AC......COME BACK !!!
Posted on 04/17/2005 9:11:53 PM PDT by kingattax
Recently a Senate Judiciary subcommittee of which I am chairman held a hearing on a major threat to the American people, one that could come not only from terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda but from rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea.
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies -- terrorist or otherwise. And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light.
Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years.
Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity).
The inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social order.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It may be even easier than a SCUD with a nuke. Read about the "Poor Man's EMP". As an interesting aside, note the date on the Popular Mechanics article.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1281421.html
Ham radio, freeze-dried food, water distillation apparatus, and an ample supply of firearms and ammo.
I'm ready... Are you?
hopefully the country that launched such an attack would be a smoking hole surrounded by the glazed glass of melted sand .
Makes the W2K senario seem tame. W2K didn't happen. Let's hope this doesn't either.
Sounds like the predictions for Y2K.
Jeez, that is wonderful pre-bedtime reading---nightmares, here I come!!!
FYI
Iran, N. Korea, al Qaeda: led by the most brutal psychopaths on the face of the earth. Turning off our lights is not their way.
What would this do with the ability to launch our land-based nuclear arsenal if need be?
I hope your radio has vacuum tubes. They are supposed to be highly resistant to an EMP. Gotta love that old technology.
In addition, depending on the electronics, you have many pieces of equipment that would survive and work fine. It's one of the reasns I always keep an old hunting vehicle around (mainly because we can beat the heck out of it in the mountains and not worry) becaue the old point and condensers would not be impacted. Plus, many military and governmental sites are hardened against this.
Finally, people lived for a long, long time without refrigeration. We'd get through until things were put back together and whoever did it would be slagged to a point where they couldn't ever be put back together again. I believe it would take a nation state to pull this off and they would be playing to our overwhelming advantage in nuclear arms.
Not effect it a bit. Our strategic assets are EMP hardened.
HW101 - old Heathkit tube radio.
I can also build one from parts, if necessary.
I'm prepared with all that stuff. My wife works as a dispatcher for the local PD. We had a wind storm last week that knocked out power to the electric pumps at the city wells. No electricity, no water. The river that passes through town would be inadequate to supply our needs. It is 20 miles north to the Snake river where satisfactory water supplies would be available. When the gas tank runs dry, that is quite a bicycle ride. Some of our local power is hydroelectric and locally distributed. That would be some help.
Unless you have an old KWM-2 or other all tube rig, the EMP would burn out your reciever front ends, at a minium. Depending on how close you were to the EMP source, even the tubes might arc over ... but you probably have spares for all the tubes.
It would indeed... Only problem with that scenario is the the SCUD, including it's NK improved versions, does not have the range to reach the US. By the time the NKs have something that can, we'll have a minimu missle defense up, easily able to take out anything the NKs could send anytime in the next 20 years or so. Of course there are others with missles able to reach the US, or even put a bomb to be detonated later, into a low orbit, where it will work just as well.
Very little. The Soviets always had this capability and many scenarios postulated they'd use it as the opening move in a nuclear war. Our systems, most especially our nuclear retaliatory systems, are designed to handle it, by various means. I could say more, but then I'd have to shoot you. :)
LOL
Also, if Kim Jong IL launched anything towards the continental US he would be signing his nations death warrant.
NK would be radioactive for about 10 years, then the South Koreans could move in and build some nice hotels and golf courses.
L
Is your personal computer?
Aren't we supposed to have something by 2006 or 2007? I thought Bush signed a bill, but I have heard nothing about the issue...
AC......COME BACK !!!
Thanks for the answers.
Sounds like science fiction to me. What about portable generators? Would this affect appliances that are not plugged in or turned on? What about vehicles that are not running? No doubt this scenario would be highly disruptive for a short time, but I think this doomsday stuff is overblown.
Hey.. I have an old "Hot Water" 101 stuffed in the back of a closet.
Aint seen it in years....maybe someday it will come in handy :-)
No, but I don't consider my personal computer to be a strategic asset or even to be a necessary item in a post-technology world.
I remember the winter of 1977 in Columbus, OH and the blizzard that shut the distribution system down for nearly a week. The grocery store shelves were dead empty and it would have gotten desperate in just a day or two more.
Right wrong or indifferent, our civilization is now balanced on the head of a pin, running on Just-in-Time planning, and vulnerable to disruptions of goods and services arriving from all over the globe to supply the residents of our Cities.
I am not sure how many if any big transformers were fried in the recent east coast outage, but it wasn't many. This is because the Power System defends itself by cutting away, dropping the connection to preserve the rest. In the case of an EMP, this might not be possible fast enough to avoid damage to more transformers then are the minimum necessary to restore service. If this was to happen, depending on the scope of the damage, it literally could be years fixing the mess.
Meanwhile, the US economy would implode.
The cost to avoid this scenario, about 50 maybe 75 of these big transformers (WAG - not based on any thorough analysis) on order via Utility Companies being required to have a spare Transformer for each major type they utilize , and perhaps a number of spares based on some assessment of risk due to EMP. Having these spares would cut the event to at most weeks. They would have to be paid for and these cost millions of dollars each, but even a billion dollars worth of spares would be cheap, prolly 20 cents per month extra on our utility bills.
