In the early days of prepping, nuclear war was the danger most people were concerned about. That’s easy to understand; not much could be as destructive as a full-scale nuclear exchange. That danger has receded a bit now, although it certainly hasn’t gone away – and, with Russia led by the hard-liner Vladimir Putin, it might even be rising again. Still, it’s not what’s at the front of everyone’s minds when they think of a EOTWAWKT situation.
There’s a wider range of threats to worry about these days, but potentially one of the worst is an EMP attack. A small number of nuclear weapons, detonated in the upper layers of the atmosphere, would produce a huge and devastating electromagnetic pulse that could potentially blanket the whole country. In the affected area, most electronics would be instantly destroyed – and anything with wires in it would experience current spikes that might even be able to burn out simpler electrical systems.
An EMP attack would instantly obliterate most of the services and communication systems modern society depends on, and when you take away the things that hold a society together, it falls apart. That’s going to trigger one of the worst-case prepping scenarios – being thrown totally on your own resources, and potentially having to protect what you have from crowds of desperate people.
We asked 14 preppers what they thought of the EMP threat, and how they planned to cope with it:
Robert, Georgia – “After civil disorder, an EMP attack is the most likely SHTF scenario I can think of. There are just too many rogue states that either have nukes or could get them in the next couple years. And if you want to hurt America a bad as possible, EMP is the best way to do it. It’s the worst-case scenario I plan for; I figure if I can survive an EMP, I can get through anything else that’s likely to happen.”
Related: You Will Not Survive an EMP Strike Without This
Shane, Texas – “Learning what EMP can do was a real eye opener. Now, whenever I buy something, I always ask myself two questions – is this going to survive an EMP, and how will I get by without it if it isn’t?”
Neil, Virginia – “I had a few reasons for emphasizing pioneer-style tools and skills in my preparations, and EMP was a big one. 19th century technology is a lot easier to make or repair yourself, and it’s also guaranteed EMP-resistant. I have some radios, LED flashlights and other electronics stored in Faraday cages, and if that all survives it’s a bonus, but I’m aiming to be able to survive with no electricity at all if I have to.”
Martin, Alabama – “I can see the panic growing quite slowly after an EMP. At first a lot of people are just going to think the power went out or something. Without their electronics they have no way of knowing the whole country is affected. It’s going to take some time for that to sink in. I want to know it’s happened right away, so I can get myself out of the city and head for somewhere safe.”
Leslie, Texas – “I don’t think an EMP is going to be that much of a hardship for me personally. I already have my own well and I’m pretty self-sufficient in food. I have an old truck for as long as the fuel lasts, and horses for the long term. What I’m worried about is other people and how they’re going to react. For city folk an EMP is going to be devastating. Concealing what I have as well as I can, and defending it if necessary, are the big challenges I see.”
Jess, Maine – “When I learned about EMP I went through everything I’d done to prepare and looked at how it would stand up to the pulse. I was horrified at how much I planned to depend on electronics. In any other crisis they’d be fine, because I have the power to charge them, but the EMP risk made me look for more mechanical solutions everywhere I could.”
Floyd, Virginia – “What scares me the most about EMP is how thoroughly it would mess us up. It’s going to hit everybody. Emergency services will be in at least as big of a mess as the rest of us. It really is going to be every man for himself.”
Jay, Montana – “If we get attacked in spring or summer I think we could pull things back together pretty well inside a few months. Trouble is, if the bad guys are smart and hit us with EMP in winter, people are gonna start dying real fast. And how smart do you have to be to work that out? That’s when I’d do it.”
Kyle, California – “I live in the tech capital of the world, basically. People here can’t cope without WiFi for five minutes. After an EMP they’ll all go crazy. I’m bugging out if EMP even seems likely.”
Richie, South Dakota – “When I first heard of EMP I thought, fine, I can get along without the TV, and I have my own generator for when the power goes down. Then I learned a bit more and realized just how bad it would be. It’s not just the power we’ll lose; it’s gas, probably water, all communications. All that stuff is controlled by computers, and they’ll be toast. To get through the few months after the attack is going to need pretty much total self-reliance.”
Sue, Maryland – “I’m pretty sure an EMP wouldn’t impact me much directly – looking around my home, there isn’t a lot for it to damage. What scares me is the effect it’s going to have on a lot of other people, and how desperate they’re going to be when food disappears from the stores. My two priorities are self-defense and expanding my vegetable plot.”
Paul, North Carolina – “EMP wasn’t something I thought about much until a couple years ago. Since I learned what its effects would be I started to take it a lot more seriously. It’s meant a few changes in my plans. The truck I planned to use for my bugout was a late model, and probably wouldn’t have survived. I’ve now replaced it with an old but low mileage one that doesn’t have electronic engine management – another benefit is I can do a lot more work on it myself. I’ve gone back to navigating with map and compass, too, just to keep my skills sharp. GPS is great as a backup, but we can’t rely on it.”
Related: Affordable Vehicles That Can Survive an EMP
Terry, New Jersey – “Maybe an EMP wouldn’t be the absolute worst thing that could happen, but it scares me because it’s more likely than a full-on nuclear war. It’s the kind of thing some crazy leader might think he can get away with.”
Claude, USA – “A few people have noticed that this site talks about EMP a lot. There’s a reason for that. It’s the simplest way for someone to cripple the USA. A few countries are already capable of doing it and more are getting there – some of them are run by pretty unstable folk. It’s hard to think of anything else that could cause so much chaos across so much of the country – even a single weapon could cripple multiple states, and that’s enough to overload anything the federal government and local emergency services could throw in. EMP is a serious SHTF scenario, and if you want to be prepared, you need to be prepared for EMP.”
You may also like:
DIY EMP Proof Back-Up Generator (video)
The First US Targets To Be Nuked
7 Terrifying Realities Of Long-Term Blackouts (That You’ve Probably Never Considered)
Depending on your own resources… A few of us can do it, but the vast majority of people in this country just don’t care to think about it because they’re “too busy”, or don’t have a clue.
Like Neil from Virginia, I look to 19th century tools and methods.
Good article, Claude. This site is a wealth of knowledge for those who care and want to learn.
I agree HH I strive to maintain my 19th century skills and learn as many more as I can. Once a person adopts the old ways it gradually becomes enjoyable and a way of life.
What most people don’t realize is depending on the size of the device an employee, ranging from a strong solar flare to a massive missle, you will not only be inconvenienced, but you will only have a few hours to plunder grocery stores, I know you are prepared, I am talking about the millions that do their purchasing daily. Even food will not be The most devestating issue, Yes anything controlled by computer will be history, but it will be more than a few months before power is restored, look at the aftermath of a bad Storm and usually the infrastructure is still there, a massive emp can melt all the wires. Once the electric goes AND here is where the real problem starts, SEWAGE!!!!! Without power the pumps will not work. You always hear about water and food supplies, but all of it has to go somewhere. And without proper sewage systems, really bad disease is on its heels, the more populated the are, the worse it will be. I pray we are all just worrying about nothing, but it is something to think about
I have never seen a good explanation of how a gun safes ‘electronic’ combo lock, coincidentally made in China, will survive an EMP attack. So when you need your heavy armor it’s sealed in the safe…
I recently bought one that has a key backup. You can use the key instead of the pad if you want to by removing the pad.
I won’t buy any locking device that doesn’t have a mechanical override. It is just plain foolishness to buy an electronic safety device. Just a lightening strike on your house — and that still does happen — will short out any micro electrical device connected or grounded to the house. Your safe might not be grounded, but the electronics that operate the locking device are micro-electronics, especially if they are RFID or electronic fingerprint devices. Yeah, that’s what I want a device that reads my hot, sweaty, shaking — because I am scared poopless — fingers in an emergency. Sure! Just what we all need.
