An Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is a burst of energy that can damage or destroy unprotected electrical equipment and systems. Military and DIY devices can disrupt local areas, some with only a few feet of effective range, while high-altitude nuclear detonations can disrupt entire nations.
Coronal mass ejections from the sun, like the Carrington Event of 1859, can disrupt the entire world, especially the side facing the sun when the energy reaches Earth.
Though less effective than an actual EMP, coordinated cyber attacks can cause many of the same hardships and disruptions.
As with any attack, some places are better to be at than others. Here are some of the worst places to be when an EMP hits.
Dense Urban Areas
Possibly the worst place to be during an EMP strike is in dense urban areas. These areas often have high-rise buildings, complex transportation networks, and significant reliance on electricity.
Even if a river runs through a city, filtered and purified water is pumped to each dwelling, and strong pumps are needed to bring water up hills and tall buildings. Similar to water, sewage systems rely on automated controls and electronic pumps. Without clean water coming in or sewage going out, sanitation will be severely impacted, leading to dehydration and the spread of disease.
If you want to make sure the water you’re using for you and your family is safe to drink, it’s best to filter rainwater yourself. You can learn here a cheap and easy way to create an ingenious rainwater harvesting and purification system capable of storing 165 gallons of water.
Transportation systems and vehicles rely heavily on electrical components, and the system can become instantaneously immobilized.
Cities with hundreds of thousands or millions of people consume several thousand tons of food every day, requiring robust logistics and supply chains.
Without these, food scarcity will rise drastically. Without the means to quickly exit the city, masses of people will slowly expand into more rural areas in search of food. Anyone left in the city’s center will not only be searching for scraps there but will also have to travel quite far to catch up with the masses who scavenged outside of the city.
Crime is already a problem in many cities. Alarms, security cameras, and communications devices rely on electronics. When these systems go down, crime deterrence goes down with them. Criminals will be free to operate without much threat of police intervention unless they just happen to be there.
Even ordinary law-abiding citizens may descend into panic and begin looting. Survival is a more powerful instinct than following the law, meaning the city may not take long to descend into chaos and violent crime.
The Northeast Blackout of 1977 affected New York City and surrounding areas. The blackout lasted for only 25 hours but led to widespread chaos in the city. Looting, arson, and vandalism swept the city, and over 1,000 fires were reported.
Related: How to Tell If You’re an Easy Looter Target
Some reports suggest the crime rate jumped nearly 75 percent, and the total count of violent crimes is difficult to determine. All this was from a lightning strike on a power station that was repaired a day later. An EMP that also disables vehicles, hospitals, communications, and more can easily lead to far greater crime.
Industrial Areas
Many industrial areas can be hit with an EMP and cause little to no danger. Some, like chemical plants or those with chemical processes, can be dangerous to entire regions.
Chemical plants have many fail-safes in case of power outages, but the likelihood of catastrophic failure is greatly increased.
Even a simple fire can ravage the plant, and with communication networks down, emergency services will be unaware until it is too late. An industrial chemical plant going up in flames will spread toxic fumes and smoke regionally.
Beyond toxic fumes, some chemicals tend to create massive explosions. Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used fertilizer and was responsible for the 1947 Texas City disaster when a ship full of it caught fire and exploded, killing hundreds of people and destroying several buildings.
The same fertilizer caught fire and exploded in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2020. This explosion also killed hundreds of people and was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.
Military Bases
Military bases are generally well-defended and have significant resources in case of emergencies. The danger lies in them being intentionally targeted.
If an enemy detonates atmospheric EMPs that disrupt the nation, military bases will likely be targeted by further strikes with conventional or nuclear weapons, leading to dangers in the surrounding areas.
⇒ US Nuclear Target Map. Do You Live in the Death Zone?
If these bases are targeted, civilians in the area can easily be caught up in the attack or misidentified and purposely targeted. Even without follow-on attacks on the military base, security forces will be on high alert and may act aggressively without much provocation.
In more extreme cases of government collapse, these bases may become hotbeds for looting and exploitation, providing the looters with sophisticated and exceedingly deadly weapons they may or may not know how to use.
Cartels and organized gangs who manage to take advantage of a situation like this will become a serious threat with the aid of looted military equipment.
