EMP Commission warns ‘blackout’ of electricity, food, water to last ‘year or longer,’ (TR)

Washington Examiner ^ | May 9, 2018 | Paul Bedard

[Perseverando]

In this May 21, 1956, file photo, the stem of a hydrogen bomb, the first such nuclear device dropped from a U.S. aircraft, moves upward through a heavy cloud and comes through the top of the cloud, after the bomb was detonated over Namu Island in the Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said his country may conduct a "historic" hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific Ocean. Many experts think North Korea wouldn't do something so risky, but it's hard to rule out given North Korea's steadily expanding nuclear and missile tests. AP

Parts of the United States would be starved of electricity, water, food, internet service and transportation for a year or longer by the smallest electromagnetic pulse attack on the electric grid, according to a newly declassified report from a federal commission.

The so-called EMP Commission report said that the threat is real, jeopardizes “modern civilization,” and would set back living conditions to those last seen in the 1800s.

And as a result of the chaos, millions would likely die, according to the report titled “Assessing the Threat from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP),” from the recently re-established Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack.

“A long-term outage owing to EMP could disable most critical supply chains, leaving the U.S. population living in conditions similar to centuries past, prior to the advent of electric power,” said the July 2017 report provided Secrets.

“In the 1800s, the U.S. population was less than 60 million, and those people had many skills and assets necessary for survival without today’s infrastructure. An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation. While national planning and preparation for such events could help mitigate the damage, few such actions are currently underway or even being contemplated,” added the executive summary.

Three reports on the issue have been declassified by the Pentagon and seven more are awaiting clearance.

The warnings in the report somewhat echo those made a similar commission a decade ago. But this time the feared attacks aren’t just from a solar event but a potential atmospheric nuclear blast or cyber hit launched by North Korea, China or Russia.

What’s more, the report warns that despite President Trump’s focus on the issue and demand for action, federal agencies are fighting over the issue and the Defense Department, which is factoring in EMP protection into its plans, isn’t sharing critical information to help civilian agencies and private firms make similar protections.

Also declassified was a report from Peter Vincent Pry, who served on a prior EMP Commission and is executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, spelling out the human toll of an EMP attack on the electric grid. He also advises the current commission.

In “Life Without Electricity,” he said the results would be:

Social Order: Looting requires dusk to dawn curfew. People become refugees as they flee powerless homes. Work force becomes differently employed at scavenging for basics, including water, food, and shelter.

Communications: No TV, radio, or phone service.

Transportation: Gas pumps inoperable. Failure of signal lights and street lights impedes traffic, stops traffic after dark. No mass transit metro service. Airlines stopped.

Water and Food: No running water. Stoves and refrigerators inoperable. People melt snow, boil water, and cook over open fires. Local food supplies exhausted. Most stores close due to blackout.

Energy: Oil and natural gas flows stop.

Emergency Medical: Hospitals operate in dark. Patients on dialysis and other life support threatened. Medications administered and babies born by flashlight.

Death and Injury: Casualties from exposure, carbon dioxide poisoning and house fires increase.

“President Trump’s withdrawal from the bogus Iran nuclear deal, and his determination to denuclearize North Korea, are all the more important because even a single nuclear weapon possessed by these rogue states would pose an existential threat to North America by EMP attack,” Pry told Secrets.

He also praised Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s focus on the issue in his role as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Reform Committee, but slammed “Obama-holdovers and Deep State bureaucrats” for ignoring the report.

The report warned that the type of conditions spelled out by Pry could last a long time due to the difficulties fixing the electric grid, which many have testified would be fairly cheap to harden against an attack.

“The United States -- and modern civilization more generally -- faces a present and continuing existential threat from naturally occurring and man-made electromagnetic pulse assault and related attacks on military and critical national infrastructures. A nationwide blackout of the electric power grid and grid-dependent critical infrastructures -- communications, transportation, sanitation, food and water supply -- could plausibly last a year or longer. Many of the systems designed to provide renewable, stand-alone power in case of an emergency, such as generators, uninterruptible power supplies, and renewable energy grid components, are also vulnerable to EMP attack,” said the 27-page report.

It called for a new wave of cooperation among government agencies to set protection standards, an EMP czar, and called for testing current systems against a simulated EMP attack.

“With the development of small nuclear arsenals and long-range missiles by new, radical U.S. adversaries, the threat of a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. becomes one of the few ways that such a country could inflict devastating damage to the United States,” concluded the report. It added, “It is critical, therefore, that the U.S. national leadership address the EMP threat as a critical and existential issue, and give a high priority to assuring the leadership is engaged and the necessary steps are taken to protect the country from EMP.”