David, I agree. I have a gun safe with an electronic lock, but I also have the manual key and instructions stashed in another accessible location “just in case”, including if the batteries in the lock die as per the instruction manual. I also have a few guns and ammo stashed here and there, not my best, but functional and accessible if needed.
For a faraday cage I will use cookie/popcorn/snack tins with tight lids, lined with cut-to-fit cardboard as insulation, to store electronic data and small devices. I will buy some of the faraday bags as well, put the small items inside, ten put the bagged items inside the tins.
I tried a microwave, ammo can, both my gun safe and fire safe, refrigerator, and a metal garbage can and none of them sealed up tight enough to block cell phone signals, so they will not stop an electromagnetic pulse either, but the insulated snack tins did, so that is what I will use.
Just last night I was listening to Mark Levin on the radio and he had a guest featured on his tv show and played the audio. He was talking about the vulnerability of our electric grid and how it can be knocked out very easily by means of EMP. Glad to know the big conservative talk shows are addressing the issue. Here is a tidbit iof info I did not know. North Korea has two satellites in orbit and if armed with a nuclear device it could be detonated above us and kill electricity. And they do have the ability to launch an ICBM from a sub off our coast and have the same results. We will see where this abandoning their nuclear testing goes with North Korea. Maybe fat boy means what he says.
Kim Jung Un has the capability, but he isn’t going to do it, he is just talking tough, a bit of sabre rattling, China and Russia also are capable, they won’t do it either, they may sell a weapon to a third party to do it, but the big worry would have to be from the middle east. Now they would do it, but if you think they would send an EMP our way, and then let us try to survive using our preps to the best we can, you would need to consider one more fact, they hate us more than can be imagined, they will attack 19th century America with 21 century everything they have, nothing will pull the middle east together as much as destroying America. While I am sure we will have some parts of our military still functioning, it will be difficult to do much without reliable communications.
Everybody forgets one thing. The US defense is build on the nuclear triad…..there are a lot of nuclear tipped US missiles on subs at sea every day. No matter how hard you try to knock our the US counter-strike capability, it is impossible. So anybody that deploys an EMP against the US will face more than equal retaliation. Comms in military are hardened and will mostly survive so aggressor will become toast fast, damn the collateral damage.
If we turn North Korea or wherever into a glow-in-the-dark nuclear wasteland, that still won’t do us much good here in the homeland if our electric grid is down across the country.
The high in Springfield MO today is going to be 10°F. Maybe the warm glow we feel about knowing that we put the finish to the bastards in Pyongyang will keep us warm as our house slowly freezes around us.
It certainly won’t help us prep now that nothing works. If we are not already prepared for a return to the early 18th century, we will die a miserable death either slowly staving to death or what is more likely, pooping to death with some intestinal disease that rapidly dehydrates us to the end.
Yikes! Talk about doom and gloom! It is -20 F (-33 windchill factor) while I type this at 4 AM. Hint: 10 F is nice spring day here. Guess what? I am preparing for the 18th century. Spent 15 years turning my property into a food forest (yes, they survive our “mild” temps: -25 three days ago). Had my house weatherized and winterized last year for FREE, by a little known project in my state. Been taking notes of the issues still left, to take care of them myself (74, female). Making some changes to my vegetable area to make it even more permaculture friendly and to bring back a creek that used to exist, decades before I moved here. Planting a lot more black raspberries all along the fence that surrounds my forest and vegetable gardens; you should try those thorns! The genius that built my house around 100 years ago put a huge cystern under the house that can be accessed from the floor of my indoors root cellar. I have zero intention of a “miserable death”. Plenty of edible and medicinal wild plants, in my property and books of how to use them. To others they are just weeds, because they are too stupid to get themselves books to identify them. Plus, plenty of vegetables that can survive our “mild winters” in the ground, such as asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, chives, fiddlehead ferns (which last year spread more than ever, with zero help from me). Lots of fruits also. People have survived ice ages, the worse deserts, etc and you have already given up? Do you know what being a prepper means? Me, I’m going for the family record, one of my grandmothers made it to 106.
One thing to keep in mind is that immediately after an EMP very, very few are going to know what happened and what the consequences will be. There will be no news, no phones, no newspapers, none of the common means of communications. It is during this “Silent Hour” that those of us who recognize the event can move quickly to our survival mode, whatever that might be, before the realization sets in with the general population. Life will never be the same again for any of us, and it will be very short for the unprepared.
Don’t forget the Sun! That would be a world wide event.1800’s? Try Mad Max post apocalyptic proportions.
Just because the Carrington Event of 1859 caused aureus all over the world doesn’t mean it would have fried wires everywhere like it did in the USA
Actually, Spike, from what I have read, telegraph service all over the world was affected by the Carrington Event. You have to remember in 1853, telegraph lines only existed between major cities in major countries. Telegraph service didn’t extend out to smaller towns. Some countries didn’t have telegraph service at all. In the 1850s telegraph service did not exist in Japan, China, vast stretches of Russia, all of southeast Asia, probably not in India.
What we read about the Carrington Event is written in the U.S. and it reports mostly on events that happened in the U.S. If you do further reading you will soon learn that telegraph wires all over the world were destroyed. You have to remember that in the mid 1800s telegraph lines only extended between the major cities of Europe and of the U.S. I can guarantee that there wasn’t telegraph service between Quebec and Vancouver in our neighbor to the north and I doubt in 1859 if a telegraph line existed between Mexico City and Tampico or Vera Cruz. I am reading about the U.S. war with Mexico in 1843 and there were no telegraph lines then. With the civil turmoil that existed in Mexico I doubt that telegraph service was installed until much later.
There was no telegraph service in the Far East, so no telegraph lines existed to melt. While I am not positive about it, I doubt that direct telegraph service existed between London and Paris. I don’t know exactly when the line was established under the channel but I doubt it was in in the 1850s. There was no telegraph service to Moscow from Paris.
When fax machines first came on the market I was the first commercial establishment to have public fax service. We had a local customer who needed to be in frequent communication with someone in South Africa, at that time one of the most modern countries in Africa. We would fax a message to a location in a major city in S.A.. The customer told us that then the messenger got in a Land Rover and drove six hours to deliver the message to the location up country from the city. They didn’t even have telephone service everywhere in South Africa in the 1990s which I found very interesting. Instantaneous transmission 12,000 miles, six hours to go 200 miles — by motor vehicle, a week by horseback, ten days or more walking.
Living in the age of instant communication we forget how primitive communications were not that long ago. With our fax serve, we used AT&T because they had phone service to almost all of the countries in the world. Notice the word “almost.” Even in the 1990s, less than 30 years ago telephone service from the U.S. was not available to every country in the world. Even that recently connecting to some countries involved a lot of discussion with the long distance operator in the U.S. and the local operator in the foreign country.
Yes, and no to “I am reading about the U.S. war with Mexico in 1843 and there were no telegraph lines then.” It wasn’t until Oct. 24, 1861 when the telegraph in the US, extended from the east and west coast. California’s chief justice, Stephen J. Field, wired a message from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, congratulating him on the transcontinental telegraph’s completion that day. But before that it was a mix of telegraph and the Pony Express. So yes and no, information of the Mexican-
American war was transmitted by telegraph and Pony Express.
People commenting here are talking like it is a foregone conclusion. It is not.
The Government has been looking at this possibility for many years. And with the new supersonic speed of our defensive capabilities there is a good chance it won’t reach the USA.
However, it’s a good thing to be prepared for anything that can happen.
