An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation that can come from a variety of natural and artificial sources.
Intense electric and magnetic fields interact with electronics, causing severe damage. Localized sources could be a lightning strike, static discharge, or targeted EMP devices.
A high-altitude nuclear detonation can cause damage at the continental scale, and solar storms can affect the entire world.
How Does an EMP Affect Electronics?
EMPs cause rapid voltage spikes that overload or damage electrical systems. Modern electronics are designed to operate within very specific voltages, and the sudden surge of extremely high voltage causes components to overheat, burn out, or rupture.
Even in components designed for high voltages, an EMP can cause insulating materials to break down, leading to short-circuiting or arcing on circuit boards that destroy electrical pathways.
Electronics connected to the grid will be subjected to the greatest effects of an EMP, because powerlines act as antennas that collect and then channel the electromagnetic radiation directly into critical electronics.
Any appliances or electronics plugged in at home will receive the EMP burst through the air and an additional concentrated burst through power lines.
One of the best and only ways to avoid all you electronics being destroyed in the event of an EMP is covering them with this EMP-Proof Cloth.
How Long Does the Attack Last?
Fortunately, no one has been able to weaponize the power of a solar storm.
Unfortunately, nuclear weapons exist and pose a significant risk to the world.
High-altitude nuclear detonations are the most likely form of an attack EMP that could affect an entire nation.
These explosions occur at altitudes of at least 98,000 ft (up to hundreds of miles) and release radioactive particles (gamma rays) that produce three separate waves of effects conveniently called E1, E2, and E3.
The specific impacts of the EMP can vary significantly based on the yield size of the nuclear weapon and the altitude of the detonation, influencing both the intensity and range of the damage.
Related: 8 Nuclear Attack Myths You Should Stop Believing
In general:
- E1 lasts less than a microsecond. It is a very fast pulse of energy caused by the gamma rays of the nuclear blast interacting with the atmosphere. Ionization occurs when electrons are knocked loose from countless atoms, sending a high-energy burst to the Earth’s surface that severely damages electrical systems. This is the most intense wave that causes the burning, overloading, and rupturing of electrical components.
- E2 occurs instantly after E1 and can last for a few milliseconds. It is the latent effect of the scattered gamma rays reaching the surface of the Earth. E2 is a bit slower and less powerful than E1 but can cause additional effects after the E1 wave has already damaged insulation and other protective measures.
- E3 begins as E2 is finishing and can last up to a few minutes. The ionization of the atmosphere causes distortions in the Earth’s magnetic field, which then causes geomagnetically induced currents. These currents affect long conductors, such as power lines and gas pipelines, potentially damaging critical grid components like transformers and electrical substations.
The EMP is finished within a few seconds or minutes, and the attack is over. However, the aftermath of an EMP strike is full of difficulties, and the struggle will be far from over.
Aftermath of an EMP
Short-Term Effects
Short-term effects occur in the first seconds to days after the EMP. Unshielded electronic devices will have been destroyed or severely damaged already, leading to the loss of usable vehicles, communications systems, and power grid controls.
Transportation and logistics will immediately grind to a halt, along with the majority of critical commodities and emergency services relying on it.
Banking systems will no longer function, rendering digital money useless and forcing the populace into cash or barter systems.
Television and most radio systems will no longer work, immediately cutting off outside information and drastically reducing situational awareness.
Medium-Term Effects
Medium-term effects occur in the days to months after the EMP. Water and food supply disruptions will cause widespread hunger and dehydration. This, combined with hospitals struggling to function, will lead to a sanitation and health crisis. There will be an antibiotics shortage, so learn here how to stockpile antibiotics without a prescription, before it’s too late.
With banking and economic systems unable to operate, millions of people will become jobless and unable to access any savings they did not already physically possess when the attack occurred. Economic instability will rapidly grow, with families dropping into deep poverty as their stocks dwindle.
Long-Term Effects
Long-term effects occur in the months to years after the attack. Replacing all critical infrastructure would be a monumental task, setting industries back for years. The long lead time for replacement parts could cause the rampant spread of disease from water-borne illnesses and the exacerbation of health problems.
By now, the social and political problems will have grown drastically, leading to civil unrest and the possible collapse of an effective government beyond areas localized around government centers. Enemy armies could invade if they were not subjected to an EMP counterattack and still had functional electronics.
Recovery Time
Recovery time would likely take more than a decade. Critical infrastructure, supply, and emergency services would be prioritized in the first days to months. In the first few years, electrical supply will begin to reach cities and essential services again. It would take a decade or more to return to normalcy.
