When grappling with one major worldwide catastrophe, COVID-19, it’s easy to forget about what else could go wrong. We all have our concerns about the one two punch of multiple SHTF scenarios hitting us at once.
Of course, most people are looking to an ailing economy for the next blow! Could we slide from pandemic to depression?
As tensions rise in the South China sea and our global enemies are emboldened by an end to the heavy handed Trump era of US Military buildup, should we bring our focus back to the effects of a potential EMP? Iran? North Korea?
Remember, peace on earth doesn’t even protect us from a CME blowing out of the sun’s surface and shutting the lights out here on planet earth, maybe forever. Are you prepared for that?
We are going to look at 18 deadly mistakes that can kill your EMP plan.
Bugout Location
Depending on where you live, a bugout location might be the absolute best option you have.
If you are in an urban or suburban sprawl you need a safe place to avoid the chaos. This is especially important. When the resources run out and the tap water runs out, people will go crazy.
The EMP is the straightest path to SHTF because the flow of goods and services gets shut off instantly.
Bugout Vehicles
If your bugout plan hinges on a bugout vehicle that will be affected by an EMP then that will most certainly kill your plans in an EMP.
You will find yourself having to get to a location on foot in the chaos following an EMP.
Community
An EMP plan is very personal.
You are talking about reestablishing the way you live, and the way society works. The best bet might be to run away.
However, if you do not have a bugout location far, far away, then you need to prioritize your neighbors and community.
It will be local markets, growers and PEOPLE who help you survive something like this.
Related: Are you a Community Member or a Lone Wolf Survivalist?
Faraday Cage
The Faraday cage is designed to protect your most precious electronics from an EMP’s damaging effects.
If you do not have a Faraday cage, then that means your electronic life will come to an end when that EMP hits. No communications, no electronic documentation and no backed up prepper’s library for rebuilding after the EMP.
Communications
The most important things you put in a Faraday cage will be a few methods of communication.
Without a means of communicating, you will not be able to reach out to the world or even stay in touch with family if you are split up.
You should have several means of communication stowed inside a Faraday cage.
Two way radios and maybe a HAM setup. There will be preppers taking advantage of that frequency after an EMP.
Moderate Agriculture Plans
It’s not to say that you need to turn your home and land into a full scale garden.
But if you don’t have some plans to produce a little food after an EMP then you are likely going to go hungry.
The supply chain will be destroyed, and even local farmers will be at a distance that many suburbanites will consider impossible to traverse.
Related: How To Make A Year-Round Self-Sustaining Garden
No Practice
If you wake up in a cold sweat to find that all the lights are off in your home, cell is off and car doesn’t work, what is next? You do not want your dry run to be the moment when it all matters.
If you do not practice your EMP plan before the world grinds to a halt, you will regret it.
Off Grid Living Plan
If you do not address your life off grid, then you are going to have some serious challenges when you are thrust into that kind of situation.
All aspects of what you do on a daily basis will have to be achieved without electronics and without outside services.
If you do not have an off grid living plan, then you do not have an EMP plan.
Area Study
Do you know about the threats, resources, and nuances of your area? Have you done an area study to identify things like the dangerous gangs in your community?
Even in rural areas there are pockets of crime and drugs and you should be aware of them.
An area study might take you a whole weekend but its precious information you will refer to in times of chaos.
Off Grid Heat
If you do not have a plan for heating your home following an EMP then you are going to find out all about how cold and miserable the winter months can be.
Whether it’s wood for your fireplace or kerosene for your heater, you need a solution to off grid heat when the heat pumps and oil fired heaters stop blowing hot air.
Related: Best Ways to Heat Your Off-Grid Home This Winter
Having No Plan
Of course, the worse plan to handle a potential EMP is not having a plan at all!
Long Term Food Storage
You gotta eat and the supermarkets will basically be empty in days, without any hopes of being restocked.
Food will not be traveling around the nation.
Look around. The food you have at home is the food that you will have to live on until you start growing and preserving your own food or setup channels of barter with others who are producing food.
Health and Fitness
Having a well written and thorough EMP plan is a great start.
However, does your health and fitness level match up with what’s in your plan? Can you execute in your current condition?
Not taking care of your health and physical fitness is not just one of the biggest mistakes in EMP planning but in all of prepping!
Water Purification
There are some particularly important machines that are responsible for cleaning our tap water.
Remember, an EMP shuts it all off.
That means the water coming out of your tap could be dangerous. That is, if the taps run at all!
You might be putting yourself and your family at incredible risk if you do not have a means of purifying water at home.
⇒ The Awesome DIY Device That Extracts Water Out Of Thin Air
Water Sourcing
Where do you get all of your water if the tap runs dry? What if the water that comes out of the tap is black?
Your EMP plan is not complete until you sit down and identify true water resources in your area. The best being naturally occurring water resources are rivers, lakes and springs.
Acting Quickly
The point of things like practice and planning is to add a level of speed and efficacy to your game.
Your EMP plan is undoubtedly one that should be executed quickly.
There will be an enormous level of panic that will be unleashed when people realize the power is gone and it is never coming back.
This will be like nothing you have ever seen. If you get caught up in this, it could mean your life.
Intel
Your EMP plan is doomed if you cannot pull intelligence from local, community and national resources. When the TV goes off in an EMP it will not come back on.
However, a simple emergency radio stored in your Faraday cage will give you the ability to hear emergency messages coming from the government.
Local intelligence will be important, too. How is this EMP affecting your city or county? Also talking to those in your community can alert you to local threats and opportunities.