You are making assumptions. At no time did I conclude any thing. Just stated facts: we had telegraph and Pony Express. If it were to happen, which I doubt, it would affect way more people, due to the amount of electronics in use and the fact that most people have no idea of what is an EMP or how to protect their electronics. Most of my electronics are kept in very simple faraday cages, that anyone can put together, in my TORNADO safe room. The genius who built my house 100 years ago, prepared for just about everything, same as me. He even built a cistern under the house that can be accessed from inside the house, a inside the house root cellar and on and on. About the last thing I worry about is an EMP, by that time that were to happened, if the masters of the planet had their rathers, they, have prepared things to get rid of most of us. That is the real danger. I consider Billy G (for personal reasons, going back to his father) as my nemesis. (In terms of an archenemy, not in the other definitions of nemesis.) People like him are scarier (for others, not me.) I have spend the last 58 years preparing (since I was 16), although I did not expect anything big to happen until this century. I’m one of the crazy Y2K people and it had zero to do with computers.
These kind of articles are informative, and they should give us a reason to think and to prepare.
Jay from Montana mentions an EMP attack in winter. Yes very detestation, because many could freeze to death before the hunger starts setting in. Matthew 24:20 Jesus instructs us to pray that our flight is not in the winter time. True this scripture is referring to the end times, but I think it is fitting. An EMP might just be the end for many. Wish I was a millionaire
Devastating not detestation
I guess detestation would work too lol
I’m scratching my head after reading this article. No one mentioned collaborating with fellow preppers to prepare some type of long term survival for their community. If the average “city” person is so ill prepared and masses of hungry and destitute people descend on the countryside, how is one prepper, even with family, going to survive? How are they going to provide 24/7 security? Eventually your stockpiles are going to be depleted. How are you going to replenish supplies while maintaining security? Preppers need to look to one another and form plans to work together.
yes, yes we do… Whom are you working with?
Hopefully many preppers will have already formed into mutual aid groups way before anything like this happens, I know that topic has been discussed here before.
Some communities that are somewhat isolated, regardless of preppers or not, are well prepared but you would never guess it. Where I live, our street is mostly made up of people who have been or are police or military. The fact is, we are in the middle of nowhere. Our town is the county seat, but not very big by far. The closest mid size cities are about 50 miles away, regardless of where you go.) People by necessity have to be prepared because our winters can be very long and bad. Two towns down of our one highway, the people are very wealthy, although you would never guess it (no fancy buildings) they are prepared to close the highway if needed. They even got the state to make modifications so they can easily do so. I’m sure the state was not informed why. I have relatives that live there. First thing that would happen in a major emergency, gasoline would be in short supply and very expensive. Walking 50 miles to raid is not likely. I would worry a lot more if I lived in a mid-size or larger city or in an area with easy access. I’m not evil, but I’m not planning to support strangers. This may sound nuts but some years back, I had a strange experience. I believe I was told, in a vision, to set aside a certain amount of rice and beans for when the nuns in our town come asking for food for children (I’m not Catholic). So I did. I store it separate from my food storage.
The big problem is they are not really prepared, they only think they are. Group are just that a group. Without adequate defenses and plans, they are still toast when another group attacks.
The truth is that history shows us what works,,, retreating into a fort or castle when a group attacks you.
But these groups don’t have that and few if any, have plans to build something like that.
Trying to defend a small town or even worse rural farms and homesteads from raiders that is not in enclosed by a fort is impossible. They will break through your lines.
You will be spread to thin to stop them.
Nothing else they plan to do matters, if they do not have proper plans to defend themselves. Once an EMP or other SHTF event occurs, they will have day to maybe a week to build fortifications to withstand a group of looters or raiders.
That includes providing fire suppression within the fortification.
If you take anything from the Riots learn this: these people tried to burn the police inside the building that was fortified, that were held up inside of.
Since they could not breach the exterior defenses, they tried to burn them out. Which forced the police to come out and try to disperse them.
For this reason, regular buildings, will make poor places of refuge against looters or raiders. To many blind spots, not designed for defense.
You need walls manned with defenders, to protect whats inside. Your survival preps and your loved ones.
Otherwise you are better off alone. For you have a better chance of escape and evasion and most of the group will ignore you for bigger, better targets.
Intelligent comment, but their making it impossible or nearly so, to get to you works also. I’m not giving details for obvious reasons. But we can learn for history, as you mention. To get to me from the back they would have to get pass a hidden moat, something few people would expect, and through a lot of thorny tangly mess of black raspberries. Very painful. That is assuming they get past the neighbors I mentioned. As to me, I fall under better off alone, type. Many mouths pose a huge danger, not just because they eat a lot. As to the problem with the police, it’s all those sickos who somehow think the police don’t have a right to defend themselves and the idiots that back them up, not understanding that they will be next.
Mic, yes and no. A fortified position definitely has advantages, but also disadvantages such as limited resources, and history also includes how to successfully conduct sabotage and sieges against fortified positions. Can you protect your position from fire, undermining (including diverting running water to wash out and/or flood), poisoning (including smoke or other airborne toxins), diseases, even snipering all your visible defenders as a guerilla tactic, and so on? All are effective tactics against a fortified position, then it would be a matter of who can endure longer, the defenders, or the besiegers.
Your best bet is to be prepared as best you can and adapt as needed to each and every situation encountered.
I put a commercial surge protector on my well pump to try to save it. I have a small supply of water but the well is really important. The one thing that no one mentions is the importance of faith in God so your life is more than survival.
From what I have read the surge protector will not help, and even if it did you would have no electricity to run it. Get a hand pump to have water.
Lee you may want to put together a PVC tube bailer for your well just in case. The work well.
I started thinking of and preparing for an EMP a few years ago. We sold our house in Tampa because it was on a salt water lot. We purchased a home just outside Bradenton with a 15,000 gal. pool, for fresh water, plenty of storage and 1 1/2 acres in a small community with around 200 homes and only two entrances, can be easily blocked off. I have found, a lot of the residents are ex military or police and first responders with the same ideas. All well armed and a lot of preppers. I alone just put in two 25 and 30 ft. Garden wells , with hand pumps and small electric pumps, have food storage for at least two years and a 60,000 seed bank, 400 watt solar set up ready to install, small freezer for ice to keep the fridge cold, ham radios, crank radios, Walkie talkies, batteries, chargers, lights, lamps, kerosene, all of the old hand and mechanical tools we should ever need. I just started planting a few “Moringa trees”, you should google them, we have my Bible, survival guides, The Lost Ways volumes 1and 2, paper money, some gold and silver and enough ammo to protect it, but for the life of me, I can’t get my daughter and son in law to listen and prepare, they say the government wouldn’t let it happen and if it did, the government would take care of the folks, and the live in St. Pete. They say, if it does happen, they’ll just drive the 35 miles to our house. I tell them, they couldn’t get here. Millennials wouldn’t have a chance.
My hat’s off to you, Bigbone! If I were in your situation, I’d be brain storming with my like minded neighbors to protect your turf. I looked up your area on the map; it’s crowded down there! I’ve been to the Tampa St. Pete area and had to wonder how any city plex this big can function…even under normal conditions. Take away the electricity, and it would be chaos. I wish you were my neighbor! …Up here; not down there 🙂
Same here HH but my better half refuses to move away from the daughter and grand kids. I’m thinking, the masses will come out of the city limits and go north on I75, not thinking of heading east. We are pretty much prepared to protect against anyone except our own government. Like I said in the post above, check out the “Moringa” tree at “eat the weeds.com” , could be a God send for survival. I bought 100 seeds from Amazon with about 50% propagation. I’ve got 5 started now. The crushed seeds also will take out 90% of impurities from a pail of water. Add to my list all of my emergency electric appliances are all 1200 watts or less that will run from my solar panel setup, a generator with a 100 gals. of fuel that is treated to run the large appliances for 15 to 20 min. at a time until the fuel supply is gone. Should take a very long time to use that much fuel. I’ve also planted raspberries and blackberries along the side and back of the property to slow an advance from those directions. Also have two old fashion septic systems without the electric pumps that they require down here now. The trash and the sewer systems are going to be the big issues, I think, and of course starving looters and thieves.
