were far too enlightened today to revert to violence and mayhem in the absence of our modern conveniences.
So let’s walk through the EMP scenario:
Day 1: July Year 200x
5 container ships in the gulf of Mexico fire medium range SCUD missiles high into the atmosphere until it reaches far above Kansas and other states. On board are 45KT nuclear warhead. It explodes creating EMP that takes out all of the integrated circuits in the United States.
That means anything electronic that hasn’t been hardened is going to be ruined. That means your computers, TVs, cars, home electronics, breaker box, phones, radios, cell phones. It also means the power companies, their generators, the backup generators at hospitals, nursing homes, etc.
All of the farms and their harvesting equipment is dead. The trucks that move food to the cities are ruined. The trains that move freight around the country are inoperable.
Every airplane flying crashes. All planes on the down are ruined.
The only thing working are US conventional forces that happened to be hardened against EMP (which means quite a few of them). Some cars stored in underground parking garages would probably work depending on the proximity.
There’s no fall out. Nobody dies from the attack directly.
Day 2:
With power out people’s fridges are DOA. With no working cars, people don’t go to work. In the country and in the suburbs, people take the food out of their refrigerators and freezers before it “goes bad” and have BBQs. It’s a fun time.
People who were driving somewhere are mostly able to make it to town. A few people die of heat stroke on their journeys. In the deep south, particularly Florida, there are a number of deaths due to the heat since air conditioning is out.
In the cities, looting begins quite quickly. The police can’t do much since they’re on foot or on horse.
We know this sort of thing because we have seen what happens during extended power outages. Of course, in those cases cars, cell phones, and other crucial devices still worked but there was still massive looting in the large cities.
Day 3:
Local agencies really don’t know what’s going on since there is no communication. No cell phones. No radio. No land lines. The grid is gone. There are spare parts but no where near enough to fix it all and because of the nature of the electrical grid, all the holes have to be plugged for the juice to flow again. And even if they had enough parts, how do they transport them? No trucks. No cars.
International relief from Japan, China, Canada (though most of Canada is taken out too), Mexico, Europe begins but it’ll be slow going. Food shipments can reach the coast in a couple of days but getting it inland will be a major problem as the vehicles will have to be transported in along with parts to try to get the railroads working again (along with teams to get dead trains off the rails).
In the subs, the party is over. It ain’t funny now. People are finishing off what was in their refrigerator. Most people still have some food in the cupboard.
Stores start rationing their supplies. People are still using money (at least, those who keep cash). A bottle of water is $20. How much cash do you keep in your house?
In the cities, riots have broken out with widespread destruction. Being July, it’s hot and dry. Fires from the riots start to spread.
End of Week 1:
By now, most people in the subs have run out of food they would normally remotely consider eating. Looting at the local Walmart and grocery stores begins as people simply take what they need.
Remember, people aren’t hearing anything from the authorities. There are no working TVs. No working radios. The handful of police are walking in the subs.
If you live in the suburbs, take a close look around. How would the police reasonably patrol your city without cars?
Meanwhile, people in nursing homes have started dying enmasse. Without refrigeration drugs quickly go bad. Anyone requiring help breathing or anything else has already died.
People with type 1 diabetes are starting to see the writing on the wall.
Meanwhile, the first container ships of relief have reached San Francisco, Seattle, LA, San Diego, Houston, Miami, Boston, NY, Washington, Raleigh. Lots of food, medicine, some parts, lots of vehicles.
Unfortunately most of those cities are in utter pandemonium. In the south, tens of thousands have already died from heat. In 2003, when there was a heat wave in France, 14800 people died. They didn’t lose power, they just didn’t have air conditioning. In Florida, the death toll is skyrocketing quickly. Same in most of the other southern states.
End of Week 2:
People are starting to die of dysentery from eating bad food, drinking bad water. Many have left the suburbs to head to rural areas where they think there is food (they’re wrong, harvest won’t happen for months, industrialized food processing involves a lot of transportation between the farms and the slaughter houses).
The typical American family, now out of food and with no access to clean water is starting to get pretty desperate.
What? Only 2 weeks? How much food do you have in your house right now? Go check. I’ll wait….
Okay back? So how much is in your pantry? How long would it last you? If you knew at the start, you might have rationed it better. But you didn’t.
