Emergency preparedness from a Counterintelligence Agent

How to survive an EMP – Part 1: What is an EMP?

There is a credible threat to our power grid from an EMP/CME. This series will explain what they are, how they can/will affect you, and what you can do about it. -- How to survive an EMP attack - Part 1: What is an EMP - https://graywolfsurvival.com/3761/survive-emp-attack-emp/EMP (Electromagnetic pulse)

This seems to be a prepper’s favorite “Doomsday scenario”. Many books have been written about it:

Youtube has hundreds of videos on the subject. The internet is filled with web pages telling you want you should or should not do in case of one.

But how much do you really know about one? How much does anyone know?

In this Part 1 of the ‘How to survive an EMP attack‘ series, I will attempt to explain what an EMP is. I’ll tell you what we know about them, and more importantly, what we DON’T know,  how a nuclear EMP is different than a solar or CME (coronal mass ejection) EMP, and try to dispel some myths surrounding them.

cd-3D-emp-survival

How to prepare for and survive an EMP attack

According to Wikipedia, an EMP is:

also sometimes called a transient electromagnetic disturbance, is a short burst of electromagnetic energy. Such a pulse may occur in the form of a radiated electric or magnetic field or conducted electrical current depending on the source, and may be natural or man-made. The term “electromagnetic pulse” is commonly abbreviated to the acronym EMP (which is pronounced by saying the letters separately, “E-M-P”).

In layman’s terms, it is an intense burst of electromagnetic energy caused by an abrupt and rapid acceleration of charged particles. This can cause all kinds of problems with electronic equpiment and devices. In some cases, it can even cause physical damage to things such as buildings, airplanes, power lines, etc.

There are three things that we know cause EMPs: a bolt of lightning, a nuclear explosion (or EMP type weapon), and solar storms.

I’m hoping everyone is familiar with lightning. A lightning strike produces a surge in electric current in nearby wires and cables. This surge of electricity can damage your electronics that you may have plugged into the wall sockets of your home. That is the reason it is highly recommended that you have your computer, TVs, etc. hooked up through a surge protector.

EMPs by high altitude detonation or CMEs are caused by the release of charged particles within the Earth’s ionosphere. The ionosphere is the shell of electrons and electrically charged particles surrounding Earth. This “shell” is found from about 30 miles to 500 miles above the Earth. The size of the ionosphere can fluctuate some based on varying factors I won’t get into here.

Anyway, a huge downward surge in particles in the ionosphere would create massive electrical currents which could “short out” all sorts of electrical power grids, transformers, and other equipment dependent on electricity.

EMPs have happened before and will happen again

The Earth has experienced EMPs before. The four that will I mention here (2 from CME and 2 from nuclear detonation) are usually the most referenced.

The first is the Carrington Event of 1859, which was the first documented event of a solar flare impacting Earth. The event occurred at 11:18 a.m. EDT on Sept., 1 and is named after Richard Carrington, the solar astronomer who witnessed the event through his telescope.

The second event is the Star Fish Prime tests. In 1962, the US government launched a 1.4 megaton nuclear warhead about 250 miles into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. The pulse results were much stronger than expected. It damaged street lights and microwave links in Hawaii, 900 miles away. The EMP was so intense that it was not accurately measured because “it drove much of the instrumentation off scale”.

Here’s a long video on Star Fish Prime from the archives:

The third event was a Soviet EMP test called “Test 184”. It happened around the same time as the Star Fish Prime tests. Not many details have been released from this. Although the warhead was not as powerful as the one from Star Fish Prime, it was exploded about 180 miles over the populated area of Kazakhstan.

What is known is that the EMP from Test 184 knocked out a 600-mile underground power line (shielded) that was buried 3 feet underground. It caused fires to the power station that the line was connected to. It also damaged diesel generators. (Most of the details have not been released and/or have remained classified.)

For the record, the nuclear warheads used in both above mentioned tests were not designed for EMP-related events. Hence the results from both would be considered highly ineffective today.

The final event I’ll mention here is a CME that hit Canada on March 13, 1989. A powerful solar flare set off a major power blackout that left six million people without electricity for about nine hours.

According to NASA, the CME disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station and even melted some power transformers in New Jersey. NASA scientists have concluded that this event was only about a 1/3 the strength of the Carrington event.

The types of EMP pulse

Scientists from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have classified EMPs into 3 categories.