Never heard of the Moringa tree; thanks for the tip! I’ll definately look it up.
Regarding your fuel supply; I use a product called Archoil and it not only makes your vehicles and mowers and tractors and trimmers etc. run better, it stablizes your storage stock.
Also, have you looked into hand operated appliances?
HH, I use StaBil, has always worked for me. I do have a lot of mechanical appliances like can openers, sharpeners, hand blender, but like I say, I can connect my four solar panels to my four heavy duty golf cart batteries, I have a 1500 and 2500 watt inverter that will run all of my nuvaves, single burner hot plates, 700 watt micovave, kurig coffee maker and small freezer plus several more appliances. Not all at once, but all under 1200 watt each. The gen will only be started for around 20 min at a time for larger appliances and for noise sake. It is in a metal shed and I plan to build a sound proof box for it and vent it to the outside of the building. Finally put my other hand pump on my second well today.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably have a ToDo list. A shallow well with a hand pump is on my list, but farther down since I have a pond.
Solar is a great way to go; I have a battery bank that supplies 1550 amp. hrs. I’m slowly adding to my panel array to recharge all that capacity. If I were to drain the batteries, my current solar output would take a long time to top them off. …Another item on my ToDo list!
Keep preppin’ Bigbone!!!
I have my solar and all of my accessories wrapped and stored, ready to assemble just in case. I made the mistake of buying regular high amp auto batteries to start with, then found they were for a sprint and six volt golf cart batteries are for the marathon. Sold them and only lost $20.00 and bought golf cart batts. I love this site but I also check out “tin hat ranch” occasionally, has some great solar articles and other tips. By the way, well water works much better on my plants than chlorinated county water. Hurry an get that well in. I sunk mine with water. Got everything I needed for under $50.00. Look for “drill your own well” on the internet. Worked great, took about two hours, but I’m in sand. Happy Prepping.
The possibility of digging my own well, never occurred to me. Thanks for the info. I also live in sandy soil. I’ve been thinking that the area where the snow melt take the longer to be absorbed could be a good location to try. My house is located quite a bit higher since my backyard slopes down (which is great because I have a walkout basement).
Bigbone it sounds like you are well prepared. As for your kids I face the same thing with all 3 of mine. They believe something could happen but they think they can deal with it at the time. 2 of the kids are abut 15 miles from me and the 3rd is in Afghanistan. I know that if the SHTF while my son is in Afghanistan I won’t see him again and the chances of the other two making it to me are very slim.
I cannot understand people that do not do at least minimal preparation. I tell those people to forget about EMPs and world wide disasters. It is irresponsible to live day to day and not prepare for floods, fires, tornadoes, blizzards etc. I you have a family with little kids at home and do not prepare for emergencies it is nearly criminal. Still the vast majority of these people will do nothing and will be wondering the streets and begging for food, water and shelter.
Lee, I have family with a water well and they are shopping for a hand pump that will draw water up at least 120′ or more. My wife looked them up on the internet and a stainless-steel hand pump cost over $1,500.00, not cheap, but is probably a better initial investment than trying to buy a bunch of electronic components to replace fried parts.
Those “bailers” someone mentioned are a piece of PVC pipe with one end capped and attached on a small rope you lower and raise by hand, and only hold maybe a gallon or so, some less, and are similar in principle to the “bucket on a rope” over a shallow well as seen in the old west/pioneer type movies, but with no hand crank roller crossbar. If you’re interested in this, you may be better off to buy larger diameter PVC pipe, maybe 4″ or 6″ diameter, cut to your desired length, cap one end off, add some weight to the capped end (even a clean rock dropped inside will work), drill some small holes near the open end and attach a long length of cord or small rope.
I wouldn’t set up no kind of group nothing no way no thanks. They will be able to rat on where I am whilst they are being skinned alive. Nope I think I will just keep quiet and lay low for a few months. Give folks on the top side enough time to kill and eat each other down to a manageable level. The swarm will be too great.
I tend to agree Jasper. I plan on going it alone. that’s not to say that I will never hook up with others but it is not in my plans. For all the good a small group could do they present a number of potential problems and trust will be a constant problem.
Agreed. I don’t trust people on a good day. “Don’t worry. I’ll never talk no matter what they do to me” is horsehit at the highest level. People here in Nova Scotia can probably be expected to evacuate the province. I will not.
It’s funny, and sad, that I now keep all prepping totally quiet and make sure the wife and kids do too. Many years back, when I first got serious about it, I discussed it with a few neighbours I liked to see if I could get some group preparations going. Their response? ALL of them said”I don’t need to put food away – I know YOU have some. Hah hah.” Yeah. All of them have since moved away, and now I’ll only discuss prepping with a friend that I know has as many supplies as me.
Up here in Canada, there’s been a massive upsurge of people getting into prepping and getting firearms licenses. The AR15 is getting as popular as it is in the USA, although the old SKS is probably the most popular semiauto centerfire rifle (they’re dirt cheap up here).
I’d love to have a few neighbours I knew I could trust if SHTF, but experience has shown that talking about prepping is NOT a good idea. Sigh.
The RAND Corporation has published a number of EMP damage forecasts beginning in 2003, updated every 3 or 4 years. The original ‘threat’ in 2003 was a solar EMP. In the latest report, it is a high-altitude EMP (or HEMP) caused by a nuclear detonation. Short story, their latest forecast is that it will take down 90% of the electric grid and take at least 10 years to recover, if ever. They forecast 90% fatalities. The IC says ‘when’, not ‘if’. Sleep tight!
Yes, and those large transformers are only built in South Africa. Know what’s going on down there now? Maybe 18-22 months to build one, with grid up, and no civil problems.
South Korea, not South Africa. Lead time is 9 months for delivery. There are about 39 of these transformers throughout the US Grid. Do the math. But even that begs the question, “How will you transport and install one of these transformers CONUS with not electrical power and most of the population GONE before the first one is ever ready for delivery?”
Water, that is the most critical item that will be required, we can’t last more that a few days without it. I believe anyone that is smart enough to send us an EMP attack will figure the best time to do it is in the summer, and we all have somewhat hot summer weather, Montana thru to Maine.
I have a deep water well. I have a 7500 watt diesel generator that can start my submerged water pump. I also have spare diodes for the generator and a 275 gallon tank filled with diesel. I also have quite a bit of packaged food and a certain amount of canned food and a large supply of COFFEE for I am a coffee drinker 🙂 and an acre of land. I really do believe an EMP would totally destroy our wonderful country and life style.
I’m not an electronic wizard but I think you’ll need more than diodes with a powerful emp event.
I have spent my entire adult life working in the electronic communications industry and the last decade prepping broadcast facilities for EMP. EMP will damage any electronic item containing a coil of wire, such as motors and alternators. Unless a genset is protected by Faraday cage or other means it should be considered expendable. A protected genset is going to be the only sure way that you will have electricity. You then get into the fuel supply, maintenance, and repair logistics issues. If you have a well, a hand pump connected to a windmill is your absolute best bet. This is what allowed the American Great Plains to be settled. There are still companies that make these and it might be worth investigating them.
