The One-Second War
A Dark Bomb in The Digital Age
Lights go out; there are some popping noises outside and a car’s skidding tires. Two weeks pass — still no power. Neighbors don’t know what’s going on. Even devices powered by batteries, like flashlights and radios, don’t work. No police have been seen, or crews from the electric company. Grocery stores can’t sell anything because their registers don’t work. A congressional report estimates that within a year of the lights going out up to 300 million American men, women and children will be dead. Every building will be left standing yet modern society will be leveled. What happened?
In 1945 the first mushroom cloud billowed above the landscape with the Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico; we were going to win the war. One of Trinity’s principal physicists, Enrico Fermi, calculated there could be an invisible and transient byproduct of the explosion: an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. (This is the energy that causes static on radios when driving under high-voltage transmission lines.) Some instruments were setup to measure any EMP, if one were created. Most of the instruments recorded nothing, because they failed, due to components being damaged, in some cases the copper wires melted from the energy of the pulse.
All nuclear bombs produce an electromagnetic pulse, but since the range of EMP damage is limited to line-of-site, the pulse only impacts a large area when detonated at high altitudes. If used like this, the radiation, heat and pressure wave typically associated with a nuclear bomb damage virtually nothing. It’s the electrically charged particles the bomb releases that do the all work. During the Trinity test none of the human observers felt the EMP, in the same way humans don’t feel cell phone signals, and the pulse leveled no buildings. For many years this EMP remained little more than a curious byproduct.
A Curious Age
Absolute is not a strong enough word to describe society’s current reliance on electricity and electronics. The Consumer Product Association estimates we now have 24 electronic devices in each household, with five of them just for the internet. When the Trinity test was conducted the average per household was one, a tube radio. Outside of the home we rely on electronic devices for banking, communication, energy, water, sanitation, medicine, utilities and our total information infrastructure.
But all of these devices have a common Achilles’ heel: phones, pacemakers, electronic ignitions, the internet, ATMs, everything that relies on electricity — in the presence of a strong enough EMP they will all meet the same fate as those instruments that curiously failed in the New Mexico desert.
This immense vulnerability inspired the US Congress in 2001 to create the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. The Commission issued several reports and in 2008 it released the Critical National Infrastructures report, which received little fanfare. This described the likely consequences of a single nuclear bomb detonated at a high altitude, or officially, a High-altitude EMP (HEMP). An EMP impacts electronics that are only in its line-of-site. At about 250 miles above the US heartland, the line-of-site stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Canada to Mexico.
As a baseline, the commission modeled a HEMP explosion of a garden variety two megaton bomb. They concluded that the pulse would bring down the continental electrical grid for months — probably years. This group estimated a bomb would disrupt or damage all things electronic that were not hardened against an EMP. (Hardening involves enclosing equipment completely inside a special metal box known as a Faraday cage, which redirects the EMP around anything in the box.) The commission also estimated that after one year a single HEMP blast would result in the deaths of 60 to 90 percent of the entire US population. That’s potentially over 300 million Americans dead. Millions more would die in Canada and Mexico.
Since lights would go out across the continent, this detonation approach using a HEMP has received a nick name from scientists and the military — the dark bomb.
Starfish Prime: The Sky Lights Up & Lights Go Out Although the description below sounds like it came from the Land of Oz, it’s part of the Los Alamos Scientific documentation of a HEMP detonation test the US conducted above the South Pacific in July1962. The test, called Starfish Prime, involved a bomb yield of 1.45 megatons, detonated at 248 miles altitude. “At 0900 GMT a brilliant white flash burned through the clouds rapidly changing to an expanding green ball of irradiance extending into the clear sky above the overcast. From its surface extruded great white fingers in sweeping arcs… to be replaced by spectacular concentric cirrus-like rings moving out from the blast at tremendous initial velocity…. As the purplish light turned to magenta and began to fade at the point of burst, a bright red glow began to develop on the horizon…. This condition, interspersed with tremendous white rainbows, persisted no less than ninety minutes.” — A Quick Look at the Technical Results of Starfish Prime, August 1962, Los Alamos Scientific This observer was stationed in Honolulu, 900 miles northeast of the actual test. The strength of the pulse was so unexpected that it “fried” (This is the term scientists used.) some test equipment. Many test instruments were damaged to the point where measurements were either lost or inaccurate. But as an unplanned measurement, 300 streetlights blew out in Honolulu and some car ignition systems melted and fused. Along with that, the dark bomb shut down the recently installed microwave link to Kauai, silencing all phone and TV service across the island. The test was also blamed for knocking out a British satellite and the premature failure of Telstar, the world’s first television satellite. That was 1962. Roy Rogers galloped across TVs while Ozzie and Harriet modeled the ideal suburban couple, until around 11:00 p.m., when all broadcasts stopped. Since Honolulu was 900 miles from the test site, this indicates that the same damage would have also occurred at least 900 miles in the opposite direction of the source. This creates an impact area of about 2.54 million square miles (6.58 million km2). That’s a smallish section of the Pacific Ocean, but it’s over 90 percent of the continental United States. The potential for damage probably extended even farther, but no instruments were placed beyond that to take measurements. Russia has also run dark bomb tests. As the result of a HEMP test 180 miles above Kazakhstan in 1962, the Soviets found that up to 300 miles away thick cooper powerlines melted, and the test caused a circular blackout with a 1,200-mile diameter. There were instances of backup generators not starting because their control circuitry was fried. Like their American counterparts, the Russians discovered this wreaked far more electrical devastation than anticipated. The maximum electric pulse experienced in Honolulu during Starfish Prime was around 5,000 volts per meter (V/m). In the Russian test, they measured 7,500 V/m, although some areas may have experienced upwards of 10,000. Today we know that with an old second-generation nuclear weapon of the proper design it’s possible to generate ten times the EMP power of the Starfish Prime experiment. The One, Two, Three Punch Dark bombs deliver three types of pulses. Each one reaps a different havoc. The strength of the pulses is impacted by warhead type and yield, longitude, latitude and altitude of the blast, along with factors such as the atmosphere’s vapor content and fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field. There are enough variables that precise damage predictions are impossible. Although they can be summarized in two words: enormous and devastating.
