by Pat Cascio, Survival Blog:

First off, let me state that I’m no expert in anything, just a serious student, who is always learning. I’ve spent a lot of time researching the effects of an EMP attack on our electrical grid. One thing that I’ve learned is that there doesn’t seem to be any one source that agrees with others on just what exactly will happen when there is an EMP strike. No one seems to know how long there will be an electrical outage — will it be weeks, months, years, or longer? Some people in this field state that it might be a decade or longer, before we could have an electrical grid up and running once again. And others state that a grid-down collapse could be a multi-generational dark age.

One thing for certain is that any long lapse without electricity can and surely will result in millions of deaths in a very short time. Some experts claim that about 90% of our population will die within a year without electricity. I believe it will be a much shorter time period. Without power, there is no way to produce food, and without food we will die in short order. Additionally, there won’t be any clean water produced for drinking, and without water, everything will die off — this is a fact! There won’t be any production of anything — without power, nothing moves or works.

Here is some information directly from the EMP Shield website (at www.EMPShield.com) that will help explain what an EMP is:

“A nuclear EMP is defined as having 3 distinct pulses of voltage/current. The El pulse is caused by the gamma rays released during the nuclear reaction. The Gamma rays interact with the electrons and the nucleus of the atoms that make up the atmosphere, and this interaction results in freeing electrons from their atoms. The free electrons ionize the atmosphere (ionization results in electron flow), which can be seen as the flow of electricity through anything that acts as an antenna. All of the wires that make up our nations’ electrical grid make an excellent antenna, which will produce an over-voltage condition throughout the affected area. For an optimally positioned detonation (approximately 300 miles high and over the center of the US), the entire nation will be affected by the El pulse. The El pulse starts at the time of the detonation of the weapon and continues until 1 microsecond after the detonation.

The E-2 pulse starts at 1 microsecond and continues until approximately 1 second after the detonation. The E-2 pulse is caused by the inelastic scattering (matter bouncing off other matter) of the matterfrom the nuclear weapon interacting with the matter that makes up the atmosphere continuing to ionize the atmosphere.

The E-3 pulse starts at approximately 1 second after the detonation and can continue for several minutes. The E-3 pulse is caused by the nuclear detonation distorting the earth’s geomagnetic structure, and then its reconfiguration. As the magnetic lines are pushed out of configuration and then come back into normal configuration, electricity is generated, and flows through the atmosphere until it contacts an antenna (wires).

The antenna that is most affected will be the nation’s power grid, but all arrays of wiring (even in your house) will act as large or small antennas and will produce the flow of electricity and over-voltage conditions.”

BACK TO THE 1800S

I’m not sure if the foregoing is of a lot of help or not, but it explains what an EMP is a lot better than I can explain it. All I know is that, without electricity, we will be immediately thrown back to the 1800s in very short order, and most people are not equipped to live that way. You won’t be able to jump in your car and drive to the store to buy food. First off, there is a chance that you vehicle won’t start, if it was made after about 1974.  There is some conjecture on this. Secondly, if you could get to your local food store, odds are, it will have been looted and there won’t be any food available. Plus, how far will your car run — probably only until the gas in your tank is consumed. You won’t be able to cook — even if you have piped natural gas. That is because most  natural gas depends on compressors stations,and most of those are grid-powered.  And the  people doing the repair work? They’Il be home protecting their families. Most household appliances run on electricity, so you can’t cook on your electric range, nor will your refrigerator work and all your food inside will spoil in short order. You won’t be able to flush your toilet, since there won’t be any running water. When you flick the light switch on, you’ll be in the dark.

If you take just a little bit of time to stop and think about how our lives revolve the use of electricity, you will realize that without power, our lives will change dramatically, in many ways. In big cities, a lot of people shop daily for the food for their meals, or at most weekly — so they don’t have much in the way of food stored up. The FedGov is telling people, to have at least two weeks of food on-hand at all times. Well, that won’t last very long — even if you could find a way to cook it, without electricity. What are you going to do for a reliable source of water? Hmmmm…something to really think about.

I INSTALLED SEVERAL VARIANTS

The folks at www.empshield.com sent me several of their EMP Shield devices. Needless to say, I have no way of testing them myself, other than to go by the word of well-known testing labs, who tested these devices and state that they do indeed work. EMP Shield is an advertiser on SurvivalBIog.com — however, I have no vested interest in SurvivalBlog.com or in EMP Shield.com so my thoughts herein on this product are my own. The main conclusion on these products was on the ease of installation by someone like myself.

I believe it was Clint Eastwood, in one of his Dirty Harry movies, who once said; “A man has got to know his limitations.” I know mine — I just don’t fool around with much of anything electrical. The first EMP Shield product I wanted to install was the one for protecting vehicles from an EMP attack. I read the instructions, and I wasn’t sure I was reading them correctly, and it couldn’t be “that” easy to install in my pick-up truck. So, I called a friend, who is a retired US Air Force jet engine mechanic to come and do the install for me…well, I’m still living it down. This device from EMP Shield attaches with just three wires: the red one attaches to the positive side of your vehicle’s battery, the black on to the negative side of the battery, and the green wire is the ground. Well, duh? Even I could have done that…it was “that” easy.

Next up was the EMP Shield-protected power strip device for protecting things like a portable generator or a travel trailer. Again, I was confused, it couldn’t be that easy — but it was. I sent an e-mail to the nice folks at EMP Shield to confirm the installation ease. Yep, you just plug it in.

The aforementioned EMP Shield device (shown at the top of this article) simply plugs into a generators electrical outlet, and it has six outlets that you can plug other electrical devices into. Wait one minute, did I read that right —just plug it in — and you plug it in, and leave it plugged in before an EMP attack. Okay, so I plugged it into my larger portable generator, and all I need to do now is, start the generator up. It will have been protected against any EMP attack, and then use one of the other outlets to plug-in any electrical device I want to us. Wow! Okay! That was super-easy. To use this same device on say, a travel trailer, you simply plug it into an outlet inside the trailer and when there is an EMP attack, your trailer is safe — just plug-in any electrical devices you want to use. Of course, this calls for an second EMP Shield device. I prefer to leave this one plugged into my portable generator, however if funds permit at some point, I’d purchase another one and keep it in my trailer.

Two other EMP Shield protectors were sent for testing — at least, as far as installation. I know my limitations, and one of these will be installed in my circuit breaker box in the house, and everything plugged in when there is an EMP attack will be saved. So, this calls for an electrician to install it — still, it doesn’t seem all that complicated. I have a friend who is very handy when it comes to just about everything, and he said he could “probably” install it for me. Still, I’ll pay a qualified electrician to do it so I won’t have anything to worry about.

Now, I got to thinking about my pickup truck, and it starts with a key fob, that has a computer chip inside of it — no regular key is used. Would I be able to start my pickup truck if it was struck by an EMP attack, using my key fob? So, I contacted EMP Shield and discussed this with their technician. He had to have the make, model and year of my truck, to research this question. Sure enough, my key fob, would most likely be useless, because the computer chip inside of it, would be “killed” by an EMP attack. So they suggested that I keep my key fob inside of a Faraday bag, to protect it from an EMP. It is a little bit inconvenient, to remember to stick my key fob into the bag, and then in my pants pocket, but it needs to be done in order to protect the key fob. So, before you lay out your hard-earned cash, check with EMP Shield, if you have a vehicle that starts with a key fob, to see if you need to protect it in a Faraday bag. These little bags are sold all over Amazon.com — I got two of them for $12 with shipping, so its not a big deal to get several. My wife uses one for her key fob, for my truck, since her SUV starts with a regular key.

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