Get Your Family Involved
An EMP plan is going to include your family. So, you should include your family in the planning and the practice of that plan.
Remember, we talked about acting quickly. You cannot plan on acting quickly if everyone is in your family is not versed in what they are responsible for in that plan.
Maybe nothing will sink your EMP plan faster than a family that it totally unaware of what you are trying to achieve.
We should all pray to never see the world shuddered by an EMP. There are no winners in that game. However, as a prepper you should be prepared to act, even in this situation. As you can see, there are a number of things that can turn your EMP response into a nightmare.
Start with an understanding of your area, build a plan that best positions you for life off the grid and then practice that plan with your family.
Life after electricity won’t be easy for anyone, except those people who are already living without electronics. For the rest of us, it’s going to be one serious hangover. Get away from the chaos of highly populated areas and begin forging a new life.
Above all, avoid these EMP plan pitfalls.
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as usual with these “Hollyweird” EMP scenarios – missed just one important element >> an EMP is from a radiation fallout producing nuke …
even if we are lucky to avoid the obvious retaliatory nuke war – and a new radiated crater where a city once existed >> there’s the fallout to contend with – just ignoring or shortchanging it in your prep planning only exasperates the dangers ….
An EMP is a high altitude burst – no fall out. Fall out occurs from a ground level explosion and the debris is sucked into the sky causing radioactive fallout.
An EMP can come from two sources. The first is like you said, a nuclear explosion. But, it doesn’t have to be at ground level. A nuclear explosion at 30-50 miles up will have the same EMP effect and will reduce the amount of fallout.
The second one is from a CME, or coronal mass ejection from the sun. Google “carrington effect” to see what can happen. This one occurred in the 1850’s. Imagine if the same one came now.
Actually, EMPs are much more frequent than just the Carrington event. There was a CME in the 1920s that affected railroads and telegraphs like the Carrington event. Because electricity was not in common usage even as late as then, the world was not that much affected. My mother was alive during the 20s and she had gas lights in her house in Philadelphia and street lighting was provided by gas lights.
There was an CME that affected Nova Scotia in the 1990s. There was a Carrington level EMP that occurred during the 700s AD while the crusades were going on. There was a CME that affected communications in the North Atlantic during WWII. Earth just missed by a week a massive X class CME in 2012. Within the last ten days there was a CME that caused very unusual aurora borealis in the high latitudes and affected communications from satellites
The sun is now entering a period of high activity and we can expect to see many more CMEs but hopefully either directed away from earth or of sufficiently low intensity as to not do any more harm than irradiate passengers in jets flying high over the poles or satellite communications.
Dang! I proof read this post several times and missed a glaring type the second word in. It should read, “Actually, CMEs are more frequent . . .”
Sorry about that. Can’t believe I missed that. In fact, now that I read the whole article I see that I missed it time after time.
For those of you who might be confused by this article — and who could blame you, it really was about coronal mass ejections and not about electromagnetic pulses. CMEs are naturally occurring events emanating from the sun. EMPs are man-made events as a result of a high altitude atomic explosion. In fact sometimes you see them written HEMP or HAEMP which stands for high altitude electromagnetic pulse.
Unlike coronal mass ejections which occur with far more frequency that most of us suspect, there have only been a couple of accidental EMPs created before scientists realized what an atomic bomb was doing besides blowing up stuff like a giant grenade. While there was evidence of the effect from early atomic tests, the extent of their possible effect wasn’t realized until Operation Starfish conducted in the Pacific which had a significant impact on Hawaii hundreds of miles away. If you are interested in Operations Starfish and the results, just search on line for it. Remember this was decades before the personal computer and everyone being on line and connected.
Within the last two weeks a coronal mass ejection reached earth which, according to spaceweather.com, caused highly unusual aurora borealis in the higher latitudes. Unfortunately they only occurred very briefly in the wee hours of the morning and as a result were only observed by a few night owls whose main hobby during the long winter nights is watching for high altitude phenomenon.
There were some nice photos of it on spaceweather.com. They may still be up for anyone interested in them.
It is unlikely an EMP burst would be at the 30 to 50 mile height. It has been estimated by folks who claim to know the math and physics involved that the optimal height for an EMP burst over the U.S.is 350 miles owe Kansas. Of course, that means that everything went right with the shot. Didn’t Space-X just blow up a rocket within the last ten days. I am confident that was an unplanned end to an expensive space shot,
LCC: 1st one since they’re been sending up the Falcons. Remember what is in charge now. Clowns to the right of me, clowns to the left. A nation cannot rise higher than it’s leaders. Just picture biden with frizzy hair, and large red bulb for a nose. niio
Red: That is insulting to clowns everywhere who are professionals, highly skilled at their trade. They attend clown school before appearing professionally unlike politicians who merely have to slime their way into office.
Willow the Clown is a highly trained professional who is a friend of mine.
Based on performance, even after 43 years of being a politician, it would appear Ole’ Two-Shot doesn’t have a clue what he is supposed to do.
LCC: Ours are called hey:O:ka, and also have the duty of family executioner. In ancient Celt lore, the Fool was a man, a clown, who led people to their deaths in human sacrifices each April 1st. To make matters worse, I recall a John Ritter/Jim Belushi movie that included killer klowns trained by the CIA… 🙂 niio
Red:
Also “It”, by Stephen King
Miz Kitty: Yeah, but that was about a demonic critter. Ours are loveable, nice, and well-armed always. King’s It wouldn’t survive long with our kids. They’re always looking for new chew toys every full moon 🙂 niio
Since it’s obvious that Illini Warrior does not have a basic
understanding of an EMP I can only suggest that his silly
comment be disregarded in total.