Similar events occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union when large military stockpiles lost centralized control and were exploited by various groups.
Island Nations or States
Highly populated islands, like the Hawaiian Islands, have a finite amount of resources they can produce themselves. Many resources are imported, and there is significant reliance on the outside world. When an EMP hits and those outside resources stop coming, the island will be left to fend for itself.
Food and water will quickly become scarce, and there is nowhere to go to look for more. Fishing, foraging, and rainwater may be enough in the short term, but concerted efforts will have to be made immediately to avoid starvation and civil strife.
Beyond food and water, other goods like manufacturing materials and medical supplies will be difficult to obtain. Antibiotics will be especially hard to come by, so you should learn here how to stockpile antibiotics without a prescription, before it’s too late.
Some estimates suggest Hawaii imports nearly 90 percent of the resources it needs, which is a significant amount of resources to suddenly have to produce itself. Islands have a finite ecosystem of resources that need to be carefully maintained.
If the island must become self-sufficient and source all of the needs of the people, deforestation and ecosystem collapse become more likely, leading to further difficulty in resource acquisition. This exact scenario is thought to have happened to the indigenous people of Easter Island, where they extracted more from the island than it could replace naturally, leading to civil collapse and the eventual extinction of the population.
An EMP can have serious effects, from within a single room to spanning the entire world. From the phones not working to societal collapse, the range of damage is immense, and precautions should be taken to prepare for it.
Coronal mass ejections can reach the earth in 12-48 hours. A modern nuclear missile can reach the US in less than 15 minutes. Cyber attacks can occur instantly.
Preparing in advance is the only sure way to keep yourself from experiencing the full brunt of the effects associated with EMPs. Avoiding the worst areas to be when an EMP hits is an easy first step. Another important step you can take right now is to wrap the essential electronic devices in an EMP-Proof Cloth.
This EMP-Proof cloth was developed after years of extensive research by top U.S. scientists and it provides 98% military-grade protection against electromagnetic waves. You can cover everything in it – as long as you’ve got enough of them – from credit cards, laptop, a fridge and even your car!
The thing is, the EMP Cloth isn’t always available. They don’t restock them that often because they’re pretty hard to produce, so it took YEARS for me to finally get my hands on it. I found a reliable website to order it from, as I wanted to make sure the material is the right one. I recommend you secure your own cloth from here. It’s a rare find and not many people get to own it, which is a shame.
What other places will you be avoiding when an EMP hits? Let us know in the comments!
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My two worst places to be when an EMP hits are in an airplane flying somewhere over the lower 48 states; and where I live now, east-southeast and downwind of 6 nuclear power plants in SC. If electrical power ever goes off for almost any length of time, the loss of power will prevent the electrical pumps that cool radioactive rods from cooling down, resulting in an explosion. The minute I hear on the news of a nuclear power plant explosion upwind from me, I am taking my family west/southwest of where we live, to escape radioactive fallout. Our family has 4 precious children aged 12 and under.
Unfortunately it would take you days to get far enough away to be safe!!
You all will be glow in the dark crispy critters in SC.
The solar, wind turbines are part of the new green energy lies to be dependent on the CCP manufactures, most of that expensive cheap China garbage kills wildlife.
Nuke energy is BS the waste is stored in leaking storage shelters, thanks to Obama the desert nuke waste storage facilities was canceled.
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is a permanently closed nuclear power plant located south of San Clemente, California, on the Pacific coast. They now have sealed nuke waste next to the ocean.
What could go wrong next to the border with illegals, terror groups coming across the open border. The waste is just sitting there in the open.
Luckly for us All nuclear stations in the Us have been HEMP hardened, so they will be able to shut them down.
According to a highly positioned person in the power generation sector.
We got more to worry about than this article paints a fearmonger article.
The reality will hit in a few weeks after this coming election.
How many Harris-Walz supporters know the real deal going to happen, an EMP or martial law will be a walk in the park compared to what will happen.
So long Chuck glad you are gone for good a real troll in disguise.
Universal housing, healthcare, free everything that’s just the beginning for illegals non-citizens sucking all your income, including all savings, vote for Harris-Walz sheeple.