In my younger days I was a State Emergency Manager and I officed in the State EOC. Our EOC was underground, under a building, constructed of poured reinforced concrete and accessible through a tunnel system. The communications/ computer room was a building within a building (in the EOC) and was essentially a giant Faraday Cage. What the state had for electronic protection and what we could possibly build are miles apart. I protect my electronics with a home made cage based on reading everything I could find I am only hopeful it will work but there are no guarantees.
Hey, Rod. Would an EMP have any effect on separate components or say, a radio if there was no power connected? What about the old “crystal” sets we all built as kids? (Do they still make those kits?)
Miss Kitty, it is the separate solid state components that will be destroyed by an EMP. Power being connected or not really doesn’t matter if the device is not in a shielded container. Of course if it is in a shielded container the power cannot be applied. I am sure you can google crystal radio sets and learn to make one yourself. Not sure if anyone makes kits or not. Depending on how close you are to a radio station that is still on the air, you may or may not be able to pick something up on it.
Thanks, Rod! Appreciate the info!
The chances are, that there will be nothing broadcasting.
Even if the Military decides to broadcast on civilian frequencies, it will not be worth much. They will not tell you the real truth. Just a “hang tight and we will work out, all will be better soon”.
Do you really expect them to tel you that most of you will die in the next 6 months and that things will never get back to normal?
I would not be waiting for the military to tell me anything, I would be expecting others who think like I do, to be transmitting some information. You cross the street and could die today, and why would anyone want things to go back to normal. Have you missed the mess we are in? Did you somehow miss that real preppers, do prepping? LOL Let me guess, you are a theorist prepper.
So who in the above article actually described what they thought it would be like? We all know the utilities, etc will go down. You’ll live or die by what food you’ve stored. Guns and ammo? Of course.
Most people won’t know what happened; then their phones are dead is when they’ll know its not normal. 4 – 6 hours later is when panic will begin. Not long after that society will break apart as people act on their panic.
What it “looks like” will depend on where you live: city, suburb, or in the country. I live ipm the outskirts of a smaller city, but plan on bugging in, at least for a few days, then depending on the situation, going to the family farm in the country where we’ve stockpiled even more supplies.
It’s going to be horrible within a week, and then the disease starts, no matter where you are. There are so many variables, no one knows. Was the EMP on the coast? Midwest, High Altitude? It all makes a difference.
Not to be mean or anything, but if you have ever seen a junkie that cant get a “fix”, that is the way these millennials will be acting when the grid goes down and those iphones quit working.
The most important thing I have to offer is have you is this, have you thought of Solar Ovens? I now have two, one that goes to about 325, the other 450. Think how will you cook? Propane gets used up, wood, think deforestation, coal used up how to get more. The Late Great State of California has at least one thing on her side, we do get the Sun.
ryda, I just bought two solar cookers, one is the portable backpacker camping type with a glass tube to heat water and food in, the other is a parabolic dish about 3′ diameter with a stand for a pot above the dish. I have not tried using either yet, and will need to learn about reflection, angles, and the timing involved, any advice what to do? what to avoid?
If and when a EMP hits your factors of survival are limited to your knowledge of almost everything. Gardening, forestry,hunting and fishing skills, natural medicines and cures, sanitation and water purification and food storage not of freeze dried type but your own.Canning, meat processing , raising animals for butchering, books for further reference and enjoyment .I would like o believe that I have prepared for everything, but we will all come up short in some areas, so that leaves us with will power and faith, not only in self but more importantly in Jesus Christ to see us thru. May we pray for this nation and our leaders that they would seek divine guidance in our time of need.
Amen, old fart biker!
The one thing that I’m really surprised wasn’t mentioned is the fact that with an EMP EVERYTHING electronic shuts down. Airplanes, busses, trucks, cars, boats,trains…all losing power at the same time. All losing steering. Even with no propulsion inertia would carry larger vehicles quite a distance. Never mind the chaos on the highways, every plane or helo in the air is going to crash and there will be NO fire/rescue/police to render aid. Boats all dead in the water with no comm. Don’t know how well the military is prepared for an EMP, but they’ll likely have their hands full and won’t be deployed generally for a couple days if at all in some areas. That’s the thing I worry most about is the unchecked destruction from crashes and fires. If it’s a man-made event for maximum chaos and loss of life I would act around Thanksgiving/Christmas time. Lots of travelers, bad weather, flu season and a morale killer all in one nasty package. (I know, I’m just a happy little ray of sunshine, aren’t I?) That’s why I’ve tried to go low-tech as much as possible in my preps. Often, too, it’s cheaper.
Sorry, bit of a non-sequitur there. Just to clarify, low tech won’t help with planes falling out of the sky, but having low tech options that you are comfortable using will make your survival easier. When the world around you has gone to $#!+ being able to have a hot cup of soup or coffee will make you feel better.
There is something you left out, the nuclear power plants, without the grid to cool the rods and the spent rods stored there, they will start to melt down. The backup generators if they can get them to run may keep them from melting down for a week or so but when they run out of fuel, they will melt down. there will be a lot of Fukushima happening all over this country. A lot of people will die from this. There will be no way for them to stop the plants from giving off radiation for a long time. Just think of all the water that if you drink it you will get sick and die. Also the air you breath.
I have a supply of “iosat” just for that reason, two fresh water wells and enough 100 ft. plastic rolls to cover most of the back yard for planting till after the first rains wash away 90% of the radiation that will destroy the first four inches of ground. Our problem is, we have three power plants and McDill within a hundred mile radius. It won’t hardly matter which way the wind blows, we’ll get hit. Will really need a giger counter or some kind of meter to see when it’s safe to go outside.
I’m always reading about folks saying they will be able to hunt, fish or forage to survive after a nuclear meltdown but from what I can find out, everything not protected and above ground will be contaminated. Just like eating poison. If you can’t start over fresh, you’re done.
That isn’t totally true, now, is it? Japan got nuked… twice as I recall.
I seem to recall, the cancer rate skyrocketed after that. Could it be from radiation?
For the folks who were in the immediate vicinity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cancers in various forms did rise. They didn’t “skyrocket”. Not every person who was exposed got cancer. The folks who survived in the immediate area of the radiation are called in Japanese “hibakusha”. Some of them are horribly scarred from the heat from the blast. While the hibakusha had a high than the Japanese norm for cancer infestations, again, not all of them developed cancer, let along fatal cancer. And these were the folks close enough to be affected by the physical effects of the blast, heat and blast effect.
The whole country was not affected. The Japanese don’t have a higher cancer rate than other countries. A significant portion of their cancers involve cancer of the esophagus and stomach primarily due to their very high salt diet and heavy of alcoholic beverages.
Miss Kitty, I’m retired Navy and I think any military not caught up in taking care of their families would probably head for a base and remain there until communications were re-established and coordinated guidance was provided. All US forces combined do not have enough man-power to do much more than take care of their own and after an EMP will probably not be sent out to assist any civilian populations for weeks or even months, if ever.
I was active duty in the Philippines when MT Pinatubo erupted. The Air Force personnel from Clark had already been evacuated to Subic Bay, and had started evacuating on military flights, when later MT Pinatubo erupted again even harder and the airborne “ash” clouds and a Monsoon rain met overhead at Subic Bay, raining a gritty “mud” that piled up to about 18 inches, which combined with about 12 hours of on and off violently shaking earthquakes (not the rollers we get in Kalifornication), destroyed the electrical power, potable water, and sewage systems, All personnel were to remain on base and assist in securing everything and assisting as directed. Several days later an Aircraft Carrier arrived and moored up, making and providing limited amounts of potable water to be carried home in containers, and later the Carrier evacuated dependents to Cebu where they could fly out to safer locations – my wife was one of those evacuees. It was several weeks before the gates were open again for authorized but limited traffic. I stayed at Subic Bay for several more months until things were operational again before I was sent stateside to join my wife. If we get hit with an EMP, I expect all military bases stateside will be doing things similarly. My wife and I learned a lot about how serious disasters can be and how to adapt as needed, learning a lot of life lessons about being prepared in advance.
