EMP Attack Could Wipe Out U.S.

The federal government is doing “nothing” to protect against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that could wipe out American civilization, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a leading expert on the subject, tells Newsmax.

For only $200 million to $400 million, the government could protect a key element of the power grid to keep electrical power from being wiped out for years, according to Dr. Pry, a former staff member of the congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack.

Yet neither Republicans nor Democrats have been willing to spend that small sum, says Pry, who is president EMPACT America, which is meeting in Niagara Falls, N.Y. this week to spotlight the scandal.

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

An EMP attack would wipe out personal computers and the internet. Cars would not start, gasoline pumps would not work, and airplanes could not take off.

Heat and air conditioning would shut down, supermarkets would have to close, telephones would go dead, water would go out, and radio and television sets would not turn on.

Banks and ATMs would shut down, credit cards would become useless, and emergency services and hospital operating rooms would close.

In the ensuing chaos, most Americans would die from starvation.

“We have a 60-day food supply in big regional warehouses,” Pry says. “Typically when hurricanes take out the electric power grid locally, that food spoils, because it needs temperature control systems and refrigerators to keep it preserved. And if you lose the electric grid across the whole country, you’re going to lose all that food that is the best hope for feeding the American people.”

The 2008 report of the congressional commission found that the country is shockingly unprepared for an EMP attack. Terrorists or countries like Iran or North Korea could launch an EMP attack and “possibly end us as a civilization, and take us out as an actor on the world stage,” Pry says.

At the least, Pry says, 100 to 200 large transformers used in electrical transmission should be protected against EMP attack.

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