E1: The Jab The E1 pulse, or early-time, is unique to nuclear explosions. This is a high-frequency pulse that propagates at the speed of light and lasts only one-millionth of a second. The power surge is so fast the majority of surge protectors can’t stop it and the protectors then become open gateways. Equally important, because the pulse travels through the air, electronic equipment doesn’t need to be connected to the grid to be damaged. The wavelength is short enough to work its way into very small spaces. Fine wires and components are especially susceptible to melting, catching fire, or creating short circuits.
Starfish Prime: The Sky Lights Up & Lights Go Out Although the description below sounds like it came from the Land of Oz, it’s part of the Los Alamos Scientific documentation of a HEMP detonation test the US conducted above the South Pacific in July1962. The test, called Starfish Prime, involved a bomb yield of 1.45 megatons, detonated at 248 miles altitude. “At 0900 GMT a brilliant white flash burned through the clouds rapidly changing to an expanding green ball of irradiance extending into the clear sky above the overcast. From its surface extruded great white fingers in sweeping arcs… to be replaced by spectacular concentric cirrus-like rings moving out from the blast at tremendous initial velocity…. As the purplish light turned to magenta and began to fade at the point of burst, a bright red glow began to develop on the horizon…. This condition, interspersed with tremendous white rainbows, persisted no less than ninety minutes.” — A Quick Look at the Technical Results of Starfish Prime, August 1962, Los Alamos Scientific This observer was stationed in Honolulu, 900 miles northeast of the actual test. The strength of the pulse was so unexpected that it “fried” (This is the term scientists used.) some test equipment. Many test instruments were damaged to the point where measurements were either lost or inaccurate. But as an unplanned measurement, 300 streetlights blew out in Honolulu and some car ignition systems melted and fused. Along with that, the dark bomb shut down the recently installed microwave link to Kauai, silencing all phone and TV service across the island. The test was also blamed for knocking out a British satellite and the premature failure of Telstar, the world’s first television satellite. That was 1962. Roy Rogers galloped across TVs while Ozzie and Harriet modeled the ideal suburban couple, until around 11:00 p.m., when all broadcasts stopped. Since Honolulu was 900 miles from the test site, this indicates that the same damage would have also occurred at least 900 miles in the opposite direction of the source. This creates an impact area of about 2.54 million square miles (6.58 million km2). That’s a smallish section of the Pacific Ocean, but it’s over 90 percent of the continental United States. The potential for damage probably extended even farther, but no instruments were placed beyond that to take measurements. Russia has also run dark bomb tests. As the result of a HEMP test 180 miles above Kazakhstan in 1962, the Soviets found that up to 300 miles away thick cooper powerlines melted, and the test caused a circular blackout with a 1,200-mile diameter. There were instances of backup generators not starting because their control circuitry was fried. Like their American counterparts, the Russians discovered this wreaked far more electrical devastation than anticipated. The maximum electric pulse experienced in Honolulu during Starfish Prime was around 5,000 volts per meter (V/m). In the Russian test, they measured 7,500 V/m, although some areas may have experienced upwards of 10,000. Today we know that with an old second-generation nuclear weapon of the proper design it’s possible to generate ten times the EMP power of the Starfish Prime experiment. The One, Two, Three Punch Dark bombs deliver three types of pulses. Each one reaps a different havoc. The strength of the pulses is impacted by warhead type and yield, longitude, latitude and altitude of the blast, along with factors such as the atmosphere’s vapor content and fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field. There are enough variables that precise damage predictions are impossible. Although they can be summarized in two words: enormous and devastating.
E1: The Jab The E1 pulse, or early-time, is unique to nuclear explosions. This is a high-frequency pulse that propagates at the speed of light and lasts only one-millionth of a second. The power surge is so fast the majority of surge protectors can’t stop it and the protectors then become open gateways. Equally important, because the pulse travels through the air, electronic equipment doesn’t need to be connected to the grid to be damaged. The wavelength is short enough to work its way into very small spaces. Fine wires and components are especially susceptible to melting, catching fire, or creating short circuits.
Sample of E1 pulse exposed regions for several heights. The red circles show the exposed regions for the given burst heights for a nuclear detonation over the central US. The area of impact remains unchanged regardless of the bomb’s yield.
Computer server farms, the cloud, that hold applications and data supporting modern society are particularly susceptible. Companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Bank of America and thousands of others have significant server farms in the US. There are now over 18 million computer servers in America, an increase from zero at the time of the Trinity test.All server farms have backup power generators, and these, if their control boards aren’t damaged, will save the day by pumping electricity to fried/inoperable mother boards. After an E1 pulse, the US cloud will become a desert sky in one-millionth of a second.
E2: The FakeThe E2 pulse lasts from about one microsecond to one second. The pulse has many similarities to the electromagnetic pulses created by lightning. Technology to protect from lightning is widespread and congressional assessments show there would be minimal damage from the E2 pulse. This is the intermission for a show with a spectacular finale.