A brief internet search will give a treasure trove of reliable
information on EMPs from basic to highly technical.
I would suggest taking a look at a company that specializes in EMP shielding devices for home,vehicles,and generators. The company is EMP Shield.
NormalChuck: Gee, it really isn’t helpful to ridicule Illini Warrior for his misinformation. It would be more helpful to point out that most authorities disagree with his statement.
Ridicule, sarcasm, denigration seldom win converts. All we have to do to see proof of that statement is look to the east coast at the district of corruption where it appears folks in opposing political parties can’t even manage a civil good morning but continue to act like five year old brats in a temper tantrum. At least among ourselves let us try to rise above that kind of pettiness.
While I don’t always agree with him — heck I would be suspicious of some individual who agreed with me 100% of the time. He must want something of value from me. Illini Warrior has made valuable suggestions to this list in his numerous posts. I would hate to see him leave it because of opprobrious comments.
We need to enforce, allow, encourage free speech which of necessity must include comments and speech with which we don’t agree. The First Amendment is under serious attack as are all the provisions of the Bill of Rights. We must actively work to bring them back to their original guiding force behind this country.
I know how easy it is to be hypercritical. While I strive to avoid it with all my might I know I am guilty of writing unwarranted snotty comments on occasion. I apologize for them. I like to blame it on my evil twin but there really is no excuse for belittlement. It makes lesser human beings of ourselves. It’s like the big jelly Bismark donut. We know we really shouldn’t but it taste soooo good.
Do you remember the movies Ocean 11, 12, 13, remember the EMP on a trailer in the parking lot, anybody with money can build one with the right help, set it off at any level of our atmosphere and poof, its cave man time!
M: I think you are confusing an electrical event with an atomic device. For a High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse to occur, one must first boost the initiating atomic device to some altitude. The atomic device gains impacted area as it gains altitude. From folks who claim to have the expertise in math and physics, they have said that the ideal altitude for an HAEMP to impact almost the total United States 350 miles directly over Kansas would be the ideal location and would affect most of the United States except Hawaii and Alaska. It would also affect the southern border of Canada and the northern border of Mexico. It might miss the far northeastern tip of the US., the far southeastern tip of Florida, the same with the northwestern and southwestern tips of the U.S. It depends upon the kiloton load of the bomb, weather to some extent and altitude of the explosion.
I am struggling to see how an atomic bomb in a trailer would be involved in a high altitude electromagnetic pulse. You need a rocket to reach the necessary altitudes. Building a rocket capable of reaching 300+ miles into the sky is no easy task. Space-X just had a multimillion dollar space rocket explode immediately upon lift-off. Not something that the average garage mechanic can pull off. In addition to needing the millions of dollars to build a launching facility and rocket. It is a task only extremely wealthy individuals whose private wealth is in the billions and who can get the necessary backing to hire the highly paid technical folks to do the work. Either a billionaire or a country. Even most countries don’t have the necessary funds to build a rocket program from scratch and include developing an atomic program to go with the rocket program. the little fat guy in N.K. has mortgaged his country to China for the next thousand years in order to get his rocket/atomic program off the ground.
Even building an atomic bomb, while appearing simple in the process, is extremely difficult in the details. The machining and placement of the triggering device calls for top level machining and measuring devices. The average or even above average garage mechanic just doesn’t possess the kind of mechanical skills and equipment needed to do the job, especially since it also involves being shielded from highly radioactive material so that our garage mechanic doesn’t fry himself before he can complete the project.
You really don’t have to worry about your average sheepherder building an atomic bomb out in the Mojave Desert in order to blow up Hollywood.
There are rumors of suitcase atomic bombs. I really doubt their existence. The critical mass for even the smallest atomic bomb is so big and heavy, no human could lift it.
That isn’t the same as a dirty bomb. Any doofus with an attache case from Samsonite, a few pounds of C-4 or Semtex and some radioactive waste from any medical lab that uses radioactive material in diagnostic tests can make a dirty bomb in a suitcase.
But a radioactive bomb is really a useless terrorist device. It only impacts a very small area with a short radioactive half life. Even in downtown Manhattan it would only impact a few tens of thousands of people, hardly a country-wide event. Besides, would we really miss a large chunk of downtown Manhattan? I think it might go a long way toward improving the political scene, especially we might get lucky and have Cuomo visiting DeBlassio at the time of the event.
So a dirty bomb while it scares people isn’t really a good terrorist weapon at least in my estimation. There are other avenues that would create a more country wide event that would be a kick in the teeth. I won’t mention them because while they are fairly common knowledge, no sense in alerting some d.a. who isn’t bright enough to recognize them for himself or herself.
Alway bear in mind that movies are fantasy even when they pretend to represent real life. Anything you see on the silver screen is pure fantasy. Ever see some guy with a 5-shot snub-nosed revolver fire it twenty times without reloading?
Ever see a guy fly through the air when shot with a shotgun? Doesn’t happen. If the projectile had enough mass and velocity to knock a grown man through the air, it would also knock the shooter on his keister. Remember the laws of physics don’t change. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The shootee might stumble back a few steps, but fly through the air and crash through a window? Not in this world.
There were 60 lb. nukes in our European arsenals before the wall came down and the cold war supposedly ended.