American legal citizens will be stripped of everything, you will own nothing as you all support the open border foreigners getting a free lunch. Right now they get whatever we get as Americans, then better housing, drivers licenses a path to vote in our elections. The big one on November 5th that will determine whether we become the old Soviet Union or a place to rebuild our country first.
We know when a woman gets in charge things fall apart politically.
People like the Demoncratic female governors have failed. They say anything on the fence voters want to hear but deliver something chilling instead.
The Constitution never had abortion as a right to murder innocent human babies after birth. So these ugly fat females protesting for abortion are misguided.
Elizabeth Warren is a fine example of portraying a fake Native American when her DNA test doesn’t show it to be true. We can go on of others communist in government.
These bureaucrats will overturn the abortion false claims in the Constitution, by packing the Supreme Court with strong Marxist. Your right to bear arms of the 2A will be gone with legal workarounds planned.
Remember Harris is not Black she is Indian from a slave owning family her father said so.
There no other free country to flee to as the pan handlers flood America, Canada is toast so is Mexico and most of south America, forget Europe.
You are 100% on everything EXCEPT the 2nd Amendment. The first sign of ANY gun buy-back or confiscation “orders” will result in the 82,000,000+ LAWFUL gun owners jumping into action, or at least we can hope.
I live in a small town in Arizona, and our local law enforcement and county sheriff have all stated that they will not cooperate with the feds in enforcing any unconstitutional action, up-to and including ANY infringement of the 2nd Amendment.
This means the feds that do decide to follow orders will be on their own if they try to go door to door. That act itself would not be met with a warm welcome where I come from. I own a gun store and hear from my customers about this very subject on a daily basis. Believe me, there are a lot more people that are willing to stand their ground against a tyrannical government than there are those that are willing to surrender their rights.
With that said, I’m not so naive to believe that everyone that makes bold statements such as this will stand their ground when the time comes. However, I do know that a lot of my customers are older folks that have less to lose by standing up for what they believe is right.
Snaps to attenshun and salutes Lisa Blake.
Cy Young – we used to live in the general area you mentioned. One of the nuclear sites had ‘accidents’ too often; those working on-site knew about it, and did what it took to recover; the locals who lived w/in a 40-mile radius were never told. But folks 2-3 states away got the details. IMHO, if you want to protect your family, moving to an area with no nearby nuclear sites would be best. Like those once faced w/either getting the Jab or losing their job, it’s best to leave the job and seek work elsewhere, but it’s up to each person to make their own decisions. Have a good day.
It is time to close the border, drill for oil, now not latter.
Nuke power plants maybe so called clean energy but leave dangerous toxic waste to be disposed of.
No different then the EV’s with toxic used battery waste poisoning our precious water supplies besides the digging up of materials in Chinese owned mines in the world.
There are no used EV car lots, these are throw away toxic junk vehicles. If one were to buy a used EV the battery replacement costs more than the used car price.
The green new energy is a Chinese invention to weaken the western countries, namely America.
The deep state or Harris-Walz communist plans were part of the Trump near miss sniper the same bureaucrats embedded in government since the JFK incident in Texas. The only thing changed are the names, the deep state swamp is still in power.
Hey Chuck, you complained Thursday about the troll and comment section. If those websites you like, why are you still here?
You are a prepper wannabe in name only, you are the troll swarm, indeed.
Are you a Harris voter? You probably like Walz a real Chines puppet too.
You said you were going, goodby Chuck.
Our adversaries know that if they are going to survive a war with the United States, they will have to attack first.
MAD Scenario #!:
1st, we will have a CONUS cyber attack that will take out critical infrastructure. This will start the initial confusion factor within the government and general population. Our adversaries have already deployed critical infrastructure mines that only need a trigger. [Day 1]
2nd, we will have a CONUS EMP attack that will take out any initial critical infrastructure missed in the 1st attack, satellite communications and all electronic hardware that is not harden. This will increase the confusion factor and panic because the general population will not know what is happening. This attack will be most likely be cruise missiles from ships/subs off the coast with little radiation from detonation. [Day1]
3rd, we will have a ICBM nuclear/biological attacks on critical military and civilian targets from offshore boomers or adversary state sites. [ Day 2-5]
4th, rumors will be rampant in cities, due to the lack of communications and high density populations will roll into the panic mode. The Constitution will be replaced with Military Martial Law. Starvation, disease outbreaks along with will radiation poisoning, due to the detonation of nuclear weapons and the cooking off of fuel in the old Nuclear power plants will be rampant.