Millions of Americans are wishing they had put those steaks and hamburgers and hotdogs in their basements in the cooler temperatures. Others are wishing they had salted them heavily and cooked them well done to store for the long haul.
In the cities on the coast, power is restored via backup generators relatively close to shore. However, within 10 miles from the harbor, death is everywhere. Don’t agree?
Ever been to San Francisco? LA? New York City? 14 days have passed. Where would you have gone? The smart ones, who are able to, would have found their way to the harbors and waited for air lifts of food and such. But most would probably not think about that.
Meanwhile, armed thugs are starting to systematically go through every building and house looking and taking what they need.
End of Week 3
Starvation is starting to become a real problem. If your local law enforcement had a clue, they had already gotten themselves and helpful citizens around to the stores to gather up supplies to start rationing it.
At this point, martial law has been declared by any competent city government. Some cities decide that, for the public good of course, that all community food will be collected and distributed equally to everyone. In other places, large armed mobs are violently taking what is needed to survive.
Are you a survivalist? Got all your supplies right? Got MREs in the basement. You have an AK47 that you managed to get quietly at a gun show. Your kids know how to use the two shot guns. You’ve been prepared for this day right? Great. You’re about to die.
You see, you might be able to keep a few people away. But word got around that you have supplies because you’re that guy who everyone knew was expecting to “bug out” one day when the government and black helicopters came. You might be able to take out a few people but 200+ Nope. You’re going to take a lot of them out but they’re going to come in, kill you, your family, and your supplies.
What? Don’t agree? People won’t do that? Again: Other than on the coast (in some major cities near harbors anyway) you’ve heard and seen nothing from the government other than the occasional Black Hawk flying around. No TV. No phones. No radios.
A few people have managed to dig up old HAM radios and they are getting distant broadcasts of reassurance but it’s clear that nothing’s coming any time soon if you live significantly inland, especially if you don’t live in a densely populated area.
It’s triage at this point and the rural and suburbs areas are simply too spread out. Unfortunately, in the cities, fires have consumed much of them. Anyone strong enough to get out of there has which further distributes the population.
A few older cars start showing up again on the roads as collectables and just old junkers are fixed up and are able to drive because they didn’t have electronics in them.
End of the first month:
A network of outposts are re-established in most large and medium sized cities. Medium sized cities are faring a bit better. Kalamazoo Michigan, Santa Cruz California, and other cities of this kind are doing okay now as convoys are starting to show up.
Really large cities away from the coast are dead at this point. Sorry Omaha, there’s nobody home anymore.
The Second Month:
Now is when the death toll really starts to go up. First, you have about 5% of the population that was on medication to control their mental states. This is now gone. They will mostly die off this month or take out a few others in the process.
Nearly everyone with Type 1 diabetes has died.
Virtually who requires assisted care at this point has died.
Millions of children under 2 have died. Why? Do you have any children? If you’re not nursing them, how are you feeding them at this point?
There are not many domesticated dogs left that haven’t been freed by owners.
The number of deer left that are near people has diminished to the point of being difficult to find. Same with geese, ground hogs, rabbits, etc.
Most cities of any decent size now have an outpost re-established with convoys of food now arriving. However, it’s starting to become a real problem because, well it turns out that the US and Canada supply a significant chunk of the world’s food. 47% of the world’s Soy beans are produced in the United States. 86% of the world’s corn. The bulk of the world’s wheat.
It’s during this second month that the food shipments to the United States are going to start to dry up as hunger starts to become a significant problem in China, Japan, and other countries that have to import food. The US and Canada make up 20% of the world’s food exports and if you count only basic foods the percentage nearly doubles.
The world has its first universal consensus: Oh shit.
It’s at about this time that those who were celebrating in the streets about the downfall of the great satan are starting to get the first thought that yes, they’re going to die too. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, and many other countries are about to see starvation on a level that has never been seen before.
By contrast, Europe is doing okay. Not great. But okay. Their economies are in ruins but they’re not going to die enmasse.
In Japan, where starvation is a serious concern, they and Korea have enough money to pay top dollar for the dwindling import food supply. Russia, unfortunately, is about to have a very rough year.