They were designed to be carried in a special backpack. The plan was when the Warsaw Pact tanks came rolling through the Fulda Gap the would be used to blow bridges wreck dams, and basically destroy or render useless anything which the Russki tanks would need to keep rolling. I don’t know what happened to the bombs, I haven’t worked for those people in this century.
That type of compressed mag field EMP device is relatively weak and very limited in range. No caveman time. Sorry. 🙂
I don’t know anything about the National Review but this is in an article it published May 3. 2019 titled The EMP Executive Order—Where Were Bush and Obama
“Alarmingly, in the military doctrines of potential adversaries, nuclear EMP attack is considered a dimension of cyber warfare, because EMP is not directly injurious to people, only to electronics. High-altitude EMP attack entails exo-atmospheric detonation (30 to 500 kilometers high), so none of the blast, fire, radiation, radioactive fallout, or other effects associated with a nuclear attack on a city would occur — only the EMP.”
Radiation from an EMP nuke is minimal because the fireball does not touch the ground. There are no ground strikes with nukes because missiles will be launched before they could be hit with silo busters. City destroying nukes are set off at high altitudes to compress the air into something that is as dense as a sheet of glass that flattens the city. The fireball never touches the ground so no material is sucked up into it to become radioactive. Radioactivity decays at a rate where for every period of time multiplied by seven, the radioactivity divides by ten. 10,000 rads/hr over a period of 7 hrs decays to 1,000 rads/hr which in turn in 49 hrs (2 days) decays to 100 rads/hr which in two weeks decays to 10 rads/hr which in 14 weeks (2 1/2 months) decays to 1 rad/hr. So if you started out with only 10 rads/hr in two days it would be down to 0.1 rad/hr which is nothing and would be down to 0.01 rads/ hr in two weeks.
Very good article—– useful information—– not electrifying is the name of hte game !!! LAMike
I’d like more info on the picture of the water purification set up. Looks like a mini still but I can’t really tell what it is. Looks pretty cool and very efficient – maybe its a slow trickle of water thru the tube in the fire that allows a quick boil before going to the collection jar?
I also would like information about the water purification system in the picture
I agree. I would like to see that set-up described in detail.
I would also like a full detailed article on that set-up.
Please add me to this list. That looks interesting.
Ditto
No, obviously you don’t understand that an EMP results from detonating a nuclear warhead in SPACE, perhaps 200 miles above a target area affecting a huge “line if sight”, like the entire North American Continent, without leaving a “crater” or resulting in “fallout” or a nuclear war – and it only takes one. Do your homework in research material, not “hollyweird”.
An EMP can be caused by the detonation of a nuclear device 200 mi. above the earth’s surface. The same effect can occur from a CME from our sun. There will be no radiation fallout or crater.
“There are no winners in that game.” What would be considered a winner right now? If a winner has electronics, money, a good job, and prestige in the community, then an EMP or CME would not be the greatest thing. But, if a winner is someone with a family, is able to take care of themselves without “modern” conveniences, and has a healthy relationship with God, then they are already winners and will become so even more.
It is a shame that society determines who the winners and losers are. Is Bill Gates a winner because he has lots of money? Does that mean that a country preacher is a loser because he has chosen a narrower path? You are a winner or loser, not because of society, but because of the way you self-assess.
Don’t bother putting your phone in a Faraday cage. Cell towers will be down thanks to EMP. Ditto with computers. No internet.
Two-way radios and a Kindle (as a storage and reader for your library) would work for you and your family.
A Cellular phone does not take up much room. Also, there are apps that will uses your Cellular phone as a (very) short range walkie talkie. A passive repeater using a high gain antenna high u and another antenna in the house will extend the range.
In addition, if you have apps like maps stored on your phone those may prove helpful after some electronics destroying event. Even games stored on your phone or music will prove a much-needed distraction to you and the kiddies after an e.d.e. (electronics destroying event). If you have a phone you are no longer using, use it to store info and protect it in a metal ammo can in the prescribed manner.
Chuck, you have a good point. I was thinking of using the Kindle for that because of larger screens and such. Note I said Kindle instead of iPad. That’s due to price. On Amazon’s black friday events you can get a Kindle for $40 and a 128 gig SD card for $20.
Actually keeping both an out of date phone and a Kindle wouldn’t be a bad idea. I had no idea an SD card would work on a Kindle. Can I store books I get from Amazon on an SD card? I don’t have the latest greatest Kindle. It is probably a ten year old PaperWhite I think that is what it is called.
Would not your riding lawnmower work in an EMP situation for transportation?
Also, with regard to bugout vehicles, has anyone else noticed that the market for them is slim pickings? There aren’t a lot of pre-1985 vehicles on Auto Trader Classic or Cars.com. I wonder how effective it would be to “Faraday” your garage to some extent?
Check out info on the EMP SHIELD on YouTube & online. An independent UL Lab-tested & DOD & HOMELAND SECURITY recommended device currently used on military vehicles and available to the public for post 1985 vehicles as well as residential EMP applications. REALITY SURVIVOR has a good interview on Youtube with the inventor, who also has contracts with major Utility companies. Device costs only $350!
Omega: We have ill-conceived automobile buy-back programs to thank for that. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time but we may come to regret selling that old car for a few hundred dollars.
We should all pray to never see the world shuddered by an EMP.”
I think the author meant sundered. Perhaps predictive doesn’t have “sundered” in its vocabulary.
