EMP THREATWhat Would It Take to Survive an EMP Attack?
We are increasingly vulnerable to both natural disruptions and military attacks on our power grids. An electromagnetic pulse impulses (EMPs) would destroy your electronics, leaving you and your surroundings intact — but without easy means of survival. Remember, almost all conventional power sources and the entire internet would be knocked out and might take many months to replace.
We are increasingly vulnerable to both natural disruptions and military attacks on our power grids. Earlier this month I wrote about electromagnetic pulse impulses (EMPs), which would destroy your electronics, leaving you and your surroundings intact — but without easy means of survival.
Force of Nature: Sometimes the Sun Is to Blame for Knocking Out the Power Supply
Natural disruptions can give us some idea what to expect. When lightning destroys a transformer atop a power pole, nearby businesses and residence must get by without power until the transformer is replaced but it usually doesn’t last long. Far more damage can occur in the rare event that the sun erupts with a major coronal mass ejection (CME) of plasma and magnetic field directed toward Earth.
The first recorded example occurred on September 1, 1859, while British amateur astronomer Richard Carrington was observing the sun. Carrington made careful drawings of the massive solar flare he observed. Less than a day later, a CME arrived and caused spectacular auroral displays. It even affected telegraph equipment, setting some ablaze. Today, such an event can damage or destroy much electrical equipment connected to a network.
During March 1989, my daughter Vicki detected a string of major solar flares with a Geiger counter she was using for a science fair project. On March 13, one of those flares was associated with a CME that led to powerful electrical transients in transmission lines across Quebec. It tripped circuit breakers and shut down power across the entire province for nine hours. The CME also severely damaged a high-voltage transformer at the Salem New Jersey Nuclear Plant.
Other CME’s have also struck Earth, including a major event in 1921: “Countries such as Australia, Brazil, France, Denmark, Japan, the U.K., New Zealand and the U.S. experienced widespread disruptions in telephone and telegraph communications.” (International Business Times) Here’s how it was experienced at the time:
A telephone station in Sweden burned out, a New York telegraph operator claimed that “he was driven away from his instrument by a flare of flame which enveloped the switchboard and ignited the building”, and telegraph lines in France “seemed possessed by evil spirits”. The event even touched Australia, with the Argus reporting disruptions to telephone services between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane (Delores Knipp and Brett Carter, “The Concerning History of Coronal Mass Ejections,” at RealClearScience, 2 October 2016).
