In the midst of a global pandemic, protests that have caused damage worth over $2 billion, and a year that looks like a month club tragedy, maybe it’s not shocking that many have forgotten about the possible disasters we’ve been worrying about over the past decade. Even so, it is hard to believe that, for months, I haven’t heard anyone talk about EMP.
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The Risk Has Grown
The EMP threat has not gone anywhere. I would say, in truth, it’s higher than ever. When our enemies around the world look at the increasing interest in EMP preparedness that has increased (before the pandemic) in recent years, it seems to me that they have to see that their time is running short. If they ever plan to use an EMP against us, before we are ready for it, it will have to be soon.
As it stands right now, very little has been done by the government to protect the electrical grid against the very real danger of an EMP attack. Instead of protecting the grid or We the People, the measures they have taken are mostly to secure the government itself. Even so, for those enemies who may want to cripple our country in this way, each action the government takes makes the risk of retaliation greater. For those who have already proclaimed their determination to ruin our country, striking sooner, rather than later, is merely a matter of self-preservation.
These enemies still exist. Both North Korea and Iran have explicitly stated their intent to destroy the United States and have both spoken openly about using the EMP to do so. We know for a fact that North Korea has the missiles and nuclear weapons to carry out such an attack, and it’s difficult for Iran to develop the technology on its heels. North Korea has also given them some technical guidance, helping them to further their program, if reports I’ve heard are real.
Related: 9 Places Where You Can Find Energy After An EMP
Then there are the big boys, Russia and China, both countries with colonial aspirations that have been largely thwarted by the United States and our commitment to upholding the dignity of the countries’ current borders. Our relationships with both countries have deteriorated steadily, reducing any perceived justification for not targeting us in this way.
Should any of those nations decide that getting the United States out of the way is in their national interest, they will most likely work through some surrogates, such as the rogue nations mentioned above or even a terrorist group. On the world stage, with the idea of preventing any retribution from our allies, they would do so to give themselves plausible deniability.
It would be easy to achieve strategic surprise with so much government attention on the things that are going on in our nation today; COVID-19, protests and the elections. In pulling off such an attack, this is necessary and even more important to help prevent retaliation by the United States against those who fomented the attack. They do not want to die in the course of trying to kill us and our way of life, as much as our enemies might hate us.
There have been more and more cyber assaults on our power grid at the same time. Although these have caused minimal harm, each of them is telling our enemies about our vulnerabilities and weaknesses more and more. This knowledge could enable them to be able to combine cyberattacks with an EMP, especially if they are unable to destroy the entire grid of the country with one explosion.
The Damage Could be Even Greater
An EMP assault may have far graver implications from the point of view of the average American than it would have had in 2019. Our nation is now, as is the rest of the world, reeling from the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of individuals are currently being laid off from their employers, and millions of small companies have either declared bankruptcy or are about to do so. Also big supermarket chains, with thousands closing stores and declaring bankruptcy, have suffered.
What that means is that a major portion of our population is financially struggling. No matter how meager they may be, they don’t have the reserves they would usually have. There is nothing that these individuals can do to take care of themselves if an EMP hits, since they do not have the money.
Of course, because of a greater dependency on the government to help us out in any emergency, our culture is trending more and more that way anyway. While that support is good for those who obtain it, in Yellowstone Park it’s a bit like feeding the bears. The bears inevitably forget how to forage for food, just as many people forget how to make a living for themselves and meet their own needs.
But the government is less prepared than they have been in years to help We the People. All the disasters of the last decade have left FEMA, the disaster relief arm of the government, bankrupt. In the aftermath of this EMP, they are far from ready to provide the support that people would need.
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There is also an element to this year that affects the culture of preppers. Although we are proud to be prepared for any emergency, 2020 could have drawn on our reserves, especially those of us who were laid off because of the pandemic. If we had the funds to restock, now that the grocery stores are packed again, many of us have holes in our stockpiles. In our ability to survive in the aftermath of an EMP, those holes may play an important role.
In order for us to get our perspective back and plan for the next tragedy, we need things to calm down a bit. But it doesn’t feel like 2020 wants to let us do this. And we’re just going to have to have our bootstraps pulled up and get prepared. We really don’t know, after all, what disasters we have in store for the rest of the year, and there’s no guarantee that 2021 will be better.
Make Use of that Time
In the last few months, COVID-19 has put a lot of individuals out of jobs, while many more of us are working from home. Because of companies being closed and the need for social distancing, we’re not going out as much either. Most of us have time to get those prepping tasks that we wanted to do out of the way, with all that.
Granted, you’re probably just out of money if you’re out of work. But chances are, you’ve been putting off projects that you already have the materials to do or that don’t need any cost at all.
After all, it doesn’t really take much money to inventory your stockpile, all it takes is a lot of time.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got stuff sitting around for projects you’ve never been able to find time to do, as well as projects you’ve begun that are not done. We are busy people as preppers, not only doing what all our mates do, but also taking time out of our timetables for our separate prepping events.
Related: Why Are Food Prices Increasing One Month into the Corona Virus Pandemic?
This is also a good time to learn new abilities, taking advantage of some spare time to practice those abilities. Many skills require a significant amount of practice, especially skills where you make stuff by hand. There should be plenty of time to practice the new ability with the spare time available from not going to all the events we’re used to going to. That way, I have been using my time.
Multiple Disasters are Becoming Commonplace
If there is one thing that the year 2020 has taught us, it is that at the same time, numerous disasters can occur. Not only did we have a global pandemic to contend with, but there were protests in the cities, food shortages in the supermarkets and an abundance of hurricanes. Who would be shocked if, by the end of the year, we had an EMP?
What all this suggests is that we need to up our game, no matter what our degree of preparedness was before. COVID-19 won’t go away anytime soon, but if an EMP arrives, we’re going to deal with several disasters at once. That implies that the difficulties will be greater and supplies will go faster.
I don’t know about you, but I noticed that during the pandemic, my intended use of supplies fell way short of what I actually ended up using. There were several things that I ended up looking for, because they were running out. I ended up making my own in some circumstances to cover what I couldn’t afford and I had to do without or improvise in others.
I discovered, in any case, that I needed a greater stockpile than I had expected. The big question then is, where else is my stockpile going to fall short?
We need to bear in mind that an EMP at one time, all by itself, is like multiple disasters. Not only do we have to deal with the electricity going out, causing our whole system to collapse, but when markets run out and resupply becomes difficult, there will be shortages of everything from food on up.
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Prepping for an EMP is a Good Framework
For many years now, I have used an EMP as my primary disaster for preparing preparedness. It’s probably the largest of all the disasters we can face; and while it doesn’t include all the components of a pandemic, it does have all the components of just about every other catastrophe you can think of.
What that means is that by preparing for an EMP, we’re successfully preparing for virtually every other catastrophe that’s going to come. Does it ensure the perfection of our preps? That’s not at all, we can still miss stuff. But as time goes by and our level of preparedness continues to be reassessed, we will find more and more gaps in our plans, allowing us time to change.
If we don’t take the time we have right now to review our preparedness level, especially looking at an EMP, then we’re missing the opportunity to make our families safer. If it’s an EMP or some other tragedy, that’ll make a difference someday.