Be that as it may, there are significant stretches of the world where the loss of electricity would only be a minor inconvenience. There are vast areas of China still without electricity, community supplied water and sewage treatment. Community supplied water means the village well in the center of town. Sewage is handled by fermenting and being applied to the fields for fertilizer.
Ditto Africa; large rural regions of South America; rural regions in almost every part of the globe.
After an exchange of EMP nukes anyone in a city would be totally screwed but rural folks would go on just like before. The more urbanized a country, the worse it would suffer in an EMP exchange.
The real problem is that if we are hit with an EMP we probably won’t retaliate with a similar nuke but will go for the most devastating nukes we are capable of firing. An EMP nuke wouldn’t affect North Korea that much but turning Pyongyang into a molten glass spot on the earth would certainly have a significant effect on the malignant leadership of that benighted country. The radiation effects on the immediate area outside the burst radius would also have an effect on the leadership not immediately fried to a cinder. The greatest problem with top down leadership such as NK’s is that lower ranks then are left directionless. They have been directed in every single move since childhood and independent thinking is a skill missing in their skill set. The folks who might think independently if not eliminated, are most certainly kept out of positions of authority. Only the robots get promoted. I believe if Pyongyang were turned into radioactive charcoal the rest of the country would collapse in turmoil unless their BFF Red China moved in to provide leadership. It would be up to South Korea to seize the initiative to move into NK and take over leadership. That is task they may not be able to undertake because we have been doing for them what Kim has been doing for the NKs. We have been providing them military advice and protection for over 50 years. When are they going to stand on their own? If they haven’t clued in on military procedure by now, then they are hopeless and we should just say, “Good luck” and call it a day.
Got a little off track with attempting to say that for significant parts of the world, even the loss of aid from the U.S. wouldn’t be missed because most of it never reaches the real people anyway but is sucked off by the corrupt leaders.
More on the water purification, please.
This is very cool, old-time way to do things.
https://archive.org/details/householddiscove00mors/page/n13/mode/2up
niio
Having a book written in 1909 might be helpful in an EOTW situation, I am afraid it is most likely out of print. I sure wouldn’t want to try to read it on my computer screen.
In addition, many items that were available almost anywhere in town alas are no longer sold due to various do-gooders thinking we aren’t mature enough to handle them.
For instance, you could buy morphine at any corner drugstore. You could buy medicinal tobacco. I purchased the ingredients to make gunpowder at the corner drug store. Many substances were available because folks did for themselves services that are now provided by others.
That has always been my point in talking about after an EOTW event. We just don’t have the infrastructure In place today that we had even at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. We still burned coal and there were coal distributors in every town. We still burned oil lamps and there were oil distributors in every town. When you asked a clerk for kerosene in 1909, he knew immediately what you wanted. He didn’t look at you with a blank stare and tell you that he didn’t know what that was.
A fellow or gal who was handy could fix his wagon, mend his harness, patch his saddle. Today I can’t identify all the parts under the hood of either of my motor vehicles. I can still identify all the parts on my bike and pretty much fix it when things go wrong. I haven’t saddled a horse in over 55 years. I would probably get it right in a short while. In the meantime the horse, assuming I could acquire one — the closest stable is 20 miles away and I suspect I would not be the first one there trying to acquire a horse, especially if I had to walk the 20 miles, uphill most of the way.
So while Red’s reference probably has many very useful hints for folks living over a century ago, with our lack of infrastructure that they had then, many of them would not be applicable.
My mother, as a girl and young woman heated her clothes iron on the coal stove and also heated her hair curlers on the coal stove. How many of us have a coal stove for starters, know where to obtain coal, have a flat iron? I can assure you that modern steam iron probably will melt if you try to heat it on a coal stove or wood stove or barbecue grill. We are going to have to resort to the way sailors ironed their clothes, between the mattress and the springs of the bed or the ropes of the hammock.
LCC: Have printer, will have book. Two copies, please. One to study, the other to store. True, most would have no idea what to do, but what was old is new. Anything in the book is learnable by the average joe. Many of us will have something like this, like Foxfire, like other books. This explains, not just assumes someone knows how to keep a baby alive in a pandemic, what to feed an invalid, how to keep sanitary in a world of outhouses and the contents of slops buckets thrown in the streets. How do you build a chimney? It shows different types of.
You and I are fortunate that if it all hits the fan, we can do most of this. That pain of experience kicks us again, and jolts loose memory of what Mom and dad did, how the grandparents did things. If you ever browsed through century old cookbooks, you saw something similar, no spice mixes, but do it yourself.
The price is cheap, a few minutes to download, and hours of study. Yes, they used a lot of things we know now to avoid. But, overall, it’s a good read; it teaches. niio
Red: Are you saying that I can download and print that book? I didn’t realize that. I will have to go back and try. I think would be interesting reading even if not 100% applicable. Is there anything special I should know to download it? Once I have it in downloads I think I can handle printing okay although I will have to get in a ream of white bond. I am a little short of white paper and only have green for some reason. Maybe it was the money I was printing on my black and white printer. It didn’t turn out that good. I don’t think I am a good enough salesman to pass it and I am not as stupid as the guy in Minneapolis — at least sober I am not. I don’t know how stupid I would get if I have too much to drink and take a bunch of drugs, never having done that stunt.
LCC: You know the regs. Anything published prior to 1920-something is up for grabs. Mostly, it’s for the house. How-to glue and so on. handy stuff to know. Download before printing to make sure it is something you would like. niio
No matter how prepared you are, an exchange of nukes will render the world nearly (if not totally) uninhabitable.