E3: The KnockoutThe E3 unleashes the same type of charged particles as a solar storm, or Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). There are satellites that watch for any CME headed our way and can provide enough advanced warning that actions on Earth can be taken to mitigate damages, especially to the largest transformers in the nation-wide grid. For a powerful E3 pulse arriving without adequate advance warning, such as from a nuclear explosion, the national grid sits like an albino in Death Valley.When the HEMP E3 hits, all electrical lines — wires within walls, neighborhood telephone poles, factories and offices, city substations, and the high-voltage transmission lines strung for over 200,000 miles — no longer function as power lines; they become antennas collecting the bomb’s E3 electrical surge as it pulses through the atmosphere. After virtually all surge protectors have been rendered useless by the E1, the energy of the E3 is then captured and propagates at near the speed of light throughout the grid and everything plugged into it.The waves associated with the E3 are much longer than with the E1. And while the E1 damages small components, the E3 damages large equipment and the electrical grid. High voltage transmission towers look like robot soldiers marching across the countryside, their arms pulsing with power. They are the largest collectors of the E3 pulse and provide current to everything. During the E3 pulse they are definitely soldiers, but not ours.
E3: The KnockoutThe E3 unleashes the same type of charged particles as a solar storm, or Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). There are satellites that watch for any CME headed our way and can provide enough advanced warning that actions on Earth can be taken to mitigate damages, especially to the largest transformers in the nation-wide grid. For a powerful E3 pulse arriving without adequate advance warning, such as from a nuclear explosion, the national grid sits like an albino in Death Valley.When the HEMP E3 hits, all electrical lines — wires within walls, neighborhood telephone poles, factories and offices, city substations, and the high-voltage transmission lines strung for over 200,000 miles — no longer function as power lines; they become antennas collecting the bomb’s E3 electrical surge as it pulses through the atmosphere. After virtually all surge protectors have been rendered useless by the E1, the energy of the E3 is then captured and propagates at near the speed of light throughout the grid and everything plugged into it.The waves associated with the E3 are much longer than with the E1. And while the E1 damages small components, the E3 damages large equipment and the electrical grid. High voltage transmission towers look like robot soldiers marching across the countryside, their arms pulsing with power. They are the largest collectors of the E3 pulse and provide current to everything. During the E3 pulse they are definitely soldiers, but not ours.
This pulse overrides the Alternating Current (AC) that powers pretty much everything. Instead, the E3 pulse turns our national infrastructure into a quasi-direct current (DC) system, where the current flows in only one direction. Analyses predict a surge can generate more than a million times the current the grid is designed to tolerate.
Energy levels concentrate at the ends of long transmission lines and can damage major power system equipment. The copper windings of transformers can melt, burn, or explode. Huge transformers are the underpinnings of the US electric grid. The US Department of Energy stated in their 2014 report, Large Power Transformers and the U.S. Electric Grid, that due to their complexity and materials requirements, replacing a single large transformer could stretch beyond 20 months. The US currently has the manufacturing capacity to supply about 15 percent of the transformers we need, but after a HEMP that capacity will hit zero percent, since those manufacturers will have no power.
Small & In ChargeSupervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems operate in the background to keep society running. Drinking water? SCADA. Natural gas? SCADA. Call routing? SCADA. Wastewater processing? SCADA. Most manufacturing? SCADA. Electrical distribution? SCADA. These are the overlord systems of modern society and they all use hair-thin wires to deliver instructions and monitor processes. Many are so incredibly critical they are physically isolated from all other networks, so it’s impossible to hack them remotely. Computerized control systems weren’t even a twinkle in Robert Oppenheimer’s eyes during that that first Trinity test.
But We Have Survivability StandardsThe most stringent facility and equipment certification to protect electronic telecommunication equipment is called Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) Level 3. Underwriters Laboratories, the recognized standard in product safety ratings, says, “The Level 3 criteria provide the highest assurance of product operability.” Attaining NEBS Level 3 certification is frequently referred to as “bulletproofing” all components throughout a system. Level 3 provides peace of mind to ensure operational continuity. Along with other requirements, this certification specifies the level of protections against temperature, humidity, earthquake survivability, fire, vibration, airborne contaminants and other uninvited guests. However, this comprehensive certification doesn’t say a peep about protecting from an E1 pulse — not a single bullet point addresses this in its lengthy documentation. This makes sense though, because protecting against an E1 would be cost prohibitive. Within US borders, 90 percent of military communications travel over public carriers such as Verizon, Century Link and AT&T; none of them are hardened. Plus, 99 percent of the military’s domestic electrical power comes from public utilities, also not hardened. Few, if any, of these networks will function for the military, or anyone else, at a time when internal coordination becomes paramount. The amount of damage can be affected by the equipment’s orientation to the earth’s magnetic field, the type of building it’s in, what components surround it, if surge suppressors were disabled before the E3 hit, the power of the pulses and more. What is known, is that virtually all components that are not hardened against an EMP will suffer some damage. A report outlining the impact of a HEMP event, focusing on the E1 pulse, prepared for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Metatech Corporation states: “With the advance of modern systems, and miniaturization of components, the normal operating voltages of systems tends to be a few volts, and so HEMP levels of thousands of volts, or more, cannot be good for the system.” This phrase, “cannot be good for the system”, represents the restraint of disciplined scientists. Or maybe it was intended as sharp sarcasm.
