Electromagnetic Pulse (18 page)

Constructing a radio frequency weapon is not difficult at all. In fact, you can find instructions on how to build them online.

In the future, hand-held electromagnetic weapons are going to become even more powerful and even easier to use. Meanwhile, we are going to continue to become even more dependent on electricity and technology.

Chapter Seventeen
Effects on People

So what would life look like for you and your family if this happened?

Consider the following:

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There would be no heat or air-conditioning for your home.

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Water would no longer be pumped into most homes.

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Your computer would not work; neither would the internet because both Cable and Telephones would be inoperative.

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There would be no television or radio.

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ATMs would shut down, and there would be no banking or credit card transactions.

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Without electricity, gas stations would not be functioning.

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Most people would be unable to do their jobs without power and employment would collapse, bringing the economy to a standstill.

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Hospitals would not be able to function, and a nation heavily dependent upon prescription medication would have to do without.

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All refrigeration would shut down, and frozen foods in our homes and supermarkets would spoil.

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Most vehicles would become inoperable, and traffic lights would no longer be working.

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Airplanes would be grounded.

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Wall Street would shut down.

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Most Government services would collapse.

After an EMP attack, the consequences of a grid down scenario would be felt immediately. However, other than the loss of conveniences and use of technology to which many have grown accustomed, you would not feel any physical effects of the EMP. In fact, other than the resulting power outages, you wouldn’t know that it had occurred.

The best current estimate is that the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) produced by a high altitude nuclear detonation is not likely to have direct adverse effects on people. An important exception is people whose well-being depends on electronic life-support equipment. They would be directly impacted by the electromagnetic pulse that disrupts or damages such devices. Research sponsored by the EMP Commission suggests that some heart pacemakers might be among the devices susceptible to damage from a high-altitude EMP.

While most of the effects on people would be indirect, the impact could be significant in a just-in-time economy, in which local stocks of medicines, food, and other health-critical items are limited. The physical consequences of a high-altitude EMP attack would likely include the failure of the electric power grid and the degradation of telecommunication systems, computers, and electronic components over large areas of the country. A disruption of this scale could cripple critical infrastructures and hinder the delivery of day-to-day necessities, because of the interconnectivity of telecommunication networks and the electrical dependence of most cities, government agencies, businesses, households, and individuals. It also could require a long recovery period. To assess human consequences, the contingency of concern is one in which electricity, telecommunications, and electronics are out of service over a significant area for an extended period.

The human consequences of such a scenario include the social and psychological reactions to a sudden loss of stability in the modern infrastructure over a large area of the country. Lack of information would be a contributing factor to the resulting societal collapse in a grid down scenario. Americans would be in shock initially, and might even deny that the power grid could be down for a significant time. After a period of anger, the population would become scared, and then desperate. Opportunists would rise to take advantage of the situation—a society without the rule of law.

Our politicians are unwilling to admit this, but the biggest threat to America is not the EMP attack itself, but the resulting societal collapse. Unfortunately, what one should fear the most is their fellow man.

Impact of an EMP Attack

While no single event serves as a model for an EMP scenario with the incidence of a long-lasting widespread power outage, communications failure, and other effects, the combined analysis by the EMP Commission of the following case studies, provides useful insight in determining human reactions following an EMP attack. From the EMP Commission:

Blackouts:

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Northeast (1965)

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New York (1977)

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Hydro Quebec (1989)

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Western states (1996)

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Auckland, New Zealand (1998)

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Northeast (2003)

Natural Disasters: NOTE: Add Katrina and Sandy, remove Midwest floods!!!!!

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Hurricane Hugo (1989)

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Hurricane Andrew (1992)

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Midwest floods (1993)

Terrorist Incidents:

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World Trade Center attack (2001)

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Anthrax attacks (2001)

Blackouts

In 1965, a blackout occurred over the northeastern United States and parts of Canada. New Hampshire; Vermont; Massachusetts; Connecticut; Rhode Island; New York, including metropolitan New York City; and a small part of Pennsylvania were in the dark after operators at Consolidated Edison were forced to shut down its generators to avoid damage. Street traffic was chaotic, and some people were trapped in elevators, but there were few instances of antisocial behavior while the lights were out. It was a “long night in the dark,” but the recovery proceeded without incident, and citizens experienced relative civility.

TIME Magazine described New York’s next blackout, in 1977, as a “Night of Terror.” Widespread chaos reigned in the city until power was restored — entire blocks were looted and set ablaze, people flipped over cars and vans on the streets; the city was in pandemonium. That night 3,776 arrests were made, and certainly not all looters, thieves, and arsonists were apprehended or arrested. While this is a dramatic example of antisocial behavior following a blackout, sociologists point to extraordinary demographic and historical issues that contributed to the looting. For instance, extreme poverty and socioeconomic inequality plagued New York neighborhoods, and many of the looters originated from the poorer sections of the city, engaging in “vigilante redistribution” by looting consumer goods and luxuries. Racial tensions were high, and a serial killer known as Son of Sam had recently terrorized New Yorkers.