We have been prepared for a lot of natural disasters for quite a while now, but until recently we were not thinking about total societal collapse as would occur from an EMP, and discovered we had gaps to fill to attempt to be prepared for total loss of utilities for extended periods, such as for months, years, or even decades of no electrical power, no potable water, and needing to produce and obtain food and other necessities from local sources, basically living like our great-grandparents did before modern industry and public utilities were available. We are by no means self-sufficient, but we will have a significant head start on the majority of the population that has done little or nothing to be prepared. We will keep learning all the skills we can, and maintain a limited back-up supply of potable water, food, and other supplies as we are able to.
Whoever above said we would be back on our feet in a couple months has no frickin idea what they are talking about. All transformers will be ruined beyond repair. The bigger the transformer (sub-stations) the bigger the hit they’re going to take. These are pretty much exclusively made by Hitachi in Japan and are “build to order” with an 18-24 month lead time, during normal conditions. I know the buyer at Berkshire Hathaway energy, he used to be my boss. What this means is that you will never have the grid again, ever. Your greatest danger will be people. Once they get desperate, there is no limit as to what they will do. The city populations will move out into the countryside like locusts. You have to decide whether you are going to live, or die. If you want to live, you’re going to have to learn to kill humans, on a wholesale basis, because they are going to kill you if you don’t kill them. That is the bottom line, so either get tough, or put the gun up to your head and end it. That’s pretty grim, but it is the truth. Very few people will be able to successfully hide. If you wait until it has happened to get supplies, kiss your ass goodbye. Every week, buy a case of food and a box of bullets. Consider it a survival savings account. For those of you who are not aware, North Korea already has at least 2 EMP weapons in orbit. They are billed as being imaging satellites to help Korean farmers and foresters. If that was the case, there would be large data streams (images) coming down, but these birds are completely silent. Wonder who gave these to fatboy??
Yea the guest on levin last night brought up the point of NK having those satellites and could be armed with nuclear devices but we really don’t know. It has been suggested to just shoot them down but as we know, it has not happened yet. Hopefully fat boy will keep his word and start disarming nukes. Don’t want anything to escalate in that area.
Do you think they put hollow balls in orbit just to see if they could do it? They need to be intercepted over the Antarctic or the mid south Pacific and destroyed where there will be minimal damage. This is what fatboy is talking about when he speaks of retaliation. Anyone who would trust him for anything is a fool.
Okay, as it has been stated, most electric items will be useless after an EMP. And we store some smaller items in feraday cages to protect them. EMP items in the cages might be protected and still be useful, but what good will they be if all the radio towers, and transmitters, and cell phone towers , and possibly satellites are all knocked out? Maybe ham radios are best bet because they can transmit far off from one radio to the other or smaller two way radios to talk one on one. Just seems like services will not be available for most devices
When prepping, I think about layers. For example I have a propane stove, a kerosene stove and a small wood stove. All of these can be used for food preparation, heating and illumination. Financially, I have a few bucks under the mattress, some silver, some gold and a little copper. Transportation, I have a pickup, a motor scooter (80 miles per gallon) and a bicycle I have a 3500 watt generator in a sound deadening box, am constructiong a 12 volt generator from an auto alternator and operated by the rear wheel of my bicycle, and I have soilar panels to charge my electric system. Just imagine how you will do in your situation and begin building layers.
Has anyone thought that when an EMP does occur, no amount of Faraday cages will help with electronics. Phones will be useless as will computers. Who are you going to communicate with? Quiet possibly all wires dedicated for communication will be fried. Even in 1859 we had the telegraph and they became unusable except in some instances. I am concerned about my kids who go to school 12 miles from home. With no car to use and no farm animals, its going to be a long walk to get them.
Deena, you are correct that the majority of electronics that rely on infrastructure to work (cell phones, computers on the internet, TV’s, etc.) will be useless even if protected I would suggest getting something like the C.Crane Solar Observer and protect it (or a couple of them). There WILL be radio stations on the air and they will be transmitting information that you need. I have been involved in the program that sets these up and a lot of people are working every day to make sure these are ready when needed. At night you will be able to receive stations from long distances and possibly overseas as well. As far as schooling goes, I would hit the used book stores and get prepared to home school. A 24 mi. round trip to school on a daily basis is not feasible as our pioneers discovered, and they set up schools close to where the kids were out in the country. I do wish you and yours luck!!!
Forced home schooling? Sounds like an opportunity for a better education.
What bands/frequencies will these radio stations be on? In decades past, Civil Defense had 2 frequencies on the AM broadcast band where we were supposed to tune for further information. Will those frequencies be the correct place to go for information???? Or is there a new system being deployed, instead???
These stations will mainly be on the standard AM broadcast band, but there are a few FM stations too. Just tune until you find something on the air. One plus, if you can call it that, is that most of the noise on the AM band will be gone and you will be able to hear stations from coast to coast at night, and a lot of stations you can’t hear during the day too. The old CONELRAD frequencies of 640 and 1240 might be active in places, but only if that is the normal frequency of that particular station. (I worked at one station that still had the CONELRAD switch on the backup transmitter to switch it to 1240. I never had the guts to try it since the transmitter was pretty old and I really needed it to be able to take over for the main if something happened)
2 things you should look at getting, first get a bike, you could get a motor kit for it. make sure it does not use electronic to start. one with a pull cord to start it. also have a spark plug in a Faraday bag, just incase the plug gets fried by the EMP. Also get some good long range walkies talkies. put them in 2 faraday bags, give one to your kid to take to school and you keep one.teach them what to do with them and when they need to take them out to use. you also need to check the range of them to see how far they will work. I think it is not if the USA is going to be hit by an EMP, but when and i think it is going to be very soon, like less than a year.
Deena, I don’t know how old your children are but I would certainly develop a plan and rehearse / practice it with them and don’t let them forget it.
Phones and computers will be useless, but radios won’t. That’s why you need to have at least a few handheld sets – they’re very cheap on Amazon – and should consider investigating ham radio or CB.
Claude: Cell phones won’t work as cell phones, but they are low electricity users that are actually mini computers. They can store data on the phone itself. You can use it to store music. You can use it to store maps, books, useful articles, a whole plethora of knowledge can be stored on a small handy device that can be charged using a solar charger. Cell phones will not be useless. They will be helpful for as long as the batteries in them can still take a charge. Eventually they will die but immediately after an electronic event CME/EMP they can contain billions of data points. If you have an old phone, use it to store data. If it can take a memory card it is even more useful. Carefully protect it in a Faraday cage. If it is one you are not presently using, it is almost as good as books. It won’t last 300 years like a book printed on archival paper, but it will last until finally the battery just won’t take a charge any longer.
Perhaps you could even get a new battery installed in your archival cell phone to make it last that much longer, even though it might not need a new battery right now.
Please accentuate the positive and don’t keep repeating negative ideas that are not based on reality.
It might even be a good idea to buy an extra cell phone and use it jus to store data. Think about it. A small, portable computer a thousand times more powerful than the first computer that took up city blocks and required massive air conditioning to keep it from burning up.
