Electromagnetic Pulse (19 page)

Blackouts and natural disasters have limits as approximations of recovery following an EMP attack. An important element is the relevance of fear and individual panic in these situations versus what might occur following an EMP attack. For this component, it is useful to examine recent terrorist incidents in the United States to gauge the effects of fear for the public. Because terrorist attacks appear to be indiscriminate and random, they can arouse acute anxiety and feelings of helplessness, which shatter beliefs of invulnerability and even a belief in justice and order in the world.

Terrorist Incidents

The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, certainly qualify as seemingly indiscriminate and random. Following this disaster, in which nearly 3,000 people died, those in the immediate and surrounding area showed considerable psychological trauma and damage. Some individuals who experienced these attacks may have lost confidence in their abilities to cope and control outcomes. Overall, however, the survivors of the attacks proved remarkably resilient, flexible, and competent in the face of an arbitrary, violent, and completely unexpected attack.

In October 2001, a month following the attack on the World Trade Center, Americans saw a series of anthrax-infected mail pieces, threatening intended mail recipients and handlers. The death toll was small (five individuals), but public concern was considerable.

This period is an example of an open response to an adversary-initiated threat that disrupted infrastructure. The public demonstrated a great need for control over the situation, through preparedness and information. For example, many Americans took protective measures, despite the astronomical odds against infection. The news media was saturated with reports of anthrax infections, suspected infections, and general information about anthrax and how to respond to infection. Though no culprit was apprehended, the attacks stopped, and normal postal activity resumed.

Some Lessons Learned

Though the United States has not experienced a severe, widespread disruption to infrastructure comparable to an EMP attack, the cases reviewed provide some practical direction for predictions of behavior. For example, it can be expected that emotional reactions such as shock and paralysis that have followed past disasters could be magnified in a large-scale event such as an EMP attack. In particular, the paralysis of government assistance entities, such as law enforcement and emergency services, would aggravate this effect.

In most instances, social disorder would be minimal, in significant part, due to the knowledge that authorities are in control of the situation. Without that assurance from an outside source, it appears likely that people would turn to immediate neighbors or community members for information and support, if possible.

Following disruptive disasters, information is among the most pressing need for individuals. Not surprisingly, people’s first concerns are the whereabouts and safety of their family members and friends. Another urgent priority is an understanding of the situation — knowledge of what has happened, who and what is affected, and the cause of the situation. A related yet distinct information need is for confirmation that the situation will be resolved, either by common sense and experience, in the case of a small-scale disaster, or from the involvement of local or federal authorities, in the event of a large-scale disaster. Psychologists note that dramatic events force people to reexamine their fundamental understanding of the world and that survivors need to process an event before they can fully absorb it. This information processing begins the alternating phases of intrusion and avoidance that are primary indicators of post-traumatic stress.

The aftermath of natural disasters is often marked by a period of considerable pro-social behavior such as cooperation, social solidarity, and acts of selflessness. However, this encouraging observation might not be similarly magnified in projections for human behavior following an EMP attack. The key, intangible, immeasurable difference is the knowledge that normal order would resume, based on significant indicators. It is important to note some of the differences between natural disasters and technological disasters, particularly those caused by human intent. Natural disasters "create a social context marked by an initial overwhelming consensus regarding priorities and the allocation of resources,” which explains the enormous outpouring of voluntary support following the floods of 1993. In contrast to natural disasters, which “occur as purposeless, asocial events; civil disturbances can be viewed as instrumentally initiated to achieve certain social goals.” An EMP attack would certainly be perceived similarly, whether the adversary was a terrorist organization or a state.

The selected case studies by the EMP Commission provide only an approximation of EMP effects. For example, the impact of the knowledge that widespread infrastructure disruption resulted from an intentional foreign attack are yet unknown. Past evidence points to people’s resilience in the immediate aftermath of disasters. However, during a lengthy recovery process, as would be expected following an EMP attack with widespread, long-duration effects, the psychological effects of the attack should not be underestimated.

It appears clear that the most crucial question in the task of avoiding societal collapse is how to provide information to the populace without electricity immediately following an EMP attack. Without communication alternatives, it would be impossible to alert people to the availability of emergency supplies or inform them concerning emergency response activities. It also appears clear that greater awareness of the nature of an EMP attack and knowledge of what prudent preparations might be undertaken to mitigate its consequences would be desirable. The EMP Commission made the following recommendations.

Recommendations

The EMP Commission arrived at several common sense suggestions, most importantly, involving measures to ensure that the President can communicate effectively with the citizenry. The following recommendations were made:

• Because many citizens would be without power, communications, and other services for a significant period of time before full recovery could occur, it will be crucial to provide a reliable channel of information to all Americans. In particular:
  
• The Department of Homeland Security should play a leading role in spreading knowledge of the nature of prudent mitigation preparations for EMP attack to mitigate its consequences.
  
• The Department of Homeland Security should add content to Web sites it maintains, such as www.Ready.gov, which provides concise overviews of the threats posed by EMP attacks and geomagnetic storms, summarizes steps that people should take given an incident and identifies alternate or emergency communications channels.
  
