How are you at acronyms? Do you know EPA, FEMA, and WHO? What about EMP? Not sure about that last one? Well, that is the one our enemies, whoever they might be, are scheming to use against us. In recent days officials have once again warned an Electromagnetic Pulse is a real threat. Why now? Since the attack on Israel, October 7,, 2023 we have seen hundreds of attacks on American and allied maritime cargo ships and military bases. The United States government acknowledges these attacks are funded by Iran and we know they already have the capability to create an EMP device. I know I will be accused of fear mongering but I was accused of the same when I wrote about a pandemic on October 1, 2019. Remember what happened three months later?
What is an EMP?
Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons
An EMP is an Electromagnetic Pulse. An electromagnetic pulse is a sudden burst of electromagnetic energy produced by a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere – far enough above the surface that it does not level structures or even cause loss of life, but which is capable of widespread damage to power lines, telecommunications, and electronic equipment.
A high-altitude, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon is one of a limited number of threats that has the potential to cripple our society and, according to the United States government, “might result in defeat of our military forces.”¹
An EMP weapon exploded at a high altitude interacts with the Earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetic field to produce a pulse which travels across the Earth’s surface creating powerful electrical currents. It is capable of destroying anything electrical in its path – computers, televisions, appliances with electronic circuits, automotive electronics, medical devices, manufacturing equipment, high voltage transformers on the electrical grid, and so forth.
Should an EMP be exploded we will have no warning of an attack unless there is a missile detected and we suspect it may carrying a nuclear device. Since missiles launched from sea might have a flight time of just minutes, there may be no warning at all. Upon detonation – within a millisecond – we will be transported back to the 1850’s so to speak, in terms of our technology – losing access to internet and broadcast media, the electrical grid, most appliances, hospital diagnostics and monitoring, most trucks and cars with electronic circuitry covering an area that determined by the size of the bomb and the altitude at which it is detonated. A high-altitude bomb exploded over Kansas could destroy electrical devices and the power grid across the entire United States. A low-level attack, which could be initiated from a ship off the coast, could black out and destroy the power grid covering hundreds of miles, an entire region of the country.
About now, many of you may be thinking, “If this isn’t fear mongering, what is?!” So, before I cite a few sources, allow me to ask a “what if” question.
What if you had been an employee at the World Trade Center, and heard a warning that someone was plotting to fly two hijacked airliners on the same day into those towers and bring them down – would you have believed that possible or likely?
Did you know that the Japanese planes that attacked Pearl Harbor showed up on radar almost an hour before the attack, but when the radar operators reported them, their reports were dismissed as a mistake – just an anomaly?
Did you know that in San Francisco before the Great Quake of 1906, the fire chief warned that the water system could not handle a major fire? Following the earthquake, there were massive fires and the water system’s failure allowed most of the city to burn to the ground.
The dangers of an EMP attack include the destruction of our economy, no transportation, no communication and the creation of chaos throughout society as we try to readjust everything we know about doing our work and caring for ourselves and our families. Imagine not having food to feed your family. There would be minimal danger from radiation but it would cause exceptional harm to those with pacemakers and those standing near power stations or other powerful receptors of electricity at the time of detonation. Those requiring medications and insulin, or oxygen will not be able to get these life preserving items.
The EMP threat is real. It may never happen, and we all pray it never will, however the government does take the threat seriously, so in 2004 President Bush established a commission to study the possibility of an attack and the potential damage it could inflict. The following is a quote from that report:
“Some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter—they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons, and are motivated to attack the US without regard for their own safety. Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States, and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter.
Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century.
China and Russia have considered limited nuclear attack options that, unlike their Cold War plans, employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack. Indeed, as recently as May 1999, during the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, high-ranking members of the Russian Duma, meeting with a US congressional delegation to discuss the Balkans conflict, raised the specter of a Russian EMP attack that would paralyze the United States”¹
Recently Frank Gaffney of Center For Security Policy and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey stated “An EMP detonated at the right altitude over the US an EMP could fry the circuitry of electronics all over the country that means no water that means no food that means no telecommunications that means no transportation that means no medical supplies”.
In March 2023 Forbes reported: “The possibility of such an attack is growing as EMP technology is evolving. The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attacks, alongside military officials, warned years ago of the possibility of balloon-based EMP attacks”. Do you remember the balloons China flew over the United States last year?