But We Have Survivability StandardsThe most stringent facility and equipment certification to protect electronic telecommunication equipment is called Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) Level 3. Underwriters Laboratories, the recognized standard in product safety ratings, says, “The Level 3 criteria provide the highest assurance of product operability.” Attaining NEBS Level 3 certification is frequently referred to as “bulletproofing” all components throughout a system. Level 3 provides peace of mind to ensure operational continuity. Along with other requirements, this certification specifies the level of protections against temperature, humidity, earthquake survivability, fire, vibration, airborne contaminants and other uninvited guests. However, this comprehensive certification doesn’t say a peep about protecting from an E1 pulse — not a single bullet point addresses this in its lengthy documentation. This makes sense though, because protecting against an E1 would be cost prohibitive. Within US borders, 90 percent of military communications travel over public carriers such as Verizon, Century Link and AT&T; none of them are hardened. Plus, 99 percent of the military’s domestic electrical power comes from public utilities, also not hardened. Few, if any, of these networks will function for the military, or anyone else, at a time when internal coordination becomes paramount. The amount of damage can be affected by the equipment’s orientation to the earth’s magnetic field, the type of building it’s in, what components surround it, if surge suppressors were disabled before the E3 hit, the power of the pulses and more. What is known, is that virtually all components that are not hardened against an EMP will suffer some damage. A report outlining the impact of a HEMP event, focusing on the E1 pulse, prepared for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Metatech Corporation states: “With the advance of modern systems, and miniaturization of components, the normal operating voltages of systems tends to be a few volts, and so HEMP levels of thousands of volts, or more, cannot be good for the system.” This phrase, “cannot be good for the system”, represents the restraint of disciplined scientists. Or maybe it was intended as sharp sarcasm.
Time to get ugly
After a dark bomb detonation no one will feel anything, sort of. For people indoors, this will look like a standard power outage — unless equipment catches fire or explodes and backup generators don’t activate. But everyone on the roads will notice, immediately.
In 1963, one year after Starfish Prime, Pontiac became the first automaker to offer a modern electronic ignition system, dubbed Delcotronic. With electronic ignitions now in the vast majority of cars, this is one more technological advance susceptible to EMP interference. Once the E1 hits, gasoline engines will immediately stop running, regardless of what speed they are traveling. Some cars will roll to a stop; others will skid to a grinding halt. Most cars will restart, with estimates projecting about 10 percent won’t restart without replacing components. These cars will become traffic barricades.
Some cars and trucks manufactured before 1980 may keep running at full speed, as will most diesel engines that power 18-wheelers, because they don’t use electronic ignitions. It’s impossible to say what will cause more harm, cars shutting down or rear-end collisions from trucks that keep running.
These accidents and the resulting injuries will happen when traffic control systems — traffic signals, streetlights, commuter rail, tolls, bridges, etc. — all experience simultaneous failure. Many emergency responders will have little ability to navigate or coordinate responses. There is no term in the English lexicon to describe this magnitude of nation-wide instant gridlock.
There will be fires. The E3 pulse can arc across electrical insulators, most probably initiating fires inside walls and outside of buildings. Numerous smaller transformers on telephone poles and in yards would likely be damaged. When systems this complex are damaged experts use the term “cascading failures”, which indicates no one knows what systems will fail, or how many. Although it’s likely thousands of transformers will fail and erupt in flames. Since the E1 disabled most surge suppressors, the E3 is free to reach to the end of the distribution system. Virtually everything: toasters, motors, pumps, TVs, computers, hairdryers, lights, signs, routers, etc. will receive an unimaginable power surge. Circuit breakers will trip and fuses will blow, sparks will jump gaps on systems never designed to contain such colossal force.
However, your mobile phone may work, many have shielding to avoid interference with other devices. But yours will be a stand-alone device — no internet access, because there will be no more internet, and no voice network. At the conclusion of the first second, modern life starts getting ugly.
Social unrest could develop on a level never seen in America. The Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack issued to congress in 2004 states, “The impact of such EMP is different and far more catastrophic than that effected by historic blackouts... Net result is recovery times of months to years, instead of days to weeks.” New York’s 1977 blackout on July 13th became known as the “Night of Terror.” That night, on a partial stretch of Broadway, 134 stores were looted, many set ablaze. At one car dealership in the Bronx, dozens of new Pontiacs were stolen. People flipped over cars and vans. Over 550 police officers were injured and 4,500 looters were arrested, before power was restored the next morning. Drinking water stops flowing for most people. Since early in the last century, by using electric pumps, urban growth planning and architecture have been freed from dependence on gravity-fed water systems. As the water pumps shut down water will drain from the highest point in each system, whether that’s a water tank with a town’s name painted on it or a kitchen sink, the water level will drain through the system until it’s dry. Sanitation becomes an unspeakable nightmare: no working toilets, not public or private and no garbage pickup. Very quickly streets will become open latrines, leading to diseases such as typhoid, cholera, hepatitis and many others. As clean drinking water becomes scarce, other water sources may become contaminated, further leading to widespread disease. Fuel will consist of what’s in your tank(s). Anything that is transported through pipes: crude oil, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, natural gas and others, are dependent on SCADA systems and electric pumps. The vast majority have no direct backup power and the SCADA circuit boards will likely have some damaged components even if there is backup power. For consumers, gas pumps won’t work, neither will the cash registers to ring up the sales due to physical damage (registers/scanners damaged from E1, and pumps from E3) keeping them inoperable even when the power eventually returns. Transportation infrastructure for land, sea, and air will lay dormant. Railroad traffic will stop when communications with rail control centers are lost or railway signals malfunction. Commercial air traffic will likely cease operations for safety and equipment failure reasons. Ports will stop loading