God help those who survive it.
A librarian close to ground zero survived the Hiroshima nuke because the books absorbed the ionizing radiation. At least half the U.S. population will survive a full exchange with the Rooskies. What happens after depends on how prepared you are. Most of the rest of the world is poor and their lives won’t change, except they won’t have to worry about U.S. drone attacks.
The studies on Nuclear Winter were based on unrealistic assumptions, all detonations resulting in firestorms and atmospheric conditions always perfect for lifting the ash into the upper atmosphere. NW is a leftist lie, with all the right wing lies about the election going around these days it’s getting easy to be misled by the lefties.
Judge, if you really are one, you know that in civil court the burden of proof is by a preponderance of the evidence. At least it is in the PDRK and I have read that a significant number of states follow that same rule.
If a judge, you also know that the instruction to the jury on preponderance of the evidence is that degree of evidence that tips the scale in favor of the plaintiff. It isn’t overwhelming evidence. It isn’t beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden of proof for conviction of a crime. It is that tiny bit of evidence that causes the scales of justice to tip in favor the plaintiff.
With that burden of proof in the theft of votes, although probably a felony in some states, but in this kangaroo court, we will consider it a civil action. The tort is: You have my votes and I want them back. The civil procedure, not the criminal procedure of: you are the one responsible for the theft of my votes and I want you to go to jail.
So, considering the scintilla of proof in favor of the plaintiff, considering all I have heard and considering that the sole function of a juror is to weigh the probity of the testimony and the weight to be given such testimony and then to apply the value of the testimony against the law as described by the judge, I find in favor of the plaintiff.
Listening to the various UNSWORN testimony of various folks, and considering that unsworn testimony is not to be given the same weight as sworn testimony subjected to cross-examination by the opposing side, I believe there was significant malfeasance of office on the part of voting officials in certain states.
I believe it is highly likely that Trump could have won the election had it been conducted without that malfeasance of office. Hence, in my view there is strong suspicion that Joseph Biden is not lawfully the president of the United States and thus is an usurper of that position until such time as a lawful president is elected.
You may disagree. That is your prerogative. As I have often started, reasonable minds can differ. Are there some folks on both sides of the aisle whom might be considered the lunatic fringe? Does the sun rise in the east?
Unfortunately, the lunatic fringe screams the loudest and gets the most attention on both sides of the aisle and it appears to me that the leftist lunatic fringe is in charge right now rather than being confined in a state mental hospital where they would have been in an earlier age.
We have universal suffrage to thank for that. It was our founding fathers’ intent that only property owners who paid property taxes, thus supporting the government should be the ones to vote. Instead of following G. Washington’s advice to stick to our own business and avoid formng foreign entanglements, we let adventurists like T. Roosevelt, Woody Wilson, Frankie Roosevelt, another adventurist which is what is wrong with family dynasties; the madness runs in the family. Even as late as D. Eisenhower who warned us about the military-industrial complex we continued on our ill-conceived foreign adventures to where everyone got to pay taxes (well, almost everyone, there are wealthy individuals who don’t pay taxes in addition to low income folks who also manipulate the tax code. Cheating is not confined to the rich.) and therefore everyone no matter how brain dead they are get to vote. We don’t even bother to check the two most important remaining requirements to vote: citizenship and true identity.
I say let’s go for universal democracy. Inasmuch as U.S. actions affect most of the world, let’s let EVERYBODY vote, from the most illiterate farmer in Ethiopia to Puttie Putin, let ’em all have a say. Why limit it to just a few hundred thousand folks who have snuck across the border? Let everybody have a say.
Chuckster: God bless, but while I may be wrong, as I understand it, 3-6 feet of dirt over a fallout shelter are plenty to stop radioactivity. A root cellar is shelter. https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-weapon/Residual-radiation-and-fallout
I think that the death zone for any blast is about 2 kilometers, with those within 5 dying later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions Modern nukes are designed to make a kill shot then be gone within hours or a few days.
https://www.ready.gov/nuclear-explosion
Peace. It hurts, but may you live in peace.
Well, I for one already miss the good old days of the former so called “heavy handed” administration. When you look at this list of concerns and the things to do as they are presented in this article, it is clear that the grass is not going to be greener on the other side of the fence. I better get busy!
Low tech can sometimes be the best way to go as far as preps for this very reason.
But we don’t need an emp or Carrington level solar event to crash our electrical system here in the US. Our infrastructure is woefully out of date and poorly maintained – not to mention how so much of it depends on easily hacked computer systems. Why risk all out nuclear war with the US and our allies (assuming we still have any we can count on) when a handful of hackers can do the same thing for a fraction of the cost and virtually no risk of detection? While our gooberment runs around chasing its tail and blaming Trump and his supporters (as they surely will), whoever’s actually behind it all can sit back drinking beer and laughing at us. Meanwhile, back on the ranch, every major metro area will erupt in flames, looting and chaos. Cause, reparations and Antifa, or something. And at least half of those “participating in the peaceful protests’ were not POC, btw. If you thought last summer was bad, a massive grid down situation will be exponentially worse.
Also, even a few major electrical stations down will cause a cascading collapse of the remaining ones still online unless they aren’t slaved into the main trunk. If they can be uncoupled in time, they might not crash, but if comms are also down due to satellites also being hacked and crashed, there might not be enough time to warn substations before the cascade effect takes place.
