EMP Attack Would Send America into a Dark Age

By Ronald Kessler

In a matter of seconds, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack or a geomagnetic storm would set America back to the 14th century, Gale Nordling, president of a company that protects against such a catastrophe, says.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes in the atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast fries all electronics in line of sight. EMP was first detected after the detonation of the Starfish Prime nuclear test on July 9, 1962. While the explosion occurred near Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean and was not designed to be an EMP blast, it blew out street lamps, television sets, and telephone communications in Hawaii nearly 1,000 miles away.

A single nuclear bomb exploded over the Midwest would generate an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy the chips that are at the heart of every electronic device. While military and intelligence networks may be shielded against EMP, the rest of the country's technological infrastructure is not.

"If a nuclear device designed to emit EMP were exploded 250 to 300 miles up over the middle of the country, it would disable the electronics in the entire United States," says Nordling, president and CEO of Minneapolis-based Emprimus. "That would disable the entire electric grid. It would disable communications, it would disable fuel manufacturing and production, it would disable hospitals and medicines, it would disable 911 call centers."

Everything else would be shut down, Nordling says.

Unlike protection against a nuclear blast, shielding to protect against EMP is a relative bargain. For example, the 300 transformers that are critical to the power grid could be protected for $200 million to $400 million.

As noted in the Newsmax story EMP Attack Could Wipe Out U.S., neither Republicans nor Democrats have been willing to spend that small sum. In fact, the U.S. government is doing "nothing" to protect the power grid or the rest of the infrastructure from an EMP strike, confirms Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a former staff member of the EMP commission who heads EMPACT America, which seeks to call attention to the largely unrecognized threat. But given the reasonable cost, Nordling says, companies could be held liable for not protecting against EMP and solar storms. [more...]

Ronald Kessler is the New York Times bestselling author of eighteen nonfiction books, including The Terrorist Watch, Inside the White House, The CIA at War, and The Bureau. A former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporter, Kessler has won sixteen journalism awards.