and unloading ships until commercial power and cargo hauling infrastructures are restored. Public roads will be a patchwork of accidents, blockages, and dark traffic signals. The obstacles in roads won’t matter as much after the fuel runs out. Food processors will shut down after backup generator fuel is used, assuming the generators are operational and employees choose to leave their families and come to work. After four to five days without food humans suffer mental and physical difficulties. We are virtually incapacitated after two weeks without eating. Death comes at one or two months; starvation is why the EMP commission states the bulk of deaths will occur within the first three months. Two percent of the US population feeds the other 98 percent — most people don’t even know a farmer or rancher. The resulting consolidation of the food infrastructure has resulted in a distribution system that can become a chokepoint. Supermarkets typically carry enough food to remain well stocked for one to three days. Regional food warehouses that supply a multi-county area have food enough for about one month. These warehouses are the chokepoint. Without a functioning transportation system this food will only supply those who live within walking distance of the warehouses, assuming those people are willing to become looters. Relating to food supplies, the 2008 EMP Commission report states: “An EMP attack could, in effect, temporarily create in the United States the technological conditions in the food and transportation infrastructures that have resulted in developing world famines.” Banking takes a dramatic immediate hit. Your money will be worthless, because you won’t have any. Everyone’s net-worth will consist of cash on-hand, valuables, and available barter. “An EMP attack that damages the power grid or electronic data retrieval systems would render banking transactions virtually impossible.” — 2008 EMP Commission Report. Dollars are data and data will be lost. Precious metals were replaced by paper currency and now paper is mostly replaced by electronic transactions. In that first one-billionth of a second financial records will fry: retirement accounts, mortgage records, insurance policies, stock holdings, social security payments, ACH transfers…. There will be little to no capability for companies to issue paychecks for months, possibly years. Data centers will become acres of short circuits. Financial institutions maintain backup datacenters but even if back-up records are stored on other continents, they won’t be accessible until the communication infrastructure is repaired domestically. The Federal Reserve Board has identified multiple critical functions that must be supported to keep the core financial infrastructure intact. They have procedures for emergency communications and for National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) administered by the National Communications System (NCS). These procedures are designed to mitigate massive banking failures of a few minutes to one day. The 12 banks that comprise the Federal Reserve are believed to be shielded from EMP damage, as are the most critical computing systems at the IRS and Social Security Administration. Should this be the case, and the shielding works perfectly, a social security deposit is still worthless when the receiving institution has no network or power to accept it. Emergency Services would be dramatically hampered. The need for first responders would increase during a time when they are in a degraded condition. Multiple fires could simultaneously ignite due to the sparks from arcing. Any civil unrest would quickly overwhelm local authorities. Plus, the personnel supporting law enforcement, food aid, and the military, would also have family at home without electricity, water, money, and food. Virtually all first responders will also be victims. A Case of Mass IsolationThe national Emergency Alert System — that occasional beeping test on TV and radio — is the public warning system that requires all terrestrial and satellite broadcasters to give the communications capability to the president of the United States to address the entirety of America. FEMA has designed and built EMP-hardened communication facilities to help ensure the ability for the president to communicate with the nation during an emergency. This will work well during a HEMP, as long as all communication infrastructure, from the president’s mouth to every American's ear, is also hardened against an EMP. After a dark bomb, aside from a few members in the military and government, the president will be left addressing whoever is within earshot. Shortly after a dark bomb, thoughts will turn to loved ones. Initially the most distressing part for many people will be no communication with their children, parents, spouses and friends. As months go on, this distress will only grow.
Social unrest could develop on a level never seen in America. The Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack issued to congress in 2004 states, “The impact of such EMP is different and far more catastrophic than that effected by historic blackouts... Net result is recovery times of months to years, instead of days to weeks.” New York’s 1977 blackout on July 13th became known as the “Night of Terror.” That night, on a partial stretch of Broadway, 134 stores were looted, many set ablaze. At one car dealership in the Bronx, dozens of new Pontiacs were stolen. People flipped over cars and vans. Over 550 police officers were injured and 4,500 looters were arrested, before power was restored the next morning. Drinking water stops flowing for most people. Since early in the last century, by using electric pumps, urban growth planning and architecture have been freed from dependence on gravity-fed water systems. As the water pumps shut down water will drain from the highest point in each system, whether that’s a water tank with a town’s name painted on it or a kitchen sink, the water level will drain through the system until it’s dry. Sanitation becomes an unspeakable nightmare: no working toilets, not public or private and no garbage pickup. Very quickly streets will become open latrines, leading to diseases such as typhoid, cholera, hepatitis and many others. As clean drinking water becomes scarce, other water sources may become contaminated, further leading to widespread disease. Fuel will consist of what’s in your tank(s). Anything that is transported through pipes: crude oil, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, natural gas and others, are dependent on SCADA systems and electric pumps. The vast majority have no direct backup power and the SCADA circuit boards will likely have some damaged components even if there is backup power. For consumers, gas pumps won’t work, neither will the cash registers to ring up the sales due to physical damage (registers/scanners damaged from E1, and pumps from E3) keeping them inoperable even when the power eventually returns. Transportation infrastructure for land, sea, and air will lay dormant. Railroad traffic will stop when communications with rail control centers are lost or railway signals malfunction. Commercial air traffic will likely cease operations for safety and equipment failure reasons. Ports will stop loading and unloading ships until commercial power and cargo hauling infrastructures are restored. Public