Why worry about the Grid and an EMP? Loads in my ISOs currently total about 120k MW with less than 15K from wind-solar-hydro TOTAL as I type. The sale prices are ranging from about 40/MW to over $700/MW. About 60k is from coal alone with another 40K from NG and the rest is nuclear. Biden pulls coal and we won’t have any power. That is how AC works, folks! It is all or nothing!! I won’t even mention monthly costs for the average consumer! (Remember, AOC and Gore are not average..)
If you think Miss Kitty is off base, just consider the toilet paper shortage less than a year ago. Fisticuffs over toilet paper no less. Now, consider the mayhem over the last bag of rice at Sam’s Club. Or the last five boxes of mac and cheese at Walmart. Now there’s a riot scene for sure.
LCC: A store clerk harassed a woman for nor wearing a mask. she popped him in the nose and got cheered.
Miz Kitty knows her stuff. Like ClergyLady and you, you already saw too much BS. I lived thru the Carter Depression and hoped to never see another one.
niio
I run a number of companies, one is 5 produce stands ran by family members so we do a lot of canning and we work with alot of amish. They have it figured out. But for myself living more modern, im in the middle of creating a 5 acre farm as part of a 33 acre plot that is going to be relatively off grid capable. With a small solar farm, two streams, numerous springs, a stock pike of seed, a wood mill, a fish pond, and relatively secluded. My worry is a solar flare. Or protecting what we have in the aftermath from the general public. Im planning on having some underground hidden shelters and resources in place, but its hard to account for everything. Especially when ur trying to prepare for 10-30 people, enough to establish and protect a small off grid community.
Miss Kitty…
Our infrastructure is woefully out of date and poorly maintained…truer words were never spoken…
Maintenance programs have been cut for years…outage restoration times/ outage response times used to be second only to safety programs…customer service was right up there near the top priority too…now the utility company’s bottom line is the only thing that matters.
On January 21st 2021, President Biden signed an executive order giving access of the United States power grid to communist China. Like you said why risk all out nuclear war when you are given all the info you need to take the power grid down…create rolling blackouts…collapse the economy…create total chaos…
Better stock up…Biden has said we will have a dark winter. Maybe he was being literal.
Unfortunately, it’s more a matter of when than if.
Even a big enough “regular” power outage could lead to a regional blackout. Weather plays a huge part in preparedness, more so than a lot of people realize. Ice storms and hurricanes can severely damage electrical transfer stations and power plants.
Earthquakes are another thing that could knock out power to large areas, and one that in eastern and central US we don’t give enough thought to. How many power plants in those areas are earthquake hardened? Given that the last time the New Madrid fault had a severe quake was in the 1800’s, and the fault running under Boston last “blew” was in the 1700’s, I doubt that it was really on the radar of builders.
People tend to think that just because a fault line is dormant, it’ll never become active again. With the uptick in seismic activity that usually happens during a solar minimum, old faults and volcanoes often begin to destabilize and show signs of life.
The New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812 were strong enough to make the Mississippi change course and run backwards… imagine the destruction if a quake of that magnitude hit now.
The public electric utility companies in our area are part of a mutual assistance group with other electric companies in a large part of the U.S. that goes to the aid of other utility companies in major outage events.
A month or so ago we had an ice storm that caused power lines to go down. There were about 300k customers of just one company who were off…some for several days…if there is a total grid down event it will be every company for itself…mutual assistance won’t happen.
If there is an EMP attack that fries the SCADA systems
and electronics that companies use to remotely operate substation breakers, LTC transformers and switches we can expect to be off for months and that’s a very conservative estimate.
I want to thank you and others who have pointed out that major electrical disruptions have more than one cause. More common and frequent outages may be relatively brief, lasting from hours or a few days to those lasting for several days to weeks. Preparing for a total and long-lasting EMP or CME disruption is, almost by definition, preparing for all.
The impact of a power outage also depends greatly on the affected area, duration, and TIME OF YEAR, For example, Minnesota is currently experiencing a major cold snap of -20F to -30F. Few people are prepared to heat their homes w/o electricity. Even those heating with propane or Nat gas must have electricity to run the furnace and its circulation fan(s). Generator anyone?
Exactly. Look at what’s going on around the Houston area right now, 2/17. Although the city/downtown area is lit up like a Christmas tree, the surrounding areas are blacked out.
This is something else to consider… that certain areas are likely to get preferential treatment in the event of any disaster. Like the saying goes, money talks and $#!+ walks. If there were a blackout in San Francisco, for example, you can bet Nancy Pelosi’s neighborhood would get it’s power back first… wouldn’t want her ice cream to melt. To be fair, Mar A Largo probably would also be top of the list as well, but many large resorts have their own generators.
Unless you live on the same trunk line as a shopping mall or a hospital, or in the wealthy part of town, you are likely to have to wait under normal conditions for you to get your power back. In a shtf situation, it can be weeks rather than days. That is one reason I personally advocate for low tech options and manual tools wherever possible.
Miz Kitty: The face of the world as viewed by geologists is like a broken plate pieced back together. We have two minor fault lines in the San Pedro valley down hill from the house. New Mad and Cascadia in the Northwest are the worse kinds of fault, subduction zones. They can make San Andreas look like child’s play. Japan sits on a subduction zone, and is always active. Wasn’t Connecticut hit with minor earthquakes in the 50s? That might have been a warning. the nuclear plant in columbia Co, PA, sits on a fault, thank you Jimmy Carter. I was living miles from there when it rattled. QWe had a cat that was terrified of being outside, but she took off and refused to come in the house. Three days later, we had a small tremor. niio
Mailpouch: the only good thing about biden is his mouth overrides his brain. He’s a leaker.