Last July a steamer owned by Iran’s ally North Korea was found in Panama hiding nuclear capable SA2 missiles under 10,000 tons of sugar. Experts believe Russia has given EMP technology to North Korea.
Solar Storms
There is another related threat looming which scientists agree will happen again. That is a major solar storm. A solar storm would primarily affect the power grid, and would not be likely to harm electronic equipment such as computers. Solar storms can temporarily interrupt communications and might or might not harm equipment, other than satellites.
An extremely large solar storm could create geomagnetic currents that destroy many of the largest power transformers on the electrical grid worldwide. If and when this happens, electric power loss would likely last for a period of months in some places and years in others, because there are not enough replacement high voltage transformers available worldwide to make the needed repairs. Transformers of this scale are millions of dollars each, so it is understandable that electric utilities do not have spares on hand.
According to the United States Department of Energy there are more than 7300 power plants, nearly 160,000 miles of high voltage power lines and millions of miles of low voltage power lines which connects about 2100 high voltage transformers.
There are currently only 10 manufacturers of high voltage transformers or parts, in the United States to replace those 2,100 transformers. The estimated time required to obtain a replacement of the largest transformers in the United States is 3 years.
It is difficult for us to imagine such a disaster because the last solar storm capable of this magnitude of damage was in the year 1859. At that time there was no power grid, though the storm did destroy and cripple much of the telegraph system both in the United States and Europe.
NASA researchers have warned that another such solar storm is inevitable. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If these forecasts are correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1859.
To begin to understand the perfect solar storm you must first begin to understand the mind-boggling numbers with which Bruce Tsurutani, a plasma physicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, works. At over 1.4 million kilometres (869,919 miles) wide, the Sun contains 99.86 percent of the mass of the entire solar system – well over a million Earths could fit inside the Sun.
The total energy radiated by the Sun averages 383 billion trillion kilowatts, equaling the energy generated by 100 billion tons of TNT exploding every second.
On September 1, 1859, the Sun released a mammoth solar flare. For almost an entire minute the amount of sunlight the Sun produced at the source of the flare actually doubled.
“With the flare came this explosive release of a massive cloud of magnetically charged plasma called a coronal mass ejection. Not all coronal mass ejections head toward Earth. Those that do, usually take three to four days to get here. This one took all of 17 hours and 40 minutes,” noted BruceTsurutani.
Not only was this coronal mass ejection an extremely fast mover, the magnetic fields contained within it were extremely intense and in direct opposition with Earth’s magnetic fields. That meant the coronal mass ejection of September 1, 1859, the Carrington event, overwhelmed Earth’s own magnetic field, allowing charged particles to penetrate into Earth’s upper atmosphere causing telegraph lines to catch fire and destroying the telegraph network.
Unlike an EMP attack we will have a short time to prepare for a solar flare, but so will everyone else.
All of this talk of catastrophic power failure is frightening, but if understood, we can begin to manage a response. If and/or when either an EMP or a solar flare casts us back to the 1850’s, we can be prepared with at least the knowledge and skills necessary to cope and move forward. Can we fix meals, do laundry and grow our own food without electrical power? Do our children have the work ethic and skills they will need to help us with the daily chores that would occupy hours instead of minutes each day?
Do we have the knowledge and skills to care for illness and injury? Will our kids drive us crazy or will we be prepared to help them make the transition from television and devices to reading and hop scotch? The pandemic showed us how difficult being stuck at home can be for keeping harmony at home.
Heavenly Father is still in charge and if a solar storm happens it will be on His timetable. God does allow us our free agency, however, as we have witnessed throughout history, Those with evil intentions have agency to work their plans, and sometimes bring about tremendous harm. He has warned us in scripture and by prophets that this would be the case.
It is our responsibility to learn all we can to prepare for any eventuality. If we are not warned about things which may happen, we cannot fully understand how we should prepare. Now that we have a few of the facts about EMP weapons and solar flares, we can consider what skills and preparations we possess and the choices we prioritize, and which we need to sharpen. Our forefathers prospered and thrived without a power grid and with some preparation and planning, we can get by just fine and even prosper for however long such events may affect us.
Notes:
¹ Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: 2004
²http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/nasa-warns-of-super-solar-storm-2012/
For help in meeting your self-reliance goals join Carolyn at http://facebook.com/TotallyReady or her blog. Carolyn’s Totally Ready Emergency Binder is available to purchase and download at Totallyready.com and can be purchased complete or one section at a time.