Life After An EMP Attack: No Power, No Food, No Transportation, No Banking And No Internet

Right Side News ^ | 9/25/2011 | Staff

[Veggie Todd]

Why was comment #39 removed? I thought it was very germane to the conversation.

[Johnny B.]

That anything that uses electricity instantly melts and is forever unusable from that point on?

No one is making such a ridiculous statement.

There are two major problems caused by EMP.

One is modern digital electronics, which are very sensitive to static electricity. If you've every installed memory chips in a computer, you were probably warned by the vendor to take precautions to avoid generating any static electricity. A shock too small for a person to even notice can and will destroy digital electronics. Note that many chips have special circuitry to protect against shocks being applied to the pins of the chip. However, an EMP would generate "sparks" inside the chip itself. This wasn't a problem prior to microelectronics, since old-fashioned vacuum tubes are practically immune to the problem.

The other problem is very long conductors, such as power lines, and cable TV and phone lines. The induced voltage and current from an EMP is proportional to the length of the conductor. Since these lines can be miles long, a huge spike would be generated on the lines, enough so that even devices without sensitive electronics could be damaged or destroyed.

[Jumper]

The US Govt has taken great measures, within agencies and DOD, to have redudant storage sites of all electronic databanks. In fact, the US is well prepared to engage in a Global EMP war and quickly recover.

China and Russia would have surrender if they could not move, shoot or communicate with their Armed Forces - not so for the USofA. Our capacity to "disarm" and decouple Enemy Governments (read Russia + her Allies and China + her Allies), they will accept cease fire and surrender terms; for China proposed Terms are a break up into 9 differnt nations under US-UN Supervision.

The US has the capacity to protect vast numbers of electronic components, and we also have the ability to produce electronic components after an EMP war which would destroy Asian production. Can you imagin a world where the US becomes a power broker in Electronic Components which are worth their weight in gold one the production facilities and trade routes destroyed and disrupted? We could re-supply ourselves (economic boom) and the Friends/Allies of the US.

EMP is a way to win wars without actually killing populations and armies or fighting.

Stop worrying.

[Orange1998]

If everyone had to replace computers, Microsoft and Intel is the stock to own. Unemployment would be 0%.

[Travis McGee]

My EMP plan:

I figure I'll be able to start my diesel, after I bypass this and that. And the wind won't stop. And I have new sails.

[Johnny B.]

A propane generator would work until the propane ran out. Then....nothing.

Maybe, assuming it didn't have any microelectronics in its controller.

Nowadays, it's hard to find anything that is microchip-free.

[fanfan]

We heat the main area of the house during the winter with propane.

How long do you get out of a propane delivery? 3 Months?

I agree, read One Second After. Then panic, because most of us won't survive 3 months. :-)

[berdie]

Sadly, I must agree.

People stand outside of Walmart during those middle of the night sales and trample other people when the doors open to save $10 on a tv.

I shudder to think what would happen if things came down to survival.

[Nowhere Man]

Fat chance. This “EMP is going to ruin the world!” thing has gotten out of hand.

Even if everything, from having the correct nuclear bomb in the first place, to having a missile that can get it into high altitude over the US, to the actual EMP getting into long wire devices, etc., were to be in place the damage would be very minimal and corrected within hours and days.

EMP DOES NOT destroy all things electrical and electronic, counter to what all the ignorant survivalist types claim otherwise.

Agreed. Most cars will still run after an EMP attack, the body acts as a Faraday shield. The car will quit but you have a 90% plus chance of restarting it and get where your going although there have been some tests where on a few cars, your gauges might not work. Your transistor radio would most likely work. He main problem is that it could trip the power grid and electricity will be down in many areas and until you can reset the breakers and so on, that would be a problem. Pumping gas would be a problem of course unless you have a generator, a 12 volt pump or a hand pump. EMP is not the 800 lbs gorilla it is made out to be, more like a 500 lbs one.

[JRandomFreeper]

EMP would not destroy the entire infrastructure, just the local area.

