EMP Attack Would Send America into a Dark Age

In a matter of seconds, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack or a geomagnetic storm would send America back to the Dark Ages. It’s something few want to think about and something fewer still are doing anything about. Gale Nordling, president and CEO of Minneapolis-based Emprimus speaks to Ronald Kessler in this article from Newsmax.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes in the atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast fries all electronics in line of sight. EMP was first detected after the detonation of the Starfish Prime nuclear test on July 9, 1962. While the explosion occurred near Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean and was not designed to be an EMP blast, it blew out street lamps, television sets, and telephone communications in Hawaii nearly 1,000 miles away.

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, the rest of the country�s technological infrastructure is not.

Geomagnetic storms emanating from the sun could cause a similar catastrophe. Such a storm occurred in 1859, but because a system for distributing electric power had not yet been invented, it did not do any appreciable damage. On March 13, 1989, a minor geomagnetic storm left six million people without power in eastern Canada and the U.S. for 12 hours.

�If a nuclear device designed to emit EMP were exploded 250 to 300 miles up over the middle of the country, it would disable the electronics in the entire United States,� says Nordling, president and CEO of Minneapolis-based Emprimus. �That would disable the entire electric grid. It would disable communications, it would disable fuel manufacturing and production, it would disable hospitals and medicines, it would disable 911 call centers.�

Everything else would be shut down, Nordling says.

Read Full Article