Essentially, an EMP attack will be extremely damaging for up to a few minutes, with immediate and slow-burning effects that can last for years. The more off-grid your lifestyle and the greater your stockpile of essential supplies, the better chances you will have to escape the crisis. Food and water stockpiling will help, but a sustainable production source is better. Backup critical vehicle electronics, solar panels, radios, generators, and other electrical essentials could be kept in EMP-shielded storage as an emergency kit to get you up and running faster after an EMP.
Combine passive preparedness, like stockpiling, with active preparedness. Drill with your family on how to replace the vehicle electronics, build solar panel systems, and generate electricity from spare parts. Not only will this dramatically improve your chances of surviving successfully, but it will also allow you to become extremely valuable to others in your community if you choose to share this information with your neighbors.
How have you prepared for a potential EMP? Share your tips and strategies with us!
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this was an informative article and really gets a person to thinking, as it should. water is going to be our biggest obstacle to overcome. i did buy a new well bucket from LEHMANS HARDWARE and a length of rope to reach the water. i keep both items along with a pulley in a storage building we have. pulling the well pump will be fun. we do hoard bargaining items for when money is useless. please keep these good articles coming, and feel free to reprint other articles as a refresher is always good.
EMP, water shortages is something to know about but not fear.
What is funny about California’s drought crisis is it is man made by environmentalist and the crazy Sacramento politicians.
The water is being dumped or diverted from irrigation systems to the farmers into the ocean to save a made up “Delta Smelt” fish as an endangered species fraud.
That would probably help the firefighters put more water on those man made “Wildfires” or planned fires happen every year by arsonist. This is to get the outlying homeowners to live in high density housing and use public transportation in 15 minute cities.
California feel sorry for all the retired seniors and retired military on fixed incomes that can not afford to move out of an illegal invasion state.
EMP is the least of our worries so far.
There are a few DIY well bucket instructions on youtube. I have made three (different diameters) for our place and have parts to build six more for select neighbors. Five hundred foot spools of rope and cable can be purchased online. Include a small snatch blocks and or mountaineering rescue pulleys for a block system. A drum winch like on a sailboat could help some. Guard against chaffing.
This article is pretty pollyanna. Power and all services will end immediately. No power, no gas, no heat, no food deliveries, no groceries. Unprepared people will loot to survive. Grocery stores need daily resupply and have a weeks worth of food in stock. In less than 2 weeks hunger will set in for the masses. They will strip the woods of game and criminal gangs will be the strongest groups, especially in the cities. After all the pets are eaten you can bet that cannibalism will break out, along with disease from poor sanitation and lack of medical care. Most will die off in the first year. Only those in rural areas who band together will survive. Military and government may control some areas, especially where their own are, but they will be forced to be repressive and allow chaos to rule in most areas and decide who will live and who will starve.
If the right people are in government, they will never let chaos rule…churches will band together ….neighbors will band together…..even the dicks in ganges might have a change of heart…..once they see they have no other choice between life and death..big cities should be the best and first places to recover…and will come to the rescue of the of the out lying small communities….we know what dems will do. it was on full display during 2020 and the next 4 years….made a EMP attack look like a walk in the park…..So never vote for a Democrat……Republican’s are at least on the right side of things and getting better….with dealing with power hungry Dems. Vote early…down ballot….in person if you can…then sit back and keep a good eye on the Dems. for the lies they will say and the actions they will take.They should never have power over the constitution…..that was meant for the citizens of America to live by….it should survive a EMP…. Just my opinion…thanks for letting me express it.
Will AI survive and the restored nuke facilities, like three mile island, as this is needed to power up the surveillance energy sucking program. The additional energy needed for the digital dollar currency used to track us.
So will we be tracked after a SHTF happens?
We know starlink could be taken over by hackers to exploit our communications. There are other things going on before and after an EMP and whatever food preps we have left.
It also depends on what happens post to this coming election.
If there are no electrons in the pipeline, safe to say there is no electronic anything. It’s no different then when the banks closed in 1929. My grandfather asked his mother how much money she had? They were fairly well off. She went to write him a check…”No Mama. How much money do you have?” She had 38 cents. He said that’s all the money you have. The Banks closed. How is this different from our “money” now? Electrons go POOF.
Tangible assets are what counts. I have a friend who has been paying for haircuts with .380 ammo for years.
EMP strikes won’t make you glow in the dark like nuclear…at least the ones from the sun.
The EMP threat is the same as nuclear weapons just another hoax that keeps the fear and stress levels high.
The last 4 years have taught me to quest everything and check the validity of those things the establishment use to keep the fear ramped up.
John Hamer has a presentation on the nuclear weapons hoax on oddysee and bitchute.
Hoax? So don’t do anything to prepare and hope it’s not?
I prefer to take at least a few precautions because what do I have to lose?
Everything.