There is no place to run and no place to hide. The lucky ones will be at ground zero in a nuclear detonation. [2nd week – on-going].
The butcher’s bill in the 1st year of a major attack on this country will be 95% of the population, due to detonation of nuclear weapons in high density population areas, radiation exposure, starvation, due to broken supply chains, disease outbreaks and lack of control in the general population. Note: This figure comes from a Government study, it is not mine…………
Note: If you are truly a prepper, you might start looking at locations in the Southern Hemisphere that are self-sustaining and friendly to newcomers…………..
Good luck my friends.
We live in interesting times,
Thor
Yeah run and hide in a foreign somewhat stable government until SHTF. Those countries will be locking you up for ransom money or deport you all together loosing all your property and money too.
Just like the Mexican government did to the American retirees a few years ago, yeah right.
The communists have already done the basic foundations for a takeover of America.
We are waiting the results of the November election to prove otherwise.
They want us to have a civil war to invoke martial law, bigger than the Covid, vax, mask lock down we all experienced.
Who are you voting for?
If you want to go down the rabbit hole as many things have been covered up by the deep state agencies. Over the decades of modern history such as WWI & II, Pearl Harbor, JFK, Korea, Vietnam, 911 and many other controversies.
Did China come to the USA back during the 1800 railroad days in the west not work but to invade? Chinatowns and the recent American farmlands being sold, who is selling out our country?
Ask Harris-Walz; Harris is accountable for all the stuff happening, she said she was the last person left standing in the room with Biden as decisions are made.
Another rabbit hole;
Did the WWII Pearl Harbor incident be the cause of secret Chinese negotiations with the old Samurai Tojo rising sun government who helped the Nazi’s to takeover our farm rich country. The public has been lied too many times to what was and is the truth. Just the ongoing UFO controversy of what is really going.
We can handle the truth.
What I HAVE NOT heard…..yet…ANYWHERE from ANYONE…
WHY NO One is saying anything about why they do what they do, if they have souls, hearts, minds, empathy, concerns, love, consideration, compassion and understanding enough to do what is right and righteous.
Referring to: police officers, cops, atf, fbi, cia, all ‘so called’ ‘officers of the law’.(lets don’t forget doctors, wait, and preachers).
including members of nato, who, cdc, nsa….etc….and any other government entity…
Let’s not forget the so called ‘main stream media’….and finally…….’THEY/THEM’……..FTT !
.who do as they are told for a paycheck, bribe or blackmail…..
….whether constitutional, moral, or humane.
Or are they all either demons, vampires, reptilians, zionistas and/or chip controlled robots/clones ?
When it comes to land ownership we have been lied to about the origins to the current reality of real estate terms of ownership. Whenever it started maybe back in the Roman days of government legalese, someone owned the land before but who really gave it those in power in the first place.
The bible says the only people who own the land are the Israelis by the authority of God.
Many wars have been fought over land rights. The Native Americans were not the first to own pre-dawn America land. The Native Americans also fought turf wars for ownership. The Mexicans fought wars over their lands too. Who really owns the land on the planet?
There are still land ownership deeds dating back to the Spanish conquers, but they were not the original owners of the lands. Interesting?
Hawk Eye Sims,
i agree, but those who can defend their land can keep it. it depends on where you are, your community, available resources and your population density.
that’s a lot to depend on and hard to come by all in one area but it is available.
the bug-out crowd don’t realize that most all land here in the US is privately owned and that they won’t take kindly to people just moving in to exhaust the local resources.
country folk are very clannish anyhow. they are very nice people in good times and they are glad to see you come to visit, but they are also glad to see you go home.
in most farming areas it can take years to become an established part of the community, you have to prove yourself useful to others.
I have heard conflicting recommendations on grounding vs not grounding you vehicles. Which is correct?