  1. The first is called an E1. An E1 is the quickest pulse of all EMPs. It is very brief, lasting a mere microsecond. But it is extremely intense. This is the pulse from a nuclear blast or other EMP weapon.
  2. An E2 is a bit slower than an E1. A bolt of lightning has the characteristics of an E2. Because of this, E2 are typically the easiest to protect against. But a nuclear blast or EMP weapon has the characteristics of both an E1 and an E2 pulse. As a result, much of the protection that equipment has against an E2 might have been damaged from the initial E1 pulse in the event of a nuclear or weaponized EMP.
  3. The third type of pulse is an E3. This is the slowest of the pulses, and could last minutes, hours, or even days. This is the type of pulse found in intense CMEs from our Sun. Our Sun is NOT known to produce E1 or E2 type pulses. (Nuclear blasts and EMP weapons will typically have all three types of pulses.)

For the record, E1 type pulses are released by other stars in our galaxy and throughout the universe, but the chances of our planet being struck by such a pulse from another star are BEYOND MINISCULE. The Earth has a better chance of being hit by a large asteroid than it does an E1 pulse from another star.theres-a-chance

The other main difference between a nuclear EMP and a solar EMP, is that while a nuclear EMP may never happen, it is only a matter of time until a solar EMP does hit Earth. The Sun releases CMEs quite often. (Depending upon the Sun’s cycle, it could release up to 3 a day, or as few as one every 5 days. But these may or may not be strong enough to have dire consquences for Earthlings.) Most are usually pointing off in a direction that does not effect Earth. But we have been hit by a few, as mentioned above. We have also had some near misses, like the one in July of 2012. At some point in the future, Earth will be hit again.

Now you should have an understanding of what an EMP is. In part two of this series, I will look at what these types of pulses mean to us, what they are capable of doing, and what all we still do not know about them. Essentially: What you can expect if we’re hit by an EMP or CME.

References

Eric Hannis – American Council on Foreign Policy –http://www.afpc.org/files/february2012.pdf, Jerry Emanuelson – An Introduction to Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse – http://www.futurescience.com/emp.html

Graywolf:

There are many references out there that can help you understand EMPs/CMEs and even prepare for them. We’ll have several other related articles in the near future but to really dig into it, you’ll need to read real books and not just short blog articles. Here are a few suggestions:

 

Disaster Preparedness for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms

What would happen if terrorists detonated a nuclear device high above the United States? What about if the Sun emitted a large coronal mass ejection that resulted in a damaging geomagnetic storm? In either case, electrical power could be lost for months. Shortages would quickly ensue—food, water, and fuel would disappear within days. Widespread panic and suffering would be unavoidable. Are you prepared for these large-scale disasters?

This book will help you to prepare for two end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it (TEOTWAWKI) events: the EMP attack and the solar storm. Each threat is carefully studied with analyses of its likelihood and potential impacts on our nation’s critical infrastructures. Practical preparations are outlined, including steps to meet the fourteen basic needs in the absence of modern utilities, and the use of Faraday cages and uninterruptible power supplies to protect personal electronics.

Several techniques for constructing ad-hoc Faraday cages are presented. The shielding effectiveness of homemade Faraday cages is measured and compared, including metal garbage cans, foil-wrapped boxes, fire safes, static bags, ammo cans, and microwave ovens. Finally, a low-cost method of constructing a room-sized Faraday cage is presented.

EMP Survival: :How to Prepare Now and Survive, When an Electromagnetic Pulse Destroys Our Power Grid

Military strategists in four countries have boasted that they can cripple the U.S. with an EMP attack. Other countries have protected their power grids from an EMP attack. The U.S. power grid is still vulnerable. A widespread power outage could take years to restore because the EMP destroys electronics including circuits and transformers.

Even unplugged electronics can be damaged. Only electronics stored in a faraday cage are protected.

Fuel, communications, power, water, and food will be unavailable within hours when emergency fuel runs out. Gas pumps and even pipelines rely on electronics. Mob violence from mass evacuation of uninhabitable metropolitan areas will be a significant security issue within days. This book describes the risks and details how to prepare and survive.

Guilty Knowledge: What the US Government Knows about the Vulnerability of the Electric Grid, But Refuses to Fix (Center for Security Policy Archival Series)

Over the course of a decade, a stream of credible scientific reports from various government agencies, congressionally-mandated commissions and federal research organizations have warned of the grave vulnerability of our nation’s most important asset: the electric power grid. For millions of us, life in 21st Century America would be all but impossible without access to electricity. As this compendium of the government’s own studies makes clear, the protracted unavailability of the power required for all of our critical infrastructures poses a truly existential threat to our country and its people—unless we take practical and relatively low-cost steps to prevent it.

report of the commission to assess the threat to the united states from electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack (Free download)

A Nation Forsaken: EMP: The Escalating Threat of an American Catastrophe

There have been warnings from scientists and other experts for years that the Nation’s electrical grid system and other critical infrastructures that have almost complete dependency on electricity and electronic components are highly vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event either from natural or man-made causes.