Needless to say, the food aid shipments to the United States are starting to dwindle. Western Europe, particularly Great Britain, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands are still sending food shipments.
If you’re on the East coast in a secure area, you’re in good shape. If you’re on the west coast, most of you are going to die.
Third Month:
The population of the United States is starting to take on the same appearance it did in 1909.
Here is what it looked like in the year 2000.
8% of the poulation was over 70. Nearly all of them have died.
3% of the population is under 4. Nearly all of them have died.
Urban populations of the United States have had staggering death tolls, particularly those not near the coasts.
Anyone requiring medication that needed to be refrigerated in order to live (anti-rejection drugs, insulin, various heart medications, for instance) has died. Easily 10% of the population on top of the above.
Around 20% of the population has starved.
Another 10% in the south who are living in places that were uninhabitable without modern technology have died. Think LA is nice? Imagine it without water. Any water.
In fact, if you live in California, take a look around. Where does your water come from? Most of the population of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Utah have died.
Power is starting to get restored due to generators and the government now had a decent supply of cars. Fixing the grid has become a priority.
While heat has killed millions in the south, we’re now getting near November. It’s starting to get cold.
The fourth month
I tell people who come and interview that Michigan’s southern part is about the same latitude as Northern California. Winters in the upper part of the United States and lower Canada aren’t that bad – if you have heat.
But we don’t have heat. Natural gas has to be pumped and pumped through a huge network across the country. When power goes out, even for a few days, a lot of infrastructure falls apart. New York’s subways, for example are gone. Much of Chicago has flooded too. Those who have enough propane will be okay, for awhile (at least until armed thugs come and take it).
By this point, restoring natural gas is not going to be a simple matter of restoring power. Ever wondered how natural gas gets to your house? It’s all repairable but it will take time and unfortunately, a lot of that expertise in people has died or is otherwise unavailable. That means bringing people in which will take more time.
If you live in northern states at this point, and you haven’t starved to death, you’re probably going to start dying of exposure.
But that’s a gift compared to what people still struggling to make it in warmer areas as we get reintroduced to cholera, TB, and diarrhea become major problems.
In fact, in 1900 the #1 cause of death in the United States was pneumonia. The #3 was diarrhea. That’s right. The runs killed more Americans than Heart disease, cancer, strokes, etc. And this November, it returns from retirement as people, without proper sanitation, start to die off from all kinds of things that were previously unheard of.
In fact, as November closes, the United States has reverted to a third world country. No, that’s not fair. Third world countries usually have electricity and their inhabitants usually know how to start a fire. Do you know how to start a fire without matches and such? Remember watching Survivor and laughing at them? They were in pretty good conditions to get a fire going. You, by contrast, are wet, cold, weakened, and not sure if it’s even a good idea to start a fire because, well, what are you going to do with it? There’s little food.
On the west coast, food shipments have dropped to a trickle. LA, Seattle, San Fran, it’s not a fun time there now.
One Year later
The grid is re-established in the midwest, the east coast, and much of the south. It’s partially re-established on the west coast thanks to help from South Korea, China, and Japan. Thanks guys. We appreciate it even if most of us are dead.
So what’s the death toll? Conservatively, you’re looking at 40% of the population of the US and Canada has died. That’s probably a best case scenario if food and equipment shipments from the rest of the world come in quickly.
A smart (well not really smart because the states that sponsor terrorists have died off due to the unintended consequences) terrorist would have also zinged Japan, South Korea, the Chinese east coast, and western Europe. If that happened, you would be looking far higher deaths everywhere as there would be no relief coming in.
The population of the United States today is over 300 million people. In 1900 it was 76 million. The biggest reason for the increase isn’t due to birth rate but rather the massive decline of the death rate. And remember, they had infrastructure back in 1900. We’d be worse off than they were because they knew how to live back then.
How many people know how to can food? How many modern Americans know how much wood to cut to burn? How many Americans live in places where they need an elevator, as a practical matter, to get to where they live?
Heck, how many Americans are simply living today because they have access to all kinds of medical technology? How many Americans are living in places that can only be inhabited thanks to modern technology? Most of the south west was a barren desert until electrical pumps became possible. Much of the south wasn’t, as a practical matter, livable until air condition.