Right now, we’re looking at an invasion that most of C. America tried to prevent. A lot of these people may have corona, and now biden slipped we may have to quarantine till 2022, after midterm elections. You know what that means. niio
Red, respectfully, I have to ask, what does niio mean? I thought I knew most of the acronyms out there but am drawing a blank on this one.
Thanks
Mick: My bad. I use it so much, I forget folks don’t know it. It’s an Iroquois word that means to walk in God’s beauty. niio!
Thanks! That’s beautiful. I’m also glad I’m not losing my mind trying to find what it means. 🙂
Here’s a link to an article about the link between solar activity and seismic activity.
https://www.perspectaweather.com/blog/2020/1/16/715-am-the-solar-minimum-and-an-increase-in-volcanic-activity
Although it focuses on specifically volcanic activity, it must be noted that the earthquakes I mentioned in my other post both occurred during the Dalton solar minimum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Cape_Ann_earthquake
It also bears mentioning that several recent seismic studies claim that there is no correlation between solar activity and seismic activity, or that there is an uptick in seismic activity during solar maxima and not minima. I’m not sure why “the science” has done a 180 on this, but fwiw, I shall give greater credence to “the science” that is supported by “the history”.
Just want to point out from a prepper standpoint. Depending on how the EVENT is delivered, manmade or natural, the effects are similar. Dont be in a rush to unpack your Faraday cage. There might be another one coming. Apply your bugout mentality to the bug in scenario. Its a mindset that has to take over emotion.
I think this article is a bit too pollyana. It doesnt matter if it is a CME or an EMP. Either one has the ability to throw us back into the 1800’s which few people are prepared for. All stores us electronic registers. They will be closed instantly. So will all food distribution and distribution of anything else. Looting will commence very quickly. Either be prepared or join that party early, preferably at an out of the way location like a dollar store. If your in a city or suburb you need to leave immediately and get as far away as possible, hopefully to a preplanned location. I disagree with the author about you need a little garden. No you need a large garden and need to be able to supply all of your food and water. It will be total chaos and massive violence to start as desperate people try to feed their families. The government will be useless but warlords will abound. The us government set up a commission and estimates that after 1 year of power failure the us population will drip by 90%. That’s the period you need to be able to hide and survive before coming out of your hole and establishing a new life. I doubt anyone will fix the power unless it is an EMP attack and Europe sends forces in and tries to recolonize and stabilize the US. I have an engineer friend who worked for the power company and knows about this issue. He says the main transformers in every substation are hand made and take two years to produce. They are made in Europe. At best you may see limited repair starting in a couple of years, at the government and city centers. That’s assuming that it’s not a world wide CME or an EMP that starts an all out nuclear war. In those cases it’s probably a trip back to the dark ages and a long slow advance back to what we call civilization. The worst part is that we may be lucky enough to avoid the EMP but the CME is a given.
Scott: I doubt Europe will be in a position to do anything. Much of the world views Europe as wannabe owners, and Europe is badly undermined by liberalism, which encouraged a great many ‘refugees’ to come in. About 25% are men of fighting age.
Thanks to the little moron club, dementia mainstream news, our enemies sees preppers are backwards and stupid. The coasts will die first. Inner city people are prepping as best they can, and most are fair to proficient shots, and know how to grow and preserve food, how to find potable water (unless the mains are damaged, most water in cities comes from sources uphill, so it’s free-flow). the son-in-law, a ‘liberal’ Muslim, knows what mosque to trust to fight an invasion, and which ones need to be removed first.
We’ll survive because we studied. Many in the cites learned arms in the military, here or where they came from.
When the invasion comes, it’ll hit both coasts and the Lakes, and last, the Caribbean. then interior. From all the info I can find, invaders will try to live off the land, the people. There’s a hadith that states the flesh of the infidel shall be as lamb to you. You know how cheap chicoms are. they don’t mind selling arms to these people, but want gold for every soy bean.
niio
I would like to make a comment about the effectiveness of “EMP Shield” products for Home, Generator, & Autos. First, I have 3 of these and am glad to have this protection but the company makes a valid disclaimer in the fine print. “THIS IS NOT AN EXACT QUOTE — OUR DEVICES DO NOT PROTECT IN – ACTIVE CIRCUITS”.
THINK ABOUT IT, I BOUGHT AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE TO PROTECT MY ELECTRONIC DEVICES BUT IT MUST HAVE THE DESIGNED VOLTAGE PRESENT AT THE “EMP Shield” FOR IT TO PROTECT MY DEVICES. (It is still a good Product.) Consider if you have “A Timer, A Pressure Switch, A Wall Switch, An Ignition Switch, A Theft Protection Device, A motion Sensor, ETC that PREVENTS POWER from getting to the circuit. EMP Shield cannot be expected to function if the power is turned off by a temp control switch, pressure switch, etc.
I’m just saying, THINK ABOUT OTHER WAYS TO PROTECT THOSE CIRCUITS –
protection like grounded flex-metal conduit, even insulated aluminum foil offers some protection. I have a GENRAC Generator protected by its own EMP Shield but it only provides protection if the GENRAC is running at the time the EMP hits.
I Didn’t realize this. I have a deep well pump/ control Box located 150′ from my pressure switch & Storage Tank. That is 150′ antenna waiting to pickup the electromagnetic pulse — I didn’t realize this. Still a good product but do you get my point?
Wanting to be helpful……