In 1989, more than six million customers lost power when a geomagnetic storm caused a massive power failure in Quebec. The electricity failures resulting from this geomagnetic storm reached a much larger area than is typically affected by traditional blackouts resulting from technological failure. However, the outage lasted just over nine hours, most of which were during the day. Local and national papers were curiously silent about the blackout, and little to no unusual or adverse human behavior was attributed to the power loss. The event was most significantly a lesson for operators of the North American electric grids because it revealed vulnerabilities in the system.

In 1998, Auckland, New Zealand, experienced a significant blackout that lasted more than five weeks and affected more than one million people. Civility reigned for the duration of the outage, which was likely attributed to a number of factors, including:

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There was no significant threat to public health because water and sewage infrastructures were functioning.

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In anticipation of potential incidents, police increased their presence in urban areas.

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The recovery process was underway nearly immediately, communicating to the public that the situation would eventually be under control.

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Nearly all blackout recovery resources of New Zealand were rushed to the capital for recovery efforts.

Recovery efforts from elsewhere in New Zealand were significant, symbolically as well as practically, as demonstrated by the fact that electricity was available elsewhere. Businesses attempted to carry on as normally as possible. Social consequences included criticism and blame of the authorities, both municipal and national because the technological failures were attributed in large part to the privatization of the power sector. However, this response never materialized into violence, crime, or social disorder.

Most recently, New York City and the eight states in the Northeast experienced another significant blackout in August 2003. While the blackout inconvenienced many on a hot summer day, general civility remained intact. News coverage indicated that those affected by the blackout dealt with the obstacles quietly and even developed a sort of camaraderie, while struggling through nights without running water and electricity. In contrast to the 1977 power outage, police made only 850 arrests the night of the 2003 blackout, of which “only 250 to 300 were directly attributable to the blackout,” indicating a slight decline from the average number of arrests on a given summer day. While this blackout was widespread, it was not long lasting, and it did not interrupt the communications infrastructure significantly.

Blackouts provide only a partial picture of life following an EMP attack. Most blackouts are localized and are resolved quickly. Further, usually communication systems are not completely shut down, and major infrastructures can remain intact if significant portions of infrastructure hardware are located outside of the affected area. To best approximate the effects of longer-lasting, widespread infrastructure disruption—with or without electrical power failure—it is necessary to look to natural disasters for examples of human reaction.

Natural Disasters

At the time that Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989, it was the most intense hurricane to strike the coastline of Georgia and the Carolinas in over one-hundred years. Hurricane Hugo’s survivors indicate that some individuals, who suffered personal and financial losses from the hurricane, showed clinically significant symptoms of psychological trauma. According to some researchers, many of the adverse mental health effects of Hugo could be explained by deterioration in perceived social support. Overall, the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms was low, but stress effects lingered long after the hurricane’s physical damage was repaired.

Hurricane Andrew cut a wide path across Florida and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in 1992, causing $26.5 billion in damage. Andrew left 250,000 families homeless and 1.4 million families without electricity immediately following the hurricane.

After such extraordinary destruction and disruption, it is perhaps not surprising that one-third of a sample of individuals met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder four months after the hurricane.

Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew demonstrated to psychologists that disaster-related declines in perceived support explained the difference in symptoms between the two disasters; deterioration was more significant in Andrew and the recovery was weaker. In the long-lasting recovery period, Floridians saw looting, opportunism, and vigilante civil defense. Press coverage of Hurricane Andrew suggests that after a multi-state disaster, people will expect help, and they will expect it from the federal government, as well as from state and local authorities.

Flooding in the Midwest in 1993 resulted in twenty-five deaths, affected more than 8 million acres, cost billions of dollars in property damage and more than 2 billion dollars in crop damage. Water depths ranged from eleven feet of flooding in Minneapolis to forty-three feet of flooding in St. Louis. Electricity was restored, where possible, within three days and in downtown Des Moines within 23 hours. The floods devastated families, businesses, and individuals, who lost nearly everything and were unable to control events throughout the recovery process. Thousands of people assisted in volunteer recovery efforts by sandbagging and providing needed supplies. Most came from unaffected areas to help the most urgent victims. The flooding provides an example of widespread damage crippling several infrastructures for a significant period, and an example of a disaster in which regional experience may matter tremendously in disaster recovery.