However, Congress and the administrations of previous and current presidents largely have ignored those warnings. Events such as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States and then the devastating Hurricane Katrina that revealed vulnerabilities to those infrastructures heightened that concern. Due to the lapse of time and a relatively calm period since those disasters, policymakers have been lulled back into complacency rather than take preventative action against what could be the biggest threat to US national and economic security in our lifetime.

The threat from an EMP attack on our critical infrastructures either from an impending solar storm of serious intensity – expected between 2012 and 2014 – or a high-altitude nuclear explosion are threats that could have long-term catastrophic consequences for our society and our way of life.

In 2008 a congressional commission studied the consequences of an EMP attack not only the power grid itself but also the consequences to every sector of our economy: telecommunications, banking, transportation, food, manufacturing, construction, and energy.

While these critical infrastructures continue to face such an impending crisis, Congress has basically ignored its own commission report and instead has treated the threat of an EMP event as a political football to be punted whenever expedient for their own gain. To date, still nothing has been done to protect the nation.

Michael Maloof breaks down that threat in his book A Nation Forsaken. He even outlines how our own military is similarly vulnerable to an EMP event due to its 99 percent dependency on the nation’s electrical grid system for electricity and communications, raising the high prospect that it may not be able to function to defend the nation in its time of greatest need.

While an EMP event on our civilian infrastructure could be serious, it can be managed if government at the federal, state, and local levels gives a high priority to undertake preventative action to lessen its impact to recover from such an event. Now is the time for Congress to act and stop forsaking our nation.

 

For part 2 of this series, which is about what life would be like after an electromagnetic pulse or coronal mass ejection, read:

How to survive an EMP/CME – Part 2: Life after the pulse

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About James L

A police officer in Oklahoma, James is a gun enthusiast and certified police instructor. In his off time, he is a single father who enjoys playing with his kids and watching football.

Come visit his Preparedness site at Plan and Prepared

Comments

  1. I have worked in the IT industry for many years and some of that time was spent servicing government contracts. This has led me to have some experience with EMP shielding of electronics.
    The government has put a lot of money into research in this area and as a result there is a lot of information available.
    While my work mostly consisted of TEMPEST certified systems, many installations combine TEMPEST and EMP requirements together for obvious reasons.
    You can find quite a bit of literature by combining the two terms in a Google search.
    For example:
    http://www.globalcomva.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/DHS-EMP-and-TEMPEST-Risks.pdf
    http://fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp/c-12body.pdf
    http://www.ets-lindgren.com/pdf/item_wm_0609.pdf

    If you want some of your technology to survive along with you, consider building a TEMPEST/EMP area into your shelter/bunker. It’s not really that much extra work or expense. This would be a good place to store radios (HAM, walkie, AM/FM/Emergency, etc.), a laptop, and even a spare PCM for your vehicle.

  2. So correct me if I’m wrong but it seems like the CME’s mainly affect a certain region of the planet depending on which one is more directly facing the sun. If that is the case then whoever is on the opposite side of the globe would be left pretty much untouched.

    Yes the CME that hit Canada was a third of the size of the Carrington one but it didn’t knock out power lines all over North America did it?

    • The one that hit Canada was very tiny in the grand scheme of things actually.

    • You would think According to Jerry Emanuelson of Future Science LLC, and i’m quoting him….

      “Solar storms, especially the most severe solar storms, tend to disturb the entire magnetic field of the earth. The effect of the solar storm tends to be much greater near the geomagnetic poles, but it matters little whether it is night or day.”

      Depending upon the magnitude of the storm, it could hit the entire planet.

    • Space weather is a complex thing. The Earth’s own magnetic field has an affect on where and how much Solar events penetrate. Also don’t forget that there are several different kinds of events. A Solar flare for example is quite a different thing from a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). They have different impacts on technology and are affected differently by the Earth’s magnetosphere.

      Oddly enough we’re about to get hit by a CME that was ejected yesterday when a Solar Plasma Filament was ejected in our direction.

  3. What we are facing today is an old military tactic called a Kill Zone. That is an *long* ambush. It is used for when the number of victims far exceed the number of aggressors. An area is set aside in this case about 25% of the world (that is the western part) to confuse, demoralize, to create poverty/government dependence, to corrupt law, to corrupt health, to corrupt education, to restrict all places to hide (mountains, forests, swamps, underground) and to disarm. At the weakest point the objective is to first turn victim on to victim and as in the King riots come in after the fires with the U.N.. Blocking all means to escape the zone and later bio weapon the empty cities, swamps, forest, mountain areas and etc. Clearly their problem is the massive weapons in the public hands. So you can see from this overview they have no plans to harden from an EMP and etc on the inside.