After an EMP cell phones and computers may not be able use for communications but will be good as data sources for saved files as long as you also have ways to power them, like solar chargers. I recommend downloading all the instructional document files you can regarding anything and everything you can think of, from finding and purifying water, growing, producing, and gathering/harvesting food, skills such as first-aid and other medical skills including diagnosing, survival skills such as fire and shelter making, tying knots, how to use hand tools for everything, plant and wildlife identification, maps, and so on. Store the data storage drives and disks, along with the cell phones, tablets, laptops, and chargers in some sort of faraday cage. Will they survive an EMP and be useful? Hopefully we never have to find out, but it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
Hey, Rod. Would an EMP have any effect on separate components or say, a radio if there was no power connected? What about the old “crystal” sets we all built as kids? (Do they still make those kits?)
Miss Kitty, Any solid state device that is not shielded could definitely be damaged, whether or not it is connected to power or an outside antenna. Radio stations that prepare for EMP consider the equipment they use on a daily basis to be expendable and will rely solely on shielded, unconnected, equipment to replace the equipment that was fried by the EMP to get back on the air. They still make crystal sets, but if they use a solid state diode, that diode needs to be shielded. EMP blows open the junctions in solid state devices (transistors, diodes, IC’s) and opens or shorts wire coils such as those used in transformers, motors, and alternators. I personally carry a shielded C.Crane Solar Observer with me at all times. I like that radio so much that my wife and I gave all 5 of our grown children one for Christmas a few years ago. (I have no financial interest in the company, just a very satisfied customer)
You can find a map of all of the stations that have been set up for emergency broadcasting here. http://www.ne-eas.org/pepstations/index.html
Not to be contrary, but what do you think your government is going to do for you???All you have to do is look at how they handled New Orleans (Katrina) and multiply that by 100,000 or so. Even the mayor was ripping off his own people. Totally worthless. Be prepared to self sustain, there will be no help. Get non-hybrid or “open pollinating” seed as it will reproduce itself from its own seeds where hybrid will not. Buy seed that is designed for your climate zone. If you keep it in sealed opaque mylar in the fridge (DO NOT FREEZE IT!) it should last 5-7 years. Rotate it out every year. Read up on the seed bank in Decorah, Iowa and talk to them, they will help you.
BaryonBonder, while I agree with most of what you say, I have to clarify something. Not all seeds have a long viable life. Some deteriorate faster than other. Examples are corn and the onion family. You should find out which ones last less and then purchase those seeds if necessary every year. Most seeds last a long time.
Exactly why I suggested talking to professionals!
Rod, the link would not open, is there a new one for this?
http://www.ne-eas.org/pepstations/index.html
We will all need firearms and lots of ammo to protect our family,food & water,property,etc. If You have a gun safe with an electronic battery powered lock, it will be history after an EMP rendering it useless to open the safe. My safes are all manually unlocked using the combination dials with no electronic locks on them that would get fried during an EMP attack. That is the reason I don’t like or buy the safes with electronics. Just thought I would mention this so maybe You can change over to a safe with a dial.Hope this posting helps someone.
Great point Redneck. I never thought of that. Fortunately only one of my safes is electronic and it’s a small one for paper docs.
Thanks JakeTP. Sharing info and tips on this site is a tremendous way to learn and help others who are newbies or seasoned preppers. You would have to grind an opening in Your document safe. A torch could very easily burn all the paper contents. But a grinder could possibly start a fire inside the safe too the way they throw hot sparks around.
Maybe not all electronic lock safes that are generally purchased by the public are the same, but one that I regularly use has a key as a backup in case the electronic lock goes wonky.
redneck, I have an electronic lock on my gun safe, but it also has a manual key to open it when the battery dies. We also have a few guns stashed “here and there” for quick and easy access if needed, so we should be able to retrieve the key and open the gun safe for the “good stuff” in a relatively short time.
To be honest if I had a choice of major disasters, an EMP would be mine. I’d miss my computer, but no much else. And I would prefer Fall, which means that getting to where I live, on foot, would be a no-no for anyone in the rest of the nation (or in my state’s major cities). First of all, it doesn’t matter if you car would work or not. Try finding a gas station that does not use electronics. We had one in my town until about 3 years ago. They closed shop. Any one who claims to be a prepper, should have at least half a dozen ways to cook or at least heat canned food; refrigeration forget it, unless it’s in my state during 7 months of the year, add two more if you are using cold water. Water collection systems (the old kind as in barrels, unless you live in a desert), waste disposal (Humanure book anyone?). Most ways to preserve the harvest (assuming you grow anything in your yard) have been around since before electricity, etc. Learn all you can, or at least get some books you can read, with the info. (Did I mention no computers?) If you live in sunny areas of the country, remember people can still walk. I’m staying put, cold weather (the colder the better) and a real prepper are the best combination in case of a EMP. By the way, my town has an old fashion water powered plant. Our water company actually has 9 of them in the upper half of our state. They use electronics but the old fashion stuff is still all there. I do have a number of Faraday cages, they used to be called Christmas cookies tins. And a super duper one for my solar power battery recharger.
CarmenO, I don’t think you fully grasp what you just said. First and foremost, I mean no disrespect to you. An EMP isn’t a disaster you’d want to pick… Just re-read what so many have posted. It’s going to be Ugly. Disease-ridden. Deadly. A world of starving, desperate people. Nuclear plants melting down. A world poisoned by radio activity. You can’t prep for survival in a toxic world. And that, would be the End of our world as we know it.
Hoosier, I fully grasp what I said. Read again “if I”. That means me. Or do you think that because I said it, I’m going to jinx it and all of a sudden we are going to have an EMP thanks to me? Don’t be silly, that’s not how things happen. It sure beats a few of our old decrepit, falling apart, nuclear plants suddenly go boom, in a chain of events. Or the super volcano under Yellowstone spewing lava and rocks and smoke and causing another ice age, due to all the stuff covering the sunlight in the whole planet. Or all the huge faults under the US running amok and making the Navy map become a reality? What I mentioned means that people NEED TO PREPARE, like I’ve been preparing for the last 50 1/2 years. Plus, what you are saying is ridiculous, to say the least. Get real, 150 years ago people had ZERO electronics and somehow, surprise!, they managed to survive. EMP is not as likely as the plants blowing to kingdom come like the one in Japan that has contaminated the entire Pacific Ocean without a single EMP. Plus, this may come as a surprise but most people in the planet live in places with little technology and somehow there are 7,500,000,000 + people in the plant. You have been reading too many apocalyptical books. Or, maybe, the most stupid book of all, the nonsense call Strategic Relocation by the nutcase that recommend people go to Utah, a desert state, where the state government owns all the water, including rain and, get this, the gray water from everyone’s home, because Mormons have food storage. He forgot ‘and lots of guns and the LDS church says it is acceptable to shoot someone to protect your own’. LOL, ask me how I know. Plus, telling people to ‘go south, young man’, to hurricane region, with a few hundred million other people?? Sorry, for that little rant, don’t like the guy, think he is senile, and I’m his same age. I suggest you ready a really good book about how people used to live and all the things they did to become self-sufficient, even with a EMP.
Hey CarmenO, like I said right off, I meant no disrespect to you. As I read your post my mind was thinking of the nuclear plants melting down because their backup systems are most likely gone after an EMP. …. Not anything anyone would want. Not much to live for if the whole planet is poisoned. I’m not a wordsmith, just a retired guy on a homestead. The “if I” must’ve got overlooked by me.
You take care.
Even if an EMP wouldn’t affect you much personally, it’s going to have a devastating effect on the whole country. That means a crisis that’s about as bad as it could possibly be. I think I’d prefer just about anything to an EMP except a full-scale nuclear war or planet-killer asteroid.
Carmen, I too am using cookie tins insulated inside with cut-to-fit cardboard for faraday cages, but I’m having a problem locating one large enough for a laptop, and suggestions?
I think I will very much miss talking to all of you if this happens. Won’t be able to get on ask a prepper and see how everyone is getting through the turmoil. Better learn all I can now.