Yep, that's where mine is... I use a TX-2000 these days :)
But.... an old-fashioned rig has it's place in case of emergency.
True.
But, though I am sure vital military stuff etc. is protected, there would be chaos in the cities as personal devices fail etc.
Number one...there would be lots of power left in the country short of something like I describe(and Lurker described in his post) describes with many TN bombs in low earth orbit. Second, our grid can handle more than most people think, (ie. it is not as thin skinned as descreibed, and finally, the people of this country would pull together and get by IMHO. Sure there would be uphevel and sure there would be those who went ballistic or off the deep end, but before all was said and done, we would respond harshly to our attackers in such a scenario playing to our strength, we would rebuild, however long it took (years if necessary) and we would come out of it even stronger.
That's my own opinion in the face of this particular doomsayer. I am much more concerned about our loss of moral values as a people because that is the key to responding to this or anyother calamity. If that continued as the left/socialist/progressive, etc. (call them what you will) want...then almost any calamity can be our undoing. The latest election, IMHO, indicates to me (gratefully) that there are still vast numbers (tens and tens of millions) who hold on to basice, fundamental moral principle and faith...and that will be our saving.
There is a whole system of reliability analysis and coordination already in place and its these people who are the ones crying wake up. The North American Electric Reliability Commission (NERC) is charged with maintaining the reliability of the overall system. These people have been making dire warnings for years, without any discussion of EMP worries.
The individual Public Utilities Regulatory organizations are also charged with maintaining this reliability and through them, the electric utilities. But, the world of electric utilities is changing. Independent Power Producers and a total lack of investment in the electric "grid" because of the NIMBY (Not in my back yard) crowd have left us vulnerable to brushfires, much less nuclear strikes. (Significant cause of the previous blackout was a brushfire that just happened to occur in conjunction with the rest of the grid being stressed).
Main generating stations are required to be able to "Black" start, start disconnected to the grid but believe me, this is rarely if ever tested. The generators are tested, but not the procedure. But, if the distribution system is wrecked, it doesn't matter if they are up or down. The system, as far as I know is not EMP shielded, and therefore, in the face of this sort of attack, with active controls based on digital technology burnt, wild fluctuations, back flows and transients could wreck destruction to a significant portion of our generating, production and consumer infrastructure.
Its just time to get into this again. It was a big concern in the 60's and the time has come again. All of the fixes necessary have a price tag in the low Billions, chicken feed when compared to a 12 Trillion dollar economy that we would be protecting
Agreed, we can't afford to be penny wise and pound foolish in this area...and I know personally that with certain infrastructure controlled by federal agencies, replacements are already available and redundancy already exists.
You forgot about the first-aid supplies and lots of cat food.
You could also use something the equivalent of a Faraday Cage. A metallized static shield bags would provide some protection for small devices like radios, calculators, etc.
Didn't forget it... just didn't list it. lol.
Those of us that are prepared know what to have squirreled away.
Stay safe.
True.
Also, the effects of EMP on at-the-time unpowered electronics are vastly overstated.
IIRC, the original SCUD, from the Soviets, was outfitted for nukes. SCUDs with conventional warheads really aren't very useful, because they are so inaccurate. Terror weapons, but not even much good at that, since it takes a lot of luck to hit anything, although a modern guidance set could change that to some degree.
But a dream scenario for President Hillary Clinton, who would declare Marshall Law, and turn the USA into her Empire.
The way EMP works is that it induces voltages in all electrical conductors. How high the voltages are depends in some degree to the length of the conductor. The power lines would have really big voltages on them, but even something not plugged in could still have high enough voltages to burn out sensitive components. In general, purely electrical as opposed to electronic, is fairly robuts, but motors and generators could see component burn out, particularly the brushes and windings. Unhardened electronics that use semiconductors could have components burned out even if not plugged in or operating. Tube equipment is unlikey to suffer if not plugged in, including not connected to any antennas, and might survive even if in operation.
I know this one...it wouldn't matter if your car was not running. Even when your car is off, voltage is still going to what is known as the ECM (electronic control module) which is essentially the computer brain inside just about all late model vehicles which control the mechanisms that help to start your car, measure and deliver the correct gas/air mix, fire the injectors, timing, mass airflow etc., etc.; depending on the strength of the EMP pulse and if you disconnected your battery cables (assuming you HAD a few minutes advance warning of the EMP attack) your car would be toast. That would suck most of all.
This is one case where shielding with aluminum foil would actually work. No kidding. Wrap your laptop in aluminum foil (tin would not work as well, it's not a good enough conductor) and it would stand a good chance of surviving. The problem would arise in knowing when to wrap it up. If you kept it in a metal box, with attention paid to the seals or in a foil bag, whenever you weren't using it, it might make it. Same applies to Ham radio equipment. It would have to be disconnected from the antenna and "bagged" when not in use.
Even then, the range is very limited and I believe that they do not attain sufficent altitude in their ballistic characteristic to creat a wide spread EMP effect like the one envisioned here. But that's just my opinion..
Even then, the range is very limited and I believe that they do not attain sufficent altitude in their ballistic characteristic to creat a wide spread EMP effect like the one envisioned here. But that's just my opinion.
bump for later read
Is it safe to come out yet? Is FR still here?????
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