  4. I just wish our government would DO something to protect our grid! What the hell are they waiting for? I understand it would cost (only) about 2 billion (the amount we give to Pakistan) to fix this problem. So why isn’t there more urgency??

  5. Maybe we have a Muslim for president is why things aren’t getting done.

  6. SOrtingHat says

    Here is an example of history of how auroras played havoc with wires from a site that archives solar flare news.

    February 25, 1927 – In Geneva, villagers asked fire department to extinguish the aurora. [New York Times, February 26, 1927, p. 15]

    April 14, 1927 – Aurora borealis isolates West from Eastern Canada [The New York Times, April 15, 1927 p. 23].

    July 22, 1927 – Wire servie affected [The New York Times, July 22, 1927, p. 19].

    October 13, 1927 – Freakish currents slow wire service [The New York Times, October 13, 1927, p. 19]. Electric disturbance upsets German radio [The New York Times, October 14, 1927, p. 22]. Wire lines twice hit by aurora [Los Angeles Times, October 13,1927, p.3].

    July 8, 1928 – Telegraph lines are tied up by aurora borealis [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 8, 1928, p. 2]. Aurora plays queer tricks [Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1928, p. 3].

  7. SOrtingHat says

    Why are some of my comments longer are not showing up? Are certain political words banned?

    • Could be but only if they’re used a lot by spammers. I get about 50-100 spam comments per day so I have to use a program to filter out those or I’d be on here all day just reading comments. I haven’t deleted any comments that were previously approved though.

  8. SOrtingHat says

    Over the last few years commenting online has become SO gummed up it’s not funny but rather sad what Web 2.0 has become with sites either not working properly or comments being blocked for weird reasons that have nothing to do with spam or illegal stuff.

    I think that *terrorism* is why the government is so ultra paranoid on spying that they feel all Americans are suspicious. They probably think for whatever reason wheather real or made up that there is some kind of *movement* going on against them so all Americans are to be spied on as a result and what better way to do it then to push smart phones and tablets to kill the home computer!

    Eventually it will be to the point that there won’t even be parts for home computers so once yours breaks down you have to get either a smart phone or a tablet. Most websites are designed to be dumbed down for smart phone viewing anyways and Google has made it a rule too or your site won’t be ranked which is why sites are small and narrow to read.

  9. Jack O Christopher says

    The possibility of an EMP is increasing now that we are in contact in the Mid East with Russia. If they use an orbital EMP weapon, the primary target would, in all probability, be Cheyenne mountain, at enough altitude to induce a secondary desired effect in the collapse of the national grid. Maine and Florida may escape unscathed, but we all need to prepare in every way possible, from whole house surge protectors to faraday type shielding. All the regular preps apply as well.

  10. Sherry Goering says

    Would there be any benefit to acquiring a generator to provide power after an emp?

  11. I am not to good at this so I will say it my way. that generator will not come on . the points. condester. coil. will be fryed. and maybe more . a solar panel of 4 amps would be better going into a car battery would be better. that will give you light and a radio tablet phone movies. I was wondering about this my self because I have a chain saw and I know I will need it Research is best

  12. I think the best thing that all people in the world could do is go outside and turn the main swich OFF. all at the same time.

  13. Drake Walters says

    Could Any thing shield An EMP like Tin Foil Or Something that will reflect it?

    • It will reflect it somewhat but you need to have an insulator between it and what you’re protecting, and it’s pretty thin so something with a lot of power could easily melt it. Better than nothing though.

  14. nobody is saying any thing so I will speak up. fema is saying stay put. weather is saying you better move fast. gangs are saying we are going to get you. fires are bad. cut a fire break now. and theres a person on the 32 floor shooting at everybody. and theres a nut screaming whites first. and a EMP is on the way. so its candle lights again and cooking at the fire oat meal again. and sleeping with a 22 pistol. and are government is building a wall to keep me here because they want my tax money. and everybody is running out of toilet paper at the same time. And more people are coming to america. how can I take this life . thanks to graywolfsurvial it be a little easyer.

  15. If such an event occurs, one thing to consider is the nuclear power plants not having electricity (after their back ups fail). Without alternate power at the nuke plants, their capabilities of cooling will cease to exist. Then you have a whole bundle of local Fukushimas going off, all at once and all over the country, and no one to do anything about it. Prepping is a good thing, but it’s going to be quite a bit more dire than a lot of people realize. Live each moment like it’s your last folks.

  16. this was enlightening and informative

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