EMP blast effect

[Jayhawk]

Should everything shutdown the first absolute need would be clean drinking water. Hopefully power companies are prepared to divert energy to water treatment plants. Rural areas may not be hit so bad becasue they depend more on well water, however, large city populations would experience some really bad times.

If the US did have a major EMP strike. A good portion of the world's economy would significantly slowdown as well. With Iran to blame not only would the US be igniting nukes over Iran, but everyone (other non-US nations) affected by the crashing economy would like a little payback as well.

That's generally what keeps me from subscribing to too much hysteria and panic.  Even when some foreign leaders seems crazy, they still realize that it probably isn't in their best interest to start a direct war with the United States.  However, I'm sure there will be more satellite wars in the near future.

[wil3ur]

I'd be more worried about a solar eruption causing a mass outage than an EMP.

That's basically the waste of a nuke, especially if you only have a couple.  You'd get more damage out of nuking a power plant if you're a 3rd rate nuclear power.  The US would have the capability of EMPing an entire area, but that'd be a damn lot of fallout in the air...

[MaSonZ]

I didn't read the article on the first page so I don't know if it answered this.... but what cities would they want to hit first? NYC? D.C? large industrial cities third? IF the Iranians can do it..... they would only need 5 0or 6 small EMP's to do a world of catastrophe to us.......

[wil3ur]

If that happened, the Government would have to finally let everyone know about free wireless energy via Tesla Tech they've been hiding for the last 80 years.   

[Tango]

That's generally what keeps me from subscribing to too much hysteria and panic.  Even when some foreign leaders seems crazy, they still realize that it probably isn't in their best interest to start a direct war with the United States.  However, I'm sure there will be more satellite wars in the near future.

Wouldn't be as much to worry about with Russia and China, but this is Iran we are talking about. Ahmadinejad believes that it will bring about the prophecies of the koran if he starts Armageddon. Knocking out the power on the east coast with a single EMP burst would be enough to start it.

[Jayhawk]

Wouldn't be as much to worry about with Russia and China, but this is Iran we are talking about. Ahmadinejad believes that it will bring about the prophecies of the koran if he starts Armageddon. Knocking out the power on the east coast with a single EMP burst would be enough to start it.

I might disagree with that assertion, but then we are treading a political and religious line that shouldn't be crossed here.   

[sntslilhlpr6601]

Yeah, I don't quite understand all the fear of Iran.

We stood up to the soviets for crying out loud.

Just a bunch of propaganda if you ask me.

Bout time we start minding our own. 

 

[Hoffman]

Remember though, all of our aircraft carriers have the capability to plug into a power grid.  So if the actual grid isn't overly damaged we'll be able to keep vital systems running in the bigger cities.  And if a strike does hit the continental U.S. Then it won't be hitting the carriers, and I doubt our ICBM's aren't shielded against nuclear/emp attack. Not to mention our attack subs. I doubt even the Russians could knock those out.
If Iran were to hit us with an EMP, I'm pretty sure our countermeasures + the Israeli's (who're probably just looking for an excuse to glass Iran) would turn Iran into a glowing wasteland. Nullifying any follow-up threat and the rest of the emergency would be repairing the power grid and getting everything back online. 

Which wouldn't take long, because it would knock out the Internet.  And so you'd have all the Internet crazies going absolutely crazy trying to fix it. 

There might be some panic and hysteria, but I'll bet that most Americans, once they realize what happened, would pull together through the emergency.

[Jayhawk]

There might be some panic and hysteria, but I'll bet that most Americans, once they realize what happened, would pull together through the emergency.

I think there are two possible problems here, there will be plenty of people who will have no idea what happened, possibly not for weeks.

Second, although I agree people would probably pull together by creating small communities, I think we run into problems once the available food and water supply starts running low.

[Shane]

Second, although I agree people would probably pull together by creating small communities, I think we run into problems once the available food and water supply starts running low.

Just remember, we eat the fat poepl first!   

[sunfan1121]

Second, although I agree people would probably pull together by creating small communities, I think we run into problems once the available food and water supply starts running low.

I think this is where all the fat people come into play. They say 1/3 of the population is fat. I'm sure that number is higher in places like Texas and and Oklahoma . That's about one hundred million people we don't need to feed for at least a few weeks. Americans are getting prepared and don't even know it.

[Rob52240]

I'm more concerned about them blownig up a LNG Carrier @ one of our ports, or some other type of non-nuclear / non-EMP weapon.  Either would be horrible but I don't believe we have any reason to believe any state in the world is actually stupid enough to attack the U.S.

Although it is nearly impossible to change an enemy into a long term friend by force, we've done it before.  And there should be no doubt that we have the capability to obliterate nearly any country's military and leadership pretty quickly.

[Babalonian]

LOL, the feds commissioned a report on just this problem and the report reveals that a detonation has a very wide ranging reach and presents a very serious problem for a very unprepared United States. 

The range problem is easily overcome when the amplifying affects of the existing above ground power grid is taken into account allowing the pulse and subsequent damage to be spread far beyond line of sight.

And thus your statement begs; what would amplify an EMP surge that got introduced to "the grid" (via any means) all the way from one coast to the other? 

According to the Federal report, an EMP blast would most definitely have a very defastating affect on power companies.  By many estimates, it would be months to restore any form of power to affected areas.  They are simply not capable of withstanding the pulse from a nuke generated EMP attack.  Further, such an attack would destroy food distribution capability while ensuring that the affected areas would suffer from mass rioting and starvation.  Hardly a "boost for the economy".

Wouldn't be the first time you've wholeheartedly trusted the government, right?

How would an EMP attack destroy food distribution?  The computers in vehicles/tractors?  Hey guys, did we know about THE ENTIRE distribution and warehouse industry being reequipped and completely modernized in the last 20-30 years?  Sh!@, I better get out to the Strawberry fields and packing houses I was driving through this Saturday and assure that those thousands of laborers are going to be rendered useless and incapable...

Mass rioting?  Well sure, idiots are everywhere and don't need to be given much of an opportunity to be one.  Anyone who's lived through a natural disaster where power was cut for days will tell you looting and rioting began the minute after the lights went off and that none of the looters waited until they got hungry.

Starvation?  7-days without any food and no US region will turn into warlord-run Somalia 2.0, it'll take at least months for things to degrade down to that level.


You know, I wonder who was cooperating with that big goverment-spending-inducing report and investigation... wouldn't/couldn't of been a bunch of large and powerful utility or food company/distributor/union's lobbyists and companies?...


As has been said, electric companies have been dealing with EMPs for a long time and in many different forms.  Still don't believe me? I hope lightning strikes and opens up your mind. 

*hint* *hint* *nudge* *nudge*

Now tell your nutty friend to pay attention to the professor during science class.

[Shuffler]

Before you start hyperventilating, 1) the EMP effect radius is not that large, 2) Iran has no platform capable of reaching the United States and 3) it would be 100% sheer suicide for Iran to do that.

I beg to differ..... they could use UPS. 

[Hoffman]

The range problem is easily overcome when the amplifying affects of the existing above ground power grid is taken into account allowing the pulse and subsequent damage to be spread far beyond line of sight.

Y'know... after looking up the famous power cascade failures, I can't help but think an EMP would be a very similar disaster.  So I can only wonder why we don't have emergency dump circuits set up that run with little to no current on them.  When a surge is detected that can't be switched to other lines they dump it onto the emergency circuit which eats up the surge and dumps it into a ground or capacitors.  It doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to engineer or even very expensive to build and maintain.