roads will be a patchwork of accidents, blockages, and dark traffic signals. The obstacles in roads won’t matter as much after the fuel runs out. Food processors will shut down after backup generator fuel is used, assuming the generators are operational and employees choose to leave their families and come to work. After four to five days without food humans suffer mental and physical difficulties. We are virtually incapacitated after two weeks without eating. Death comes at one or two months; starvation is why the EMP commission states the bulk of deaths will occur within the first three months. Two percent of the US population feeds the other 98 percent — most people don’t even know a farmer or rancher. The resulting consolidation of the food infrastructure has resulted in a distribution system that can become a chokepoint. Supermarkets typically carry enough food to remain well stocked for one to three days. Regional food warehouses that supply a multi-county area have food enough for about one month. These warehouses are the chokepoint. Without a functioning transportation system this food will only supply those who live within walking distance of the warehouses, assuming those people are willing to become looters. Relating to food supplies, the 2008 EMP Commission report states: “An EMP attack could, in effect, temporarily create in the United States the technological conditions in the food and transportation infrastructures that have resulted in developing world famines.” Banking takes a dramatic immediate hit. Your money will be worthless, because you won’t have any. Everyone’s net-worth will consist of cash on-hand, valuables, and available barter. “An EMP attack that damages the power grid or electronic data retrieval systems would render banking transactions virtually impossible.” — 2008 EMP Commission Report. Dollars are data and data will be lost. Precious metals were replaced by paper currency and now paper is mostly replaced by electronic transactions. In that first one-billionth of a second financial records will fry: retirement accounts, mortgage records, insurance policies, stock holdings, social security payments, ACH transfers…. There will be little to no capability for companies to issue paychecks for months, possibly years. Data centers will become acres of short circuits. Financial institutions maintain backup datacenters but even if back-up records are stored on other continents, they won’t be accessible until the communication infrastructure is repaired domestically. The Federal Reserve Board has identified multiple critical functions that must be supported to keep the core financial infrastructure intact. They have procedures for emergency communications and for National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) administered by the National Communications System (NCS). These procedures are designed to mitigate massive banking failures of a few minutes to one day. The 12 banks that comprise the Federal Reserve are believed to be shielded from EMP damage, as are the most critical computing systems at the IRS and Social Security Administration. Should this be the case, and the shielding works perfectly, a social security deposit is still worthless when the receiving institution has no network or power to accept it. Emergency Services would be dramatically hampered. The need for first responders would increase during a time when they are in a degraded condition. Multiple fires could simultaneously ignite due to the sparks from arcing. Any civil unrest would quickly overwhelm local authorities. Plus, the personnel supporting law enforcement, food aid, and the military, would also have family at home without electricity, water, money, and food. Virtually all first responders will also be victims. A Case of Mass IsolationThe national Emergency Alert System — that occasional beeping test on TV and radio — is the public warning system that requires all terrestrial and satellite broadcasters to give the communications capability to the president of the United States to address the entirety of America. FEMA has designed and built EMP-hardened communication facilities to help ensure the ability for the president to communicate with the nation during an emergency. This will work well during a HEMP, as long as all communication infrastructure, from the president’s mouth to every American's ear, is also hardened against an EMP. After a dark bomb, aside from a few members in the military and government, the president will be left addressing whoever is within earshot. Shortly after a dark bomb, thoughts will turn to loved ones. Initially the most distressing part for many people will be no communication with their children, parents, spouses and friends. As months go on, this distress will only grow.
launching a hemp
It’s no longer true that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. A dark bomb could be off by hundreds of miles and still devastate its target. This attribute allows a variety of delivery platforms. In some cases it could be almost impossible to determine what entity was responsible for the attack, leaving us with little recourse to confidently subdue the enemy. Any HEMP strike against the United States or its allies would eventually be suicide. But as recent history has shown, suicide is no longer a barrier to attack. Even if we knew exactly who, and where they were, it would still too late.
Ship-based missilesOne delivery method that concerns many experts is ship-based launch. The unique element here is that a missile could be launched very close to a coastline, if not from right within a harbor. The missile wouldn’t need to travel far to damage a significant portion of the country, and because of the minimal travel distance, this could be near impossible for current missile defense systems to intercept. (This assumes there is any missile defense system within range.) Tests have shown these systems to be spotty when defending against a single missile, even when anticipating the exact time and location of the launch.
For a ship-based launch, the missile that most concerns experts is the ubiquitous, and low-tech, Scud. The Soviet Union developed the Scud during the Cold War and have exported many variants to Second and Third World counties. Scud payload capacity is an issue with most current nuclear weapons. Miniaturization is the buzz word when it comes to mounting nuclear weapons on missiles. Since 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, military analysts have credited any nation with the ability to test nuclear weapons, and successfully launch satellites into orbit, as having current or near-future technical capability to develop a miniaturized nuclear missile warhead.
In 1998 Iran successfully launched a Scud from a ship in the Caspian Sea. This wasn’t from an advanced naval vessel, but from a cargo freighter that looked like the dozen around it. Iran has also conducted tests with its Shahab-3 missile where detonation occurred at apogee — the top of its flight. The only weapon that would be effective with this attack profile is a HEMP.
SatellitesSatellites are the perfect delivery system; they can whirl in a benign low-earth orbit of 250 miles crossing over multiple continents in only hours. If delivered by a satellite, the dark bomb doesn’t even need to drop from orbit, just detonate — zero warning, unstoppable.