• The Department of Homeland Security should work with state homeland security organizations to develop and exercise communications networks involving the organizations that normally operate in each community.
  

After the EMP Commission’s term expired in 2008, the sense of urgency regarding these simple suggestions began to fall off our lawmaker’s radar. In 2015, that changed as the NDAA, for Fiscal Year 2016, revived the Commission. It is time to increase awareness, once again.

PART SEVEN
EMP SHIELDING – FARADAY CAGES

From the simplistic to the sophisticated

Chapter Eighteen
Meet Michael Faraday

"
Faraday is, and must always remain, the father of that enlarged science of electromagnetism
."

~ James Clerk Maxwell, renowned Scottish Scientist

Michael Faraday, who came from a destitute family, became one of the greatest scientists in history. His achievement was remarkable, in a time when science was the preserve of people born into privileged households. His work may save all of our lives someday.

Inspiration

It was Ben Franklin who helped inspire many of the ideas behind Michael Faraday’s scientific work. Franklin, of course, spent part of his illustrious career flying kites in thunderstorms in attempts to attract lightning and thus was already acquainted with the concepts of electricity.

In 1755, Franklin began toying with electricity in new ways. He electrified a silver pint can and dropped an uncharged cork ball attached to a non-conductive silk thread into it. He lowered the ball until it touched the bottom of the can and observed that the ball wasn't attracted to the interior sides of the can. Yet when Franklin withdrew the cork ball and dangled it near the electrified can's exterior, the ball was immediately drawn to the can's surface.

Franklin was mystified by the interplay of electricity and the charged and uncharged objects. He admitted as much in a letter to a colleague: "You require the reason; I do not know it. Perhaps you may discover it, and then you will be so good as to communicate it to me."

Decades later, an English physicist and chemist, named Michael Faraday, made other pertinent observations -- namely, he realized that an electrical conductor—such as a metal cage—when charged, exhibited that charge only on its surface. It had no effect on the interior of the conductor.

Education and Early Life

Michael Faraday was born on September 22, 1791, in London, England, UK. He was the third child of James and Margaret Faraday. His father was a blacksmith who endured ill health. Before marriage, his mother had been a servant. The family lived in a degree of poverty.

Faraday attended a local school until he was thirteen, where he received a basic education. To earn money for the family, he started working as a delivery boy for a bookshop. He worked hard and impressed his employer. After a year, he was promoted to become an apprentice bookbinder.

Faraday was eager to learn more about the world; he did not restrict himself to binding the shop’s books. After working hard each day, he spent his free time reading the books he had bound. Gradually, he found he was reading more and more about science. Two books, in particular, captivated him:

·
        
The Encyclopedia Britannica
– his source for electrical knowledge and much more

·
        
Conversations on Chemistry
– 600 pages of chemistry for ordinary people written by Jane Marcet

He became so fascinated, that he started spending part of his meager pay on chemicals and apparatus to confirm the truth of what he was reading. He immersed himself in the world of chemistry and science. He took notes and then made so many additions to the notes that he produced a 300-page handwritten book, which he bound and distributed.

At this time, Faraday had begun more sophisticated experiments at the back of the bookshop, building an electric battery using copper coins and zinc discs, separated by moist, salty paper. He used his battery to decompose chemicals—such as magnesium sulfate. A scientist was born.

Faraday’s Scientific Achievements and Discoveries

It would be easy to fill a book with details of all of Faraday’s discoveries – in both chemistry and physics. It is no accident that Albert Einstein used to keep photographs of three scientists in his office: Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday. Faraday was a man devoted to discovery through experimentation, and he was famous for never giving up on any ideas that came from his scientific intuition. If he thought an idea was a good one, Faraday would keep experimenting through multiple failures until he achieved the desired result, or until he finally decided that Mother Nature had shown his intuition to be wrong. History would prove that in Faraday’s case, this was rare.

Here are some of his most notable discoveries:

1821: Discovery of Electromagnetic Rotation

This was a glimpse of what would eventually develop into the electric motor, based on Hans Christian Oersted’s discovery that a wire carrying electric current has magnetic properties.

1823: Gas Liquefaction—the conversion of a gas into a liquid state, and subsequent refrigeration of gas

1825: Discovery of Benzene

Historically benzene is one of the most important substances in chemistry, both in a practical sense – i.e. making new materials, and in a theoretical sense – i.e. understanding chemical bonding. Faraday discovered benzene in the oily residue left behind from producing gas for lighting during his days in London.

1831: Discovery of Electromagnetic Induction

This was an enormously important discovery for the future of both science and technology. Faraday discovered that a varying magnetic field caused electricity to flow through an electric circuit. For example, moving a horseshoe magnet over a wire produces an electric current, because the movement of the magnet caused a varying magnetic field.

Previously, people had only been able to produce electric current with a battery. Now Faraday had shown that movement could be turned into electricity – or in more scientific language, kinetic energy could be converted into electrical energy. Most of the power in our homes today is produced using this principle. Rotation, kinetic energy, is converted into electricity using electromagnetic induction. The rotation can be generated by high-pressure steam from coal, gas, or nuclear energy turning turbines, by hydroelectric plants, and by wind-turbines.