We are not prepared for an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) Major Event

Civilization as we know it would be replaced by mass tragedy and savagery

By Tracy W.

The relatively civilized, prosperous and peaceful post-World War II years in the Western world are nothing but an anomaly in a human history full of war, savagery, hunger, poverty and disease.

Western post-war generations have grown complacent and with a strong sense of entitlement, as well as dependence on government and on the importation of goods essential for our survival, whether from other regions of the country or from abroad. Local self-sufficiency is nothing but a dream now.

One Second After by William R. Forstchen (pocketbook edition is just out), tells the story of what happens when two or three Electro Magnetic Pulse Radiation (EMP) weapons are detonated hundreds of kilometers in the atmosphere of the USA.

This is how an EMP attack would affect you and your community:

- All your electronics, all your gadgets and appliances with even a tiny computer in them, would cease to function indefinitely. They'd be fried. This includes your automobile. Roads and highways would be clogged with stalled vehicles and instant refugees.

- Your supermarket has only a few days' worth of food supplies. After that, with ground vehicles and aircraft unavailable for transport, your community would simply run out of food.

- Pharmacies would run out of life-saving medicine. Hospitals would be reduced to minimal care, if any at all.

- Law enforcement would be up to local authorities. It would vary across the country. It could go from rational and civilized to outright tyrannical, depending on circumstances and the authorities involved.

- Hungry, fearful people get desperate. Our communities could easily revert not to the 1860s - but all the way to the worst of the Middle Ages or antiquity in a matter of days.

One Second After takes place in Black Mountain, a North Carolina small, idyllic college town, a cohesive, well-bonded community with solid and moral leadership.

The suffering, starvation and war that develops over a period of a year is nothing compared to the complete disaster and human degradation that befalls bigger cities.

The author estimates that the population of big cities would be reduced to a small fraction, and that up to 250 million Americans would lose their lives to starvation, sickness and violence. Bear in mind that if Europe is spared a simultaneous EMP attack, organizing, delivering and distributing their aid would take months, at best. Hungry people can't wait that long.

The fact is that we are completely dependent on a fragile system of supply and transport. Any major glitch in that system would throw our lives into complete disarray. Any long-term and widespread disaster, such as one caused by an EMP weapon, would demolish our civilization.

Katrina first, and then Sandy were two natural disasters that showed us right here, in the prosperous Western World,  how vulnerable we are and how little we can depend on authorities to protect and assist us. And that was only one city. Imagine the whole of North America being in a state of complete deprivation and helplessness.

A group of nine distinguished scientists co-authored a report for the US Congress entitled Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. This was a laudable project, but unfortunately Congress decided to publish this report on the same day they released their 9/11 Commission Report. Public attention to the EMP report was minimal.


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