Hope is not a plan!
Here’s the scoop:ONE low yeild nuclear device detonated ROUGHLY above the USA would set us all back AT LEAST 100 years in the blink of an eye. Check out the EMP Commission reports on damage from an EMP. Its scary shit! Thats some depressing info! Nice place to access it is empshield.com. They have a literature section with a good amount of US government information, like the EMP Reports. They also sell patented EMP Shield devices that will protect your vehicle FAR better than anything else. Give up on the idea of buying an older vehicle in the idea that it will be automatically EMP proof, which it wont be unless its pre 1972-74 era, also forget about about buying spare modules or spare parts to replace EMP damaged components. I AM a vehicle mechanic and with anything much newer than about 2000, you just cant do it. The vast majority of TCM, ECM, PCMs are NOT Plug-N-Play. They have to be basically “mated” or programmed to the specific vehicle.That is done with certain high level scan tools, Snap-On, Pro link, Factory Ford, GM, etc diagnostic tools. Can it be done by an individual in their own driveway? Yes, but the logistics of the post-EMP situation are too steep. Are you going to carry the approximately 8-12 THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of diagnostic equipment and replacement PCMS, BCMS, etc for your specific vehicle with you at all times AND get the specialized training to use those diagnostics AND have it all properly shielded and securely packed away in your vehicle so when an EMP hits you can try to remember that training, dig out your parts, carefully and correctly diagnose the damaged component right there on the spot and then be able to drive on to p/u your loved ones? Good Luck on that! Buy an EMP Shield, install it and securely connect the 3 wires RIGHT NOW and quickly drive home with your family before insanity sets in. BUT, it has to be installed b4 an EMP attack, not after. It only takes ONE nuclear device to take the US power grid down, and likely Canada and Mexico too. It wont be coming back up any decade soon. Waaaayyy too much damage. If you want to know why i say that please read the book by Steven Starr, Nuclear High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse:A Mortal Threat to the US Power Grid. It’s a very small book, most avid readers can finish it in an evening, or a few days of after dinner reading. Sobering indeed. Knowledge is power. I have EMP Shields on my 2 daily drivers and home and shop buildings. Check that out and chew a bit on it. I know i did.
a Hoax is preposterous. Emp is a Proven scientific fact. and is our greatest threat to our destruction. for the deluded non believers, go read the congressional report to assess the threat of Electromagnetic pulse attack.
and the big cities are the worst place to be and the last to recover.
a man passed me on my 23rd floor balcony falling to his death from 60 floors. I heard “pretty good so far” as he passed me by. those who fail to prepare are prepared to fail. your likely to be a looter in the making.
You neglected to mention the most destructive EMP event which would be a major coronal mass ejection from the sun. Every 100-200 years a Carrington level event or higher hits the earth. The last major one was in the 1880s when telegraph lines and stations burned from the overload of atmospheric electricity. Such an event today would fry all electrical systems and send most of the world back to the early 1800s. With our magnetic field rapidly weakening, the possibility of such an event rises.
As long as the Heliosphere stays intact (Sun keeps shining) and nobody removes certain huge amounts of metal from the core of our planet (impossible to do), our magnetic field will stay intact just fine. It likely fluctuates up and down, just like the hole in the Ozone layer, every so many years. That i’m aware of, nobody has proven anything to the contrary on the strength of the Magnetosphere. Believe the jury’s still out on the exact cause of Magnetospheric fluctuations.
Everything related to EMP knowledge is important… just as, if not more important than weather related, disaster related, and civil unrest related… Its nearly a full time job keeping up with everything, information is also important… One should always be atuned to information.. and how to use that information like this EMP info right here… PS, I’ve seen this info before and enjoy being reminded every now and then… Oh ya, these comments, mostly good ones, but the ones that seem to reflect the idiocracy’s through their finger tips on a keyboard are the ones that entertain me and sometimes even bring a little laughter to my semi inane life style… May peace and serenity fuel your life as it does mine…
Yeah we have all this 24/7 news cycle of fearmongering from both sides and they sell books of repeated survival skills. The average American is not going to do all those skills.
Right now beyond the prepper fantasy and fearmongering of the alphabet agencies, we have the most important historic event coming in a few days.
The 2024 presidential election is more important than an EMP, if the election goes sideways a dark cloud of worse that these previous years in office. Your first and second amendments are going away and that is no joke.
We have Demoncrap states giving out voter ballots to illegals as these supposed drivers licenses are coded, to say no voting but we know this going on.
The voter ID workers in some states are not looking closely and handing out vote ballots to unauthorized individuals who should be back in their country.
That is what those in the know say is a rigged election.
You don’t think so, do your research and don’t use google for reference.
