The threat posed by an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) was once considered by the mainstream as simply the stuff of science fiction or lone nut jobs living in rooms lined with tin foil. But people are now coming to understand that an EMP — whether from natural causes or a weapon — poses a real threat to America's electronics and could send the country into a new Dark Age.
Even the corporate media is on board, as the mainstream mouthpiece USA Today imagined in a recent article "What a US electric grid attack looks like." Hint: It would "come from a hostile power using a nuclear weapon targeting the special vulnerability that comes with electricity and computerization. The hostile power would not target cities, as in the past, but instead would detonate a nuclear bomb high in the atmosphere, creating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)."
The Hill writes: "US would be wise to prepare for EMP attacks on its cities." Even the Huffington Post wrote about "Understanding North Korea's EMP Threat."
The possibility of and EMP has even knocked congress out of its self-absorbed stupor. The House has decided to reactivate a disbanded committee that was originally created to devise counter measures against a possible electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack by North Korea.
An EMP could come from the sun as well. Solar flares, or coronal mass ejections, can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems. A large burst of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers. These huge flares have caused blackouts in the past.
This just happened in September when two massive solar flares lit up the surface of the sun. Even though their energy was not directed at the Earth, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center the flares resulted in radio blackouts. High-frequency radio experienced a "wide area of blackouts, loss of contact for up to an hour over [the] sunlit side of Earth," and low frequency communication, used in navigation, was degraded for an hour.
In 1989, a relatively low level storm from the sun knocked out power for 6 million people in eastern Canada and the U.S. for 12 hours. Imagine what a nuke detonated in the upper atmosphere could do.
There are reports that Iran and North Korea — which are being goaded into war footing by neocon warmongers, despite their posing no threat to the U.S. mainland so far — have nonetheless been working on an EMP weapon that could be launched from a ship or barge off the American coast.
An EMP would shut down the nation's power grid, silence communications and render everything containing electronics — from hand-held games to cell phones to airliners — inoperable. Water would cease to flow as pumping stations shut down. Grocery store shelves would be bare within hours. The banking system would crash. Those in poor health depending upon machines to stay alive would be dead in minutes.
Within days the weak and infirm would be dead from dehydration. As the crisis grew, riots would ensue and people would turn on one another. As an example for how bad it could get, remember the islands in the Atlantic ocean that were in the paths of hurricanes Harvey and Irma this past summer.
Some of those islands have no people living on them anymore, and the ones that do — even the U.S. protectorate of Puerto Rico, are suffering terribly.
According to The Heritage Foundation, the U.S. must take steps to:
- Prevent the threat. Regardless of the mitigation and response measures, a massive EMP impact could have a devastating impact on the United States. Washington must pursue an aggressive protect-and-defend strategy, including comprehensive missile defense; modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent; and adopting proactive nonproliferation and counter-proliferation measures, both unilaterally and in partnership with allies.
- Provide resilience. Measures must be adopted to ensure the resilience of the U.S.-Canadian electrical grid and telecommunications systems, including developing limited redundancy and identifying means for the timely replacement of essential damaged parts or their rapid substitution.
- Plan for the unthinkable. The U.S. must have robust pre-disaster planning — with practical exercises that include top officials who rehearse a wide variety of contingency scenarios — that integrates federal, state, local, private-sector, nongovernmental organizations, and international support.
- Protect the capacity to communicate. The U.S. must have the means to establish assured emergency broadcast as well as interactive communications both within the U.S. and across the globe. An EMP strike can easily obliterate America's electrical, telecommunications, transportation, financial, Food, and water infrastructures, rendering the United States helpless to coordinate actions and deliver services essential for daily life.
In the words of former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, EMP "is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies."
Of all the things that government is considering, this is one concern that must be front and center. And expecting that Congress will screw it up — as they do most everything else — it's something that everyone must prepare for themselves.
How to prepare? Consider what life will be like when your electronic conveniences — and necessities — are no longer available. Then store food, water, medicines, sundry items, guns and ammunition — and gold and silver for the barter economy that will develop.
These are things that we warn about that many of our readers do not take seriously. But the time to prepare is now. One small example is that I have repeatedly advised to store food. It is not only basic to life, survival, and barter, but in time it will be classed as hoarding and will be a criminal act if caught.
I will share with you the following list of items that I have in my food storage: Salt, water in gallon jugs, Clorox and Lugols iodine for disinfecting and purifying water (six drops per gallon of water), brown and white sugar, dry beans and pastas of all kinds, chili, mayonnaise, coffee, sardines, tea, olive oil, rice, baked beans and pork and beans, cereal, canned soups, kraut, salmon, canned white tuna in water, food bars, a few frozen dinners, olives, pickles and treats (chose those you like), minimum amount of cake mix, flour, cornmeal, seasonings for cooking, dried and canned milk, all paper products, cleaning products, basic patent medicines such as cough medicine, cough drops, Tylenol, eye drops.
One of the best foods to store is vacuum sealed dry foods of all kinds. These will last for years and years.
If you can't imagine being hungry in the midst of chaos then you will probably ignore this suggestion and others I make regarding true health and wealth, but you won't forget them. And they will haunt you if you fail to take action.
But if you envision our possible futures, you will survive and prosper in the years ahead. Remember, my advice is to always prepare sooner rather than later. I will keep talking to you about the need for all types of preparedness in future Alerts. But in case you missed it, follow this link for a complete survival guide.
Yours for the truth,
Bob Livingston
Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter™
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