Wise last sentence, Wannabe. I’m sure some people posting here have every intention of learning “some day soon”. When I was a child we used to make phones with two cans and a piece of string. Worked fine, if you were really close. lol
Gonna miss you too, Wannabe. I think that’s one of the biggest impacts that we HAVEN’T talked about much – the fact that we’ll be isolated in our own little corners of the world without the support and advice of our on-line group here. Even those with whom we agree to disagree not only have good advice and valuable information, but more importantly get us to THINK about alternatives. Bouncing ideas off others is a resource I will miss, and I will miss the camaraderie even more.
I’ve always been skeptical about most SHTF scenarios, nuclear war, civil disturbance, world wide economic collapse, but have always lived a primitive life anyway just cause I like it. No power, no running water, sleeping on the ground, pooping in a hole? That’s not a disaster, that’s fun. But EMP worries me, just seems more likely the farther technology spreads among the little brown skin countries we always seem to be kicking around. Don’t count on NoKo disarming, we like to make fun of Kim and call him a lunatic, but he is a skillful politician with a well thought out strategy they have pursued successfully against opposition that falls little short of war. Reports came out after their last H bomb test that the blast collapsed the underground test facility, the bad news for NoKo being they also had their research and production facilities under the same mountain, so that the announced pause in the program is actually because they have to rebuild everything. Trump can bluster all he wants but bluster is their favorite game, and threats to destroy NoKo don’t scare them because we already destroyed every city, town, and indoor toilet in the country in the early 1950s. They rebuilt in a single generation. Could we?
“the little brown skin countries we always seem to be kicking around”? Wow, couldn’t you be a bit more offensive and condescending? Then you mention North Korea, which means that Asian nations are included under “little brown skin countries”. Here’s news for you. South Korea is constantly in the top 3 nations in the planet in mathematics and science, based on worldwide scores of students and lets not forget they beat the US in ENGLISH scores. The US is lower in the scale every year: it tied at number 28 with Italy which makes it 28 1/2. Lets not forget the other four small “brown” nation on the top 5: Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. Get real when it comes to electronic all those nations beat the US, which is in free fall in that also. Your defense of “the little brown skin countries” says a lot about you. I happen to be from one of “”the little brown skin countries”, which is tied to the US, like it or not by zero choice, and I would bet my IQ against your IQ any day. Number one choice in degrees throughout said “little brown skin country”? Engineer. Right now I live in a state with number one degree in Social Services (about as brainless as it gets). I have an issue with people who see themselves as somehow superior to “”the little brown skin countries”. It takes a lot to make me angry, and you did a direct hit in one of them.
Its going to be difficult for Canadians… especially those that border the United States. We’re going to have a real problem surviving the winter. Those Canadians who live in the Arctic, I believe, stand the best chance for long term survival with no electronics, simply because many of them already do. I am basing my own prepping on a lack of electricity. Every time we lose power, I go out and start the car. The day we lose power, and my car doesn’t start, I’ll assume the worst.
There are lots of great books out there to help you through a process like this. One that I have found very informative is Dr. Arthur Bradley’s book on disaster preparation for families. You can buy one from his website called disasterprepper.com or from Amazon. Its a big book with lots of information. He also has written a fictional series called “the survivalist.” The characters in the books use lots of prepper ideas and it has great characters.
Forgot to mention, according to the NSA (yep, the National Security Agency) website data, we beat the rest of the US in scores, also.
Forgot to mention, according to the NSA (yep, the National Security Agency) website data, we beat the rest of the US in scores.
HH
I been watching and following your comments, wisdom and thinking. I first want to know if you are indeed in the Hoosier State as I am? If u r then I would like to get together somewhere and share a cup of coffee with ya. I have been blessed 3 ways from Sunday and my preps are well let’s just say I need to divide to concur. If u r interested to contact me just reply and we will find some way to meetup. If u r not interested , that’s ok also but let me know something.
After three days panic will set in across the country. People who take insulin or other drugs to stay alive will die the first six months. The cities will be in complete chaos, with looting, robbing and murders. After the first year one half to two thirds of the population will be dead. Stock up on ammo and guns now, start dehydrating food, know where a water source is near you. Pray you live in the country.
There is also something to be considered with seed storage, age of seeds. Some seeds age well, however germination rate can and will go down depending upon the species. Some by only 10%, but others up to 50% a year. That means no food.
This is a couple years past due…but better late than never.
Predicting the future is pure speculation…but the more experience and knowledge you have improves the predictive speculation.
An X-20 class solar flare causing an EMP has very little chance to hit earth. That type of flare happens very rarely, and usually goes into deep space. The last time one was to hit earth was the Carrington Event in 1859, it fried telegraph wires and equipment. Very random, very unlikely.
Experts say a surprise EMP is now part of China’s ‘Blitzkrieg’ strategy. Russians have had this for decades…but MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) prevents them from using it. Our military would see who launched WWIII, and our subs would turn their cities into radioactive dust bowls. Not Happening.
However unlikely, the following scenario has been discussed by those with much experience and knowledge.
USA EMP attack: a “rogue” nation or “religious terrorists”, friends of our enemies, with EMP nukes from a cargo ship in the Gulf of Mexico. In minutes airplanes will be dropping out of the sky, including in Mexico and Canada.
Do Not Under Estimate the Impact…This is a worst case SHTF scenario. Our technology driven society will be gone in seconds. So many dangerous things will go wrong.
There will be an eerie “Total Silence” in our world.
No light bulbs at night. We can see the stars again.
No cell phones. We will get to talk to our kids again.
If lucky, the “hardened” nuclear power plants will be able to safely shut down. And there will be much more danger all around us.
Life will not be the same…as we go back 200 years to a time before electricity.
Survivors will not live long enough to go 200 years “Back To The Future”.
An EMP Nuke that kills North America will hit the rest of the world. Either our Sub Captains will counter-attack with EMP Nukes to keep the enemies busy in their own countries for the next 50 years, or an economic collapse will be almost as severe for the entire world.
A world of 6 billion will be reduced to 1 billion, with 20 million preppers in the USA.
Most of the world population will be in China, India, Africa, and South America…places where technology did not rule their society.
Experts that say 90% of the American population will expire in one year. But this deadly disaster will continue in “several waves over several years”.
– The big cities will quickly burn in the 1st wave. Starving armed survivors will migrate on foot to the country, killing each other for scraps of food as they go, but very few will last long against heavily armed country folks who are camouflaged deer hunting expert snipers.
After the first winter, 90% of Americans and all big cities will be gone.
– Then the 2nd wave begins. Deadly city gangs of militaristic pirates using military tactics will start scouting for millions of preppers. Their numbers and firepower may be overwhelming.
The roaming gangs should be gone after 3 years, unless The Walking Dead “Neegan” shows up and controls local towns. But heavily armed towns with ex-military leaders with sufficient assets can stop the “Neegan” gangs.
Another option for a wealthy prepper group with a couple million and a couple years to build it. A hardened high-tech underground facility set up like a 3-year Mars Mission. Stay underground with triple redundancy for all critical systems.
But seriously, no prepper wants any of this…let us pray this all stays as Science Fiction.
But “Just In Case”, Keep Prepping.
J Quest, for the 2nd Wave, what if during the first year the skilled hunter sniper types did some RECON into areas suspected of having gangs of militaristic pirates, then start using guerilla tactics as preliminary strikes on them while they are still in their “territory”? For those concerned about moral ethics, those get tossed when it comes to “us or them” survival. I’d rather exterminate the rats in their nest where we can determine the “kill zones” rather than wait until they infiltrate mine.
https://urbansurvivalsite.com/basic-skills-you-need-to-master-before-shtf/