It is obvious to me that the plans make the prepper – after having broadcasted in the prepping industry for 7 years and written in it for almost 5 years. You have to have mechanisms built into your life when you actually break it down to fall back on in an emergency.
Although items such as bushcraft skills and urban survival skills should be part of any bag of tricks of any preppers, you still need to manage all that ability. Running around a fallen world only DOING things because you can is risky.
You need guidance for survival. You need a straightforward start and finish. You need to be able to assess each move you make and with a target to make the next one.
That said…
Under the right circumstances, even a bulletproof EMP plan will falter. I want to talk to you about 8 things in this article that will ruin your EMP strategy.
1. Inability to Gather Family
This is possibly one of the most realistic and prevalent problems after an EMP that any prepper will face. Our wide-reaching world and economy always means that we are far from family, even if you might have the plans and equipment in place.
Your EMP plan should have a serious meeting place built into it, as well as waiting times for your family. Imagine if Dad flew to Missouri and you live in Delaware, but chaos has exploded in the city you’re living in. You could be waiting for Dad, but it might put your entire family at risk. Maybe you need to bug out.
When things have that variable, it won’t be pretty at all. Maybe it will all come down to luck!
2. Immediate Martial Law
It’s a tough mission to get a real reading on the US government and their appreciation of the EMP threat. Although it would appear that very little effort has been made to prepare the nation for such a strike, we do know that most military equipment has been designed to withstand the consequences of an EMP.
What we were able to see was a rapid government response. We could see parts of major towns collapsing under martial law in the blink of an eye.
Before martial law arrives, the perfect EMP strategy takes you well on your way to BOL. The explanation is that this is a system that is going to be riddled with corruption. And if it’s the American military, you’re going to be under the thumb of the ruling military.
It will be very difficult to escape once you are under the policy, and you will have to live under their rules. It would dramatically change your plans if this were to happen quickly after an EMP.
Related: How The State Will Strip You Of Your Rights When SHTF
3. Misinformation – Government too optimistic
You might be able to pick up some sort of emergency communication if you are ready for an EMP. This would only be possible, of course, if you have planned or bought an efficient Faraday cage and stored stuff inside it, such as an emergency radio.
Such emergency communications can be misleading, and for that you have to be prepared. They might be a looping message, or they might be hope for something that will not come. Although it is vital for the intelligence you obtain to be important, it is essential that you also rely on your plans.
It could be counterproductive if you make the costly mistake of abandoning your own plans in the expectation that a government message tells the truth or brings aid.
4. No Focus on Self Sufficiency
You must have a serious emphasis on self-sufficiency, whether your EMP strategy is to stay near and live in your house or to bug out. Currently, you should already have some of those moving bits. Bushcraft, tree identification, hunting, fishing and navigation must be established. You’ll fail to survive any EMP scenario without these skills.
Remember, only certain items will be made that can be made by hand! The stores are going to be gone and people are going to die at an alarming rate. A lifestyle that will fit into this modern environment will have to be resettled or reestablished.
You will fail to survive if your EMP strategy does not provide a healthy dose of self-sufficiency or if you are unable to implement it. Practice makes perfect!
Related: Bushcraft Skills For Surviving in The Wild
5. Poor Faraday Cage Construction
In relation to EMP protection, I have seen all kinds of creations as a writer in the prepper genre. I have seen insulated aluminum foil creations that seem almost instantly to fail in military grade goods by companies such as Transtector.
You better have a strong Faraday cage if your EMP strategy is going to rely on things such as communications and electronic information.
Related: 5-Minutes DIY Tested Faraday Cage Out Of A Trash Can
6. Immediate Military Takeover
Now, I’m not a general, but I have to imagine I would attack with an EMP if I were going to take over a country, especially one as large as America. This assault would arrive in the dead of night, and a surge of powers from the earth, water, and air would follow immediately. I imagine paratroopers reigning in major cities and areas under complete siege, including Manhattan.
I doubt that you would have the ability to respond in a situation like this. Would you be able to reach it in a timely way even though you had a Faraday cage if you were under attack from enemy forces? This could throw a wrench in the works and cause you to panic more than your bugout strategy can take advantage of.
Dealing with a hostile military would mean that all other concerns would be trumped by your immediate survival. You’d probably have to abandon the home base that has been keeping you safe. Depending on the place of military action, the bugout plans may have to change.
7. Failure of OPSEC
If you haven’t been a good operational security steward, you may find that there are gaps in your EMP strategy because of the people around you. If so many people know that you’re a prepper, when they learn that an EMP has affected all the nation’s power and technology, they might end up at your door. Since we deal with such significant implications, these individuals may even be aggressive.
Although I think being a prepper is not something that we need to hide as our deepest secret, I agree there are parts of our plans and information that people don’t need to know about. Prepper is becoming less of a bad term, I guess, and it’s a positive thing. Even, we need to note that we do this in order to have the best survival choices.
Related: How to Tell in 5 Minutes If It’s a Power Outage or an EMP
8. Living Near a Nuclear Power Plant
There is a tricky thing about creating a machine that needs power from highly radioactive materials to generate the same reaction as the sun. These materials are often heated by the reactions and they require a cooling process. This process requires power. At all of America’s 99 operational power plants, the EMP will cause major nuclear catastrophes. Think Fukashima, but all over the place!
No matter what your plans are, you will have to get out quickly if you live near one of these nuclear power plants! As the plant is destroyed and the reactors begin to heat up, the tragedy will raise overtime. We do not always think of the situation of overloaded nuclear power plants in an EMP, but it can have catastrophic consequences.
Never forget, 90% of Americans are predicted to die in one year after an EMP! How can you become that 10%?