Also, consider our immune systems of today versus what it was 100 years ago. Our sterilized world has made us very vulnerable to the bacteria and viruses that lurk just outside our electrified civilization. And they would be back to visit within weeks.
Conclusions
Is what I describe realistic? Nobody really knows. There are studies out there. The book One Second After is a bit more dire than I think it would be. And it may turn out that our infrastructure is tougher than it seems or that the types of nuclear warheads that an Iran or North Korea could produce aren’t powerful enough to cause the necessary EMP.
But what is so frightening is how vulnerable we are. It wouldn’t take much of a shove to bring down the electrical grid. You could still end up with a situation where 10% of the American population (30 million) die simply by screwing up the electrical grid for a couple months.
Do I think this will happen? Probably not. I have a lot of faith in humanity. But when one considers the things that we worry about – global warming comes to mind, it amazes me how unconcerned people are at how easily disrupted our modern lives could be given how dependent we are on our technology today”
interesting scenario. as a Floridian (under 30 years old) I would be fine without AC.
question… why are modern vehicles ruined after the EMP? wouldn’t it just be fuses that fry? with a spare battery and many extra fuses, couldn’t a modern car be repaired quickly?
it truly is not known if an EMP would do anything to a car or not …because that the car is not ground to “earth” (unless you have ‘grounding straps’ to stop getting those damned static-shocks).
Supposedly, if it isn’t grounded it cannot be harmed. So, perhaps in due time we will find out.
It depends. My theory is that most cars will still be operable post-EMP because the car’s body is basically a Faraday cage. Most cars are tested against lightning strikes with giant Tesla coils and they usually survive to drive another day.
Now as for why the theory holds that they will surely die in an EMP, you have to remember that all modern cars require microprocessors to run critical systems like the engine, transmission, ABS braking and even power steering in some cases. If an EMP’s current surge were to hit any of these microprocessors, it would blow them to pieces since they are designed to take voltages in the 3.3 to 5 volt range, not several million. Most computer circuit boards can even be killed with a static discharge from your hand on a dry winter’s day, let alone what would happen in an EMP type event. However, car computers are all inside metal casings (and many are also potted in non conductive epoxy) which do provide a degree of protection, so long as the wiring harness does not act as an antenna to collect and conduct the EMP pulse into them. However, I do still think most cars that do not have composite body shells will remain operable, but the grid connected gas stations will not. It may even be that the pumps and circuitry to run them survives, but the power transmission lines will likely be extensively damaged and along with them the transformers they need to step down the voltage to a usable level. So, it is a multidimensional problem.
You blew yourself out of the water when you admitted that The USA supplies a tremendous percentage of the worlds food supply. Knowing that the world does not wish to starve to death means, to me, that blowing it to smithereens isn’t #1 on their list, and that perhaps the greatest majority of everything we are reading is purely conjecture, …and bullshit. Hasn’t happened yet, and many have waited for the dreaded EMP well over 25yrs and counting. (We’ve been hit once, and damage was minimal because electronics barely existed – – meaning ones that were affected by EMPs).
Of course, there is always the outside chance that The NWO is planning on wiping out 99% of the earth’s population. THEN they would not need to grow much of anything to sustain their sorry asses.
Actually that’s a myth the world is fed by the USA. The USA imports a lot of food. catfish from Vietnam Beef from Australia ect. The cost to produce crops in the USA is higher than the cost of production. So the US government has support price program,s (Welfare for Farmers) that pays the difference. If there was a profitable market anything grown by big agri here would be grown in brazil Africa ect. We don’t feed the world. We are the worlds welfare provider. The USA pays for the lions share of the UN budget.
Satori
Good post.
YawwWWn
The only EMP were going to face is going to come from this Oligarchy , and its on a fast track
after reading the above post. I would have to say to you all Great job!!! If anyone is going to SURVIVE this it will be YOU!!! I pray that God will watch over you and protect YOU!!!
After reading this. I put up more Water purification equipment and More Solar lights. In protective cages. And got another AR 15 Pistol. for under $600.00. If anyone wants to know how and where I go the stuff. Just let me know.
Sgt.
