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A Simple Guide to EMP

Friday, March 7, 2014 7:40

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(Before It's News)

An EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) is a devastating event that could cripple the entirety of the United States in a matter of minutes. But with movies and fiction muddying the waters with ridiculous presentations of how an EMP actually works, there are plenty of misconceptions about how one actually works. This guide is meant to be a very basic primer, put in simple terms, to help the layman understand how an EMP works and what you can do to be ready if one should strike.

First up, what is an EMP?

An electro magnetic pulse can be caused by multiple causes, ranging from a simple lightning strike to a purpose-built weapon designed to be launched high into the atmosphere. Although there are other causes of note (solar flares, for example) the threat posed by a single high altitude weapon will be the focus here for simplicity’s sake.

When one of these HEMP (High Altitude Electro Magnetic Pulse) Devices is detonated, it spreads gamma rays out against the magnetic field of the earth, which then transforms the burst of gamma rays into an EMP. This EMP then descends back to earth in an area within the line of site from the explosion. Essentially, if you could see the landmass from the high point in the sky where the missile detonated then it will be hit by the EMP.

As the pulse descends upon the earth, most of it will pass harmlessly through the ground, causing little damage. The part that hits antennas, power lines, and other conductive points, however, will transmit a massive pulse of energy. In the case of power lines, the pulse will then travel along the wires, blowing transformers, switching stations, and eventually entering your home via the connecting wires. Naturally, all of your electronics that are plugged in or that have an antenna of some kind will all be instantly destroyed as their chips and other vital components are utterly destroyed by the sheer amount of energy thrown at them. Computers, cell phones, landlines, cars, TVs, radios, pacemakers, stoplights, hospital life support equipment, drawbridges, and the remainder of our entire vast electrical grid will die in a single moment of electrical power. Airplanes would crash, bereft of the computers needed to keep them alot, and every highway would become a stalled mass of silent vehicles. The world of 2013 will descend back to the world of 1813.

To emphasize, what an EMP is not

With that scenario in mind, compare the EMP you read described there and compare it to what books and Hollywood might suggest. Let us look at a few things an EMP is not to ensure that there is no confusion.

An EMP is not a temporary thing that shuts down electricity for a short period of time before they fire back up again. Movies like Ocean’s 11 pulled this stunt, insisting that they would have only a short window of time to rob a bank before the lights came back on. In reality, an EMP permanently destroys electrical components, and those components must be replaced with functional new ones.
An EMP is not caused by fallout. Although nuclear weapons do cause EMP (and are often part of the design for a HEMP) fallout is not usually a concern with high altitude strikes. You cannot see what is destroying every single electrical component in your home, because it is invisible energy doing the damage. Indeed, some of that energy probably passed through you without your even noticing!
An EMP is not stopped by breakers, surge protectors, battery backups or generators. Most of the technology that works to protect your electronics from a lightning strike or other surge is simply not suited to the damage caused by an EMP. You see, most of the low-level damage that a surge protector is made for takes several milliseconds to build up to a damaging point and the surge protector can cut it off once it detects the increase in energy on the line. An EMP is like a 40,000 candlepower light suddenly entering a dark room: one minute nothing, the next minute total washout. The surge protector won’t have time to cut off the electricity before the energy wipes out all of the electronics. Furthermore, automatic generators (like those in hospitals and nursing homes) are usually hardwired in so that they can take over without interrupting power for more than a second or two during a normal outage. Unfortunately, that means they’re connected to the grid and will be fried when an EMP hits even though they’re not yet active. This will leave these places without power instantly after the strike occurs.

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