It would sorta hurt the US if it was on Wall St. in NYC.

Oh, just BTW, EMP doesn't require a nuke, and EMP doesn't 'destroy' anything visible to the naked eye. Just those pesky little junctions in transistors in chips. And long wires (like power lines)

The last big EMP pulses that affected society were during the mid/late 1700s when telegraph wires caught on fire, and the big power outage in the NE in the 1970s. Those came from the sun.

/johnny

[Jumper]

The US Govt has taken great measures, within agencies and DOD, to have redudant storage sites of all electronic databanks. In fact, the US is well prepared to engage in a Global EMP war and quickly recover.

China and Russia would have surrender if they could not move, shoot or communicate with their Armed Forces - not so for the USofA. Our capacity to "disarm" and decouple Enemy Governments (read Russia + her Allies and China + her Allies), they will accept cease fire and surrender terms; for China proposed Terms are a break up into 9 differnt nations under US-UN Supervision.

The US has the capacity to protect vast numbers of electronic components, and we also have the ability to produce electronic components after an EMP war which would destroy Asian production. Can you imagin a world where the US becomes a power broker in Electronic Components which are worth their weight in gold one the production facilities and trade routes destroyed and disrupted? We could re-supply ourselves (economic boom) and the Friends/Allies of the US.

EMP is a way to win wars without actually killing populations and armies or fighting.

Stop worrying.

[brent13a]

The other problem is very long conductors, such as power lines, and cable TV and phone lines. The induced voltage and current from an EMP is proportional to the length of the conductor. Since these lines can be miles long, a huge spike would be generated on the lines, enough so that even devices without sensitive electronics could be damaged or destroyed.

I assume this part you're talking about a power surge. I use decent surge protectors in my house and I would assume that most high value and logistical targets would also use some sort of surge protection, at least at a minimum level. So that issue could be generously alleviated. Of course it wouldn't solve all of the problems but anyone can protect their electronics from a power surge.

[meatloaf]

How long do you think gasoline containing ethanol will remain useable?

[Bryanw92]

>> My concern is the ship launched missiles being tested by Iran.

An EMP attack requires a heavy lifter. You need to get an extremely large fission bomb 300-500 km about the surface of the Earth. Nothing ship-launched can do that. Even if they did launch something that would be a regional attack (e.g. an EMP attack against the NY-Philly-Boston metroplex) requiring a lot less altitude, we have satellites that would pinpoint the launch location. We couldn’t stop the launch but we would certainly know who to retailiate against. In addition to satellites, any Iranian naval vessel that starts heading towards the US probably gets some surface and undersea escorts for the entire trip.

[montomike]

Read the book “One Second After”

[meatloaf]

Anyone with a missile carrying a nuke that could be detonated over the continental US could do it. Check out Russia’s missile in a container.

[Johnny B.]

The US has the capacity to protect vast numbers of electronic components, and we also have the ability to produce electronic components after an EMP war which would destroy Asian production.

Sources?

I don't think we have the capacity to produce much in the way of microelectronics now, let alone after such an attack.

Don't forget, that all those factories completely rely on microelectronics to run. After an EMP attack, those factories will be as dead as the personal computers.

The military has been protecting their assets against EMP since the 1970s at least. However, the vast majority of civilian assets have no such protection.

An interesting aside: My brother manufactures electrically-isolated rooms, primarily for medical scanners (CAT, PET), but they also can be used to protect what's inside from EMP. They are seeing a significant increase in business from companies that want to build such rooms to house their servers and backups.

[ducttape45]

Is there anything, any type of material, that can shield electronics from an EMP blast? I’m serious here, not asking a stupid question, Ihope.

[GeronL]

Look for the book “One Second Later”, its a scary thing.

[IbJensen]

Stop worrying

Say, you're not employed as an investment counselor are you?

If you were I'd take your word and move my entire investment portfolio into your capable hands. Then I could stop worrying. Of course taking the word of a perfect stranger would mean that I was ready for padded room.