Today, North Korea has two satellites in southern low-earth polar orbits. Both pass over the heart-land of the US multiple times per day. They enter over Texas and ride the space rails north through Canada. There is no thinking these contain nuclear weapons, but in addition to these two, there are approximately another 1,900 satellites in low-Earth orbit.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans the placement of nukes in orbit, but suborbital flight paths technically don't qualify. A suborbital trajectory is one that enters low-Earth orbit, but descends back into the atmosphere before it completes a full circle around the planet. Technically, most long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are suborbital weapons. When this treaty was created it signaled a milestone, although one can find some instances throughout history of treaties being broken.
ICBMs & Hypersonic MissilesBombers are still plentiful, but missiles are harder to stop. An ICBM goes into low earth orbit and travels thousands of miles before dropping back into the atmosphere, where it descends to its target. When tipped with a nuclear warhead these project power like no other weapon. ICBMs involve multiple levels of complexity, are expensive, and can only be developed, or bought, by globally significant organizations.
When using an ICBM to deliver a HEMP, what goes up doesn’t need to come down. Launching an ICMB is one thing, getting it back to earth without burning up is a more difficult technical task. Multiple experts have scoffed that before a country can be considered a serious nuclear threat they need to have mastered atmospheric missile re-entry — not with a HEMP, re-entry becomes irrelevant.
Vladimir Lukin, when he was chairman of the Russian Duma International Affairs Committee, during a meeting in 1999 regarding the Balkan crisis, said, “If we really wanted to hurt you (America) with no fear of retaliation, we would launch a submarine-based ballistic missile and detonate a single nuclear warhead at high altitude over the United States and shut down your power grid and communications for six months or so.” His partner, Aleksandr Shabonov, added, “And if one weapon wouldn’t do it, we have some spares.” (As of 2022, Russia had 6,250 nuclear warheads.)
Hypersonic missiles are one of the fastest evolving delivery platforms. In 2019 the New York Times described hypersonic missiles as, “fast, effective, precise and unstoppable.” Today hypersonic missiles are at the forefront of the arms race. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Russia has developed at least one hypersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Over the next several years it’s reasonable to assume the US and China will attain hypersonic nuclear capability, as will Russia, if today’s reports are premature.
Against technology like this, the U.S. is protected under a comprehensive dome of tissue paper.
It’s a Big World After All
If a cash-strapped petrol state (Venezuela, Russia, Nigeria, Libya, Belarus, or other good friends) wanted to shut down Persian Gulf production for a year or two, they potentially could. Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, most of Saudi Arabia, and parts of Iran and Iraq, could all be shut down with a small HEMP. Loss of life could be somewhat mitigated with aid from the US and others, but the resulting oil prices would strike high enough to devastate the world economy — with the exception of those countries still able to produce.
Senior Russian generals warned the US EMP Commissioners in 2004 that Russian designs for an EMP-enhanced nuclear warhead leaked, accidentally they said, to North Korea. They also confirmed there were formerly unemployed Russian scientists now working in the North’s nuclear weapons program.
While the effects of a HEMP are not widely known by civilians none of this is lost on the military, ours or anyone else’s. It’s also not lost on ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Hamas, the Shining Path, and others. Zealots would gladly sacrifice themselves to unleash a HEMP on the US, or other countries. There are a few experts who argue the threats of a HEMP are overblown and we have little to worry about; the alarmists are at it again. Their rationale is that no country would ever be so crazy as to detonate a HEMP over the US. Maybe they mean crazy like flying jetliners into the Twin Towers? The only saving grace today is that it appears no terrorist group has the resources to execute a HEMP attack.
National priorities shift continuously. Alliances come and go. Economic insecurity waxes and wanes. With maintenance though, nuclear bombs can last decades.
What the United States Has Done
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a summary report in June 2010 entitled, “High-Impact, Low-Frequency (HILF) Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System.” A HEMP falls into this category during emergency planning exercises. When addressing any approach to hardening the national infrastructure against HEMP damage the report states:
The North American bulk power system is comprised of more than 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, thousands of generation plants, and millions of digital controls. More than 1,800 entities own and operate portions of the system, with thousands more involved in the operation of distribution networks across North America…. Referring to any mitigation on such a system as “easily-deployed,” “inexpensive,” or “simple” is an inaccurate characterization of the work required to implement these changes.
The National Infrastructure Protection Plan was issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), in 2013. This plan addresses security for issues such as borders, elections, cyber, terrorism and other critically important aspects to American society. The subsection, “Energy Sector-Specific Plan” states, “Collaboration is vital due to the urgency of the potential threats to the Energy Sector, including multiple, coordinated physical attacks and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events. Physical threats emphasize the need for innovative tools and technologies….” This EMP threat was recognized, but the plan contains nothing to address or mitigate it.
The Critical Infrastructure Protection Act was passed by congress in December of 2014. This requires the secretary of Homeland Security to include national panning scenarios on the threat of EMP events, and conduct outreach to educate owners and operators of critical infrastructure, emergency planners, and emergency responders at all levels of government of the threat of EMP events. A plan is better than nothing, but there is nothing in this plan on implementing protection measures. As per this Act, any appropriations to enact plan recommendations, “may be carried out only by using funds appropriated under the authority of other laws.” The Act doesn’t even get its own funding.
While giving expert testimony to the Senate Subcommittee on National Security in 2015, Dr. George Baker said, “There's no single point of responsibility to develop and implement a national protection plan. When I asked NERC officials about EMP protection, they informed me we don't do EMP, that's DoD's responsibility. The Department of Defense tells me, EMP protection for civilian infrastructure is DHS's responsibility. And then when I talk to DHS, I get answers that the protection should be done by the Department of Energy, since they are the infrastructure's sector-specific agency. So we have EMP protection as finger-pointing exercises at present.”