[Buckeye McFrog]

Your local utility is more interested in cramming a “Smart Meter” down your throat (and hence creating yet ANOTHER vulnerability) than in addressing this threat.

[Kartographer]

I am beginning to think that plain old acts of sabotage from sleeper cells entering the US everyday in the name of diversity combined with cyber attacks will be the way this happens. Many of our enemies best attacks have been low tech use what you have and be damned the losses as there is a greater like awaiting you in paradise. With most of the biggest transformers now made in China you can be sure they will turn the screws on us. I have no doubt that we would in the end overcome such an attack, but the cost would be great.

[GRRRRR]

Oh, OK...are you sure?

[Hawthorn]

>> one huge solar flare. Then the side facing the sun is affected <<

Maybe so. But even then, destruction of approximately one-half of the world’s productive capacity could set back the other half of humanity by maybe as much as hundred years.

[afterhoursarmory]

The local utilities were forced by legislation to “cram” those smart meters out to the public. Millions per utility have been spent on that nonsense.

[DCBryan1]

[Kartographer]

In before the Carrington Event deniers!

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Acknowledge your vulnerability, or ignore it ( Your choice)
Vulnerability of the electrical grid, which remains unresolved between business expense ($$), or government intervention to protect society.
The government will protect its' own, firstly; citizenry will be left on its own
A skeptic, or a believer ?

“A long-term outage owing to EMP could disable most critical supply chains, leaving the U.S. population living in conditions similar to centuries past,
prior to the advent of electric power,” said the July 2017 report provided Secrets."

“In the 1800s, the U.S. population was less than 60 million, and those people had many skills and assets necessary for survival without today’s infrastructure.
An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people
through the effects of societal collapse, fuel shortage, disease, and starvation.
While national planning and preparation for such events could help mitigate the damage,
few such actions are currently underway or even being contemplated,” added the executive summary."

"I'm here from the government, and I'm here to help."
Right ! Tell that to the people of Puerto Rico, if you need a recent example.
Do you have the necessary skills to survive a year,... or more ?
Water, food, shelter, transportation, communications, medications, ability to defend yourself and family,
necessary skills training, or a work around the loss of electricity ?
If you can't protect it, ..you don't own it !
YMMV !

[LucyT]

.

PING.

EMP Commission warns ‘blackout’ of electricity, food, water to last ‘year or longer

[Kartographer]

You are right as it would be very much like Puerto Rico many times over and if they thought the delay and the slowness of the recovery was great in Puerto Rico imagine what it would be like with everyone is pretty much in the same boat and can offer little to no help to their neighbors.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[laplata]

That’s right.

The Deep State, Gaia worshipers/Environmentalists, et al would welcome such an event.

[palmer]

Seems awfully handwavy about E3 (affects the grid): http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf They say a nuclear burst EMP would be greater intensity than solar E3. However other sources point out that solar is longer duration allowing higher voltages to build up. The E1 and E2 pulses are mainly speculative. The chances of a hostile nuclear actor getting the E3 part right are minimal.

[laplata]

Puerto Rico is still in bad shape and huge resources have been spent on fixing that minor disruption.

[palmer]

Might take decades to recover.

Or hours like in March 1989. "Geomagnetic storms represent an approximation to an E3-induced voltage effect. The experience to date is of events that may be orders of magnitude smaller in scope and less severe than that expected from an EMP" From the report: http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf page 43. That's pretty iffy and hand-wavy. They don't explain, for example, how the widespread nature of the EMP causes more damage. It will certainly cause a wide outage. But they do not specifically state what long term damage is caused. E3 is slow and protective devices should protect transformers (p.33) so they resort to handwaving about E1 and E2.

[Kartographer]

"Puerto Rico is still in bad shape and huge resources have been spent on fixing that minor disruption."

Consider also the millions that have self-evacuated lessening the burden. Where would the Vastly greater refugees from such an event evacuate and how?

[null and void]

WHERE THE **** DID THEY SPEND $4 TRILLION?????

Iran and North Korea...

[JonPreston]

Spam.

[palmer]

Puerto Rico is still in bad shape and huge resources have been spent on fixing that minor disruption.

That's an easy one. It's the same reason that PR had a three day outage without any storm: http://energia.pr.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Expert-Report-Revenue-Requirements-Fisher-and-Horowitz-Revised-20161123.pdf There's no valid comparison to the mainland US grid.

[Celerity]

While I’m not a denier, I do believe that the EMP thing isn’t well understood.

Like someone mentioned here, it would take dozens (Way more, in my analysis) and they have to be repeated several times to get full coverage.

But you don’t need an EMP To get this effect. You need a computer virus.

We don’t need to look for missiles in the sky from another country. We need to look at some dude in his basement writing the perfect virus. And that is WAY more scary.