Vote early if you can….just in case there could be some kind of a EMP event between now and 11-5-2024….USA….USA……USA….!!!!!
“Recovery time would likely take more than a decade.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, that is meant to funny right??? More like a century!!! And that would never replace America it would look like the various invaders and assorted scum that would survive!
Well , i do recall reading in geology books that the Earths magnetic poles have flipped from north to south many times on a regular basis.My question is…..is there much protection from the Sun during the the flip ? Plus i guess we are over due for a flip of some kind. I don’t know even if that has anything to do with EMP, Only from the Sun i suppose. So vote early any how….Peace
A high-level man-made EMP event would be devastating to ANY country and that’s ONE of the reasons people are motivated to prepare. Most of us here now on this page are well aware of the long term effects of a concerted, concentrated emp attack on a sovereign nation. Such an attack would plunge that nation back to a pre-industrial civilization. It may very well take us a century or more to recover and the process would be “unpleasant” in the extreme. How many of us are truly aware how much our society depends on electricity to get things done. Without electricity we are boogered. One of the few demographics a lack of electricity wouldn’t affect much are people like the Amish and the Mennonites. An enemy nation doesn’t have to destroy the infrastructure with nuclear weapons; they just have to take out the electrical grid and that would be much more onerous than physically destroying the cities. Once the electrical grid is gone it becomes a “to the death” battle for finite and diminishing resources. And for god’s sake people, don’t be so foolish as to share your preparation activities with friends, neighbours, coworkers, etc. At this juncture I don’t think I need to remind people of that. Keep your activities as close to your vest as you can. As if your life depended on it. Because it does. I find even not eating for a few days challenging. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be starving after about a month or so without food. I’d be going out of my mind and I wouldn’t be in my right mind. Obviously food would be my top priority and at that point I wouldn’t care what I would have to do to find some food. My neighbours would start to look awfully tasty. 😉 And the other thing; if you decided to bug in and remained living in your small town or even city, how would you prepare the foods from your stockpile that needed to be cooked, such as the meats, without your neighbours getting wind of it? Where I’m living right now, I don’t THINK there are a lot of people of the prepared mind living close to me. At least I don’t THINK there are. There may be one or two but I’m unaware of them. That’s a very difficult discussion to start with people without giving your own plans away. What I DO know is that about a day’s walk south of me are approx. 8-10 million people. When THEY start starving they’ll have no choice but to come north, They can’t go south. I think one of the most foolish things that some of these youtubers can do is give us a guided tour of their stockpile. Obviously SOMEONE on youtube knows who they are and where they live. And once things get really bad and people start starving guess where they’re going to head first. I’m a senior on a fixed income and I really don’t have the resources to prepare a lot. I may have a few extra cans on hand and things like that but I don’t have the disposable income to become properly prepared. If worse comes to worse I’m going to have to take my chances and hope for the best. It’s interesting to come to websites like this because I like reading the comments and one can always pick up ideas in how to improve your garden, water conservation, etc. even if your garden is only a few hundred square feet. Every little bit helps and there’s nothing quite as nice as eating fresh from your own garden.
Right NOW, Oct ’24, Cuba is in a Total Grid Down situation. If you want to know the Reality of peoples reactions to this type of event, keep an eye on what’s happening in Cuba. Don’t forget that this current Cuba issue is very small compared to the potential future USA or World EMP event.
Extinction level event! Spent fuel rods stored on site must be cooled with water pumped 24/7 365! Nuclear power plants won’t have fuel for backup generators that run pumps more than a few weeks tops. Fukushima was the “wake up call “. Pumps stop, cooling water evaporates, spent fuel rods burn, the end! Just saying. Congress isn’t addressing this problem! We’re all here on borrowed time.
If some country decided to do a large EMP attack on the USA or any other country… i think the USA could pull a scorched Earth policie on the attacking morons with just one of our subs .Which would solve that problem in a instant .Peace through strength And common sense. I think …..even Iran might get the picture ….The current leaders maybe not…but their citizens might understand . Just my opinion . And who likes to treat Iran with money….Ah can you say democrats ? Talk about morons….out the morons in the Democrat Party…for a safer world. and a road to universal peace . If you can handle it. We have to start somewhere…It’s true that ufo’s don’t seem to to be a threat….and the possibility of some of the ufo’s being ours could be true. Ufo’s seem to be concerned with nuclear weapon’s. Some people believe nuclear weapon’s damages the universe at a quatum level . Plus the alien threat is going to be the next hoax to keep the military industry flowing with money. Anyway….I believe a good part of the maga movement can sort things out if given a chance. there’s a lot of good people in the movement that are open minded. That believe in truth over lies . God help us. Vote early and down ballot. Peace