The US Dept. of Energy issued the Electromagnetic Pulse Resilience Action Plan in January 2017. This goes into some detail to develop a study on the options available to island the electric grid (create discrete sections that can’t propagate cascading failures). Although with a HEMP, due to the huge geographic footprint, each of the islands become more like the bikini atoll. The action plan also contains the following:
“Industry’s efforts to understand how EMP will affect specific portions of the grid could be improved through the use of modeling that replicates the specific details of the E1/E2/E3 waveform. However, the only officially issued U.S. EMP threat environment waveform is classified.”
In October of 2018, the US Dept of Homeland Security issued the report, Strategy for Protecting and Preparing the Homeland Against Threats of Electromagnetic Pulse and Geomagnetic Disturbances. When addressing the magnitude and complexity of the possible impact of a HEMP, the report concludes, “As such, DHS and its private sector partners that own and operate critical infrastructure have significant uncertainty regarding risks posed by major electromagnetic events and, correspondingly, which (if any) mitigation techniques would address current vulnerabilities or increase resilience… In addition, potential disruption to the continuity of government (COG) by an electromagnetic event has not been fully assessed and remedied... Such simultaneous disruptions over large areas of the country would likely undermine the implementation of mutual aid plans and agreements, a cornerstone of our approach to disaster response.”
The DHS Strategy references a forthcoming companion Implementation Plan that will improve the Department’s efforts to increase national preparedness for any electromagnetic incident. The report contains good intentions but its usefulness is entirely dependent on the referenced Implementation Plan. The implementation plan was due in FY 2018/2019. As of this writing, the plan is nowhere to be found.
On March 26, 2019, President Trump issued the “Executive Order on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses.” In August of 2020 DHS issued the EMP Program Status Report, to detail what has been done to support the executive order. This report basically states that we are now in the “piloting” stage and various government agencies are looking to identify critical infrastructure, and once identified and prioritized, will then make mitigation recommendations. Thus, five years after Dr. Baker’s finger pointing comment, this status report states, “DHS is working to evaluate the need for a program management office to provide steady consistent leadership in both the public and private sector engagements.” The evaluation is ongoing, but no program management office has been created.
Thus, we are now in the piloting stage for a threat we’ve know about since 1945. This report, detailing our national readiness to endure a HEMP, is a total of four pages long.
In their in-depth guide to citizen preparedness, FEMA offers information on preparing for floods, heat, earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorism, tornados, tsunamis, wildfires, and more, but they have nothing related to EMP or solar storm preparedness. This is understandable. Telling people to stockpile a week or two of food is a lot more palatable than telling them they need a full year.
There is good reason little has been done in the private or government sectors to install protection equipment in the field — there’s not enough money in the entire federal budget to pay for the equipment and long-term supplies needed to protect the American public from the effects of a HEMP.
And then there are disarmament negotiations; we try repeatedly and mostly fail miserably, as is evidenced by the over 15,300 nuclear warheads still on this planet. After a HEMP, possibly for a year, or more, Americans, or any other impacted populations, would do without: paychecks, running water/sewer, garbage pick-up, police, grocery stores, fuel, banking, hospitals, airlines, trains, cars, computers, phones, coffee, internet, radio/TV, lights, heat, refrigeration, flush toilets, prescriptions, and ad infinitum. Every building would remain standing, but modern society would be leveled.
Where We Are Now
Over the past several decades, in our efforts to benefit from new technologies, humans have unwittingly designed societies to become ever more vulnerable to EMP destruction. The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that today’s electronics are roughly one million times more susceptible to EMP damage than the vacuum tubes of the 1960s. There is no reason to believe this trend will do anything but accelerate — it’s how we define progress.
Unexplained nuclear missile anomalies have become so numerous, that as a result in 2020 the DOD approved the establishment of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force. This is our response to these unexplained national security events, many of which occurred during times of documented UAP activity. These UAPs have clearly signaled they know about our nuclear weapons, and as indicted in government reports from the US, Britain and Russia, have demonstrated they can enable, or disable, our missiles and warheads without input from us. From what has been released publicly, it would appear the operators of these UAPs aren’t too crazy about these weapons either. Maybe someday we’ll find common ground and get outside help to eliminate them.
However, waiting for a pie-in-the-sky solution offers little assurance. The effects of a HEMP need to become common knowledge — the mushroom cloud is your grandfather’s Oldsmobile. Becoming aware of the unimaginable ramifications of a HEMP can provide additional motivation to drive nuclear disarmament. It will take the swell of public opinion that presses leaders to face the truth about these ever increasingly destructive weapons and make real progress on dismantling them. If you’ve read this far, you’ve already demonstrated the necessary concern to take a next step: write politicians, call, research, organize, join, share, sing, march, participate in the UN’s International Day For the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, become familiar with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) or the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The list goes on and is long. There is no cavalry coming; we are responsible for the solution.
In the twenty-first century, who has the most nuclear bombs is irrelevant when a single detonation can shut down an entire continent, leading to hundreds of millions of indiscriminate deaths. A HEMP doesn’t lend itself to dramatic images on screens when compared to a billowing mushroom cloud, so we never see representations of them. The EMP is a byproduct of a nuclear blast, one that originally seemed to be of little use, much the same way gasoline was initially a useless byproduct of refining kerosene that fueled lanterns. Mushroom clouds still bring all the horrors they ever have, but when was the last time you pulled in to a corner station to buy kerosene?