Second post for those that missed the first…
I don’t pay attention to this kind of article much. I already know in my prep project in the scope the degree of severity in my plan. So when students in my computer disaster recovery class got off track and wanted to talk about what could happen with the computer crashing I would quiet them down with my loud voice and say “…In 1955 a stewardess on the tarmac of American Airlines forgot her airplane was just in back of her with the engines revved. Then without thinking she backed up into the 10,000 R.P.M. propeller!…” So I asked my class “…. What happen to her!!…” The next five minutes were filled with explanations…but not the one I wanted. So I held my hands up to quiet them and once the room was quiet I said “…nope you are all wrong. It dis-assed-her…”
In some classes the groans were as loud as a pregnant woman in labor. Then I would wait for the inevitable question “…haa…haa..what does that have to do with anything?…” With that I would answer “…what it has to do with is I am trying to save your butt’s with disaster planning/doing and not spending hours speculating on what could go wrong. We already did that at the beginning of the class when we defined the scope of our plan …now unless you have some new risk we haven’t talked about let us get back to disaster planning/doing…”
Not worried about EMP. More worried about CME.
Ive got a old diesel semi that would still function after a EMP .Its air start and has a manual injection pump.
While it would still start and run, you would have a very limited supply of fuel to run it off of and it would not be an efficient means of transportation for most uses. My ideal vehicle for one of these nightmare scenarios would be a VW Caddy (Rabbit based) pickup from the 1980’s with a diesel engine. It’s not very quick, but it uses a small non computer diesel engine and can see around 50 miles on a single gallon of fuel. When you are having to manufacture your own fuel this becomes extremely important. My second choice would be a old Mercedes Benz W123 chassis 240D with a 4 speed manual transmission to facilitate push starting. It’s not quite as practical or efficient as the VW, but they are very well made and can easily be adapted to run off a variety of fuels.
I am not saying you should get rid of your old semi. What I am saying is that you should see transportation as a multi- dimensional problem that can more efficiently be addressed with a variety of vehicles.
Does anyone else notice that the picture is from CoD Modern Warfare II?
I won’t miss TV, internet, or cell phones.
I WILL miss electric stove, toaster, furnace, hot showers, and lights at night.
I have been consuming some of my older food preps. No electricity has been used. No propane.
Canned goods, ground wheat berry flour, Wise and Mountain House dehydrated, home canned, freeze dried fruits, etc, etc…. and yes, SPAM.
Kelly Kettle water boiling, backyard homemade grill pit, solar oven, wood, and fire.
I have gotten to enjoy busting out my primitive camp gear to heat/cook my food. It is a nice break from erecting an 8×6 metal shed, building 3 more potato towers (4×4), getting ready for massive seedling transfer to outside gardens, and expanding another cache into a pit root cellar. etc,etc.
Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE my electricity! But…the thought of my vehicles not starting some day gives me more chills than if I had to depend on my fire skills during a bad winter.
I do not wish for an EMP to cull the mooching horde of breeding breeders.
However, I wouldn’t complain about a Civil War.
An EMP would look like a sprinkle next this SOB…
See;
poleshift.ning.com
troubled.times.com
zetatalk.com
http://www.zetatalk.com/teams/tteam342.htm
I can’t figure it out why neither party will not discuss the failing electric grid problem facing the US really do the power companies have such a strong lobby that no one will introduce a bill like the one a conserved senator shut down in committee after passing it with congress vote to send it forward and when the SHIT happens will we hear the same BS like Katrina or Flint or even superstorm Sandy fuk the keystone pipe line a total improvement would create many more jobs and save lives and give America a piece of mind we surely miss please call your senators and congressmen to act before it’s too late.
The EMP chicken littles are doing the same thing the global warming ‘consensus’ is doing: instead of focusing on the actual phenomenon, they just ‘go with’ a cheap and mostly ill-conceived notion (temperature will rise, electronics will be wiped out) and fill countless volumes with fictional disaster porn about ‘effects’.
By the inverse-square law, these complete EMP wipeouts like those casually tossed about would require malevolent nation-state (not a two-nuke crackpot like NK) to re-tool its entire arsenal to EMP weapons and burst them with total efficiency and complete coverage.
Yes sections of the grid would go down, and some old transformers would go, and it may take everything down in a domino effect. But it would be re-startable, local strikes of lightning already exercises our EMP handling capability on a daily basis. And we’re doing pretty good.