by Bobby Akart
The FBI did not label this a terrorist attack, although some analysts believe this could have been a trial run for a bigger intrusion. But minor attacks like that are nothing compared to what an EMP weapon could potentially do to our electrical grid.
Also, radio frequency weapons are so simple that terror groups could easily build them and use them. Any individual with a penchant for electronics can pull together components from a Radio Shack or electronic store – even order the components off of selected websites – and construct a radio frequency weapon.
As microprocessors become smaller but more sophisticated, they are even more susceptible to an RF pulse. The microwave from an RF weapon produces a short, very high power pulse, said to be billions of watts in a nanosecond, or one billionth of a second. This so-called burst of electromagnetic waves in the gigahertz microwave frequency band can melt electrical circuitry and damage integrated circuits, causing them to fail.
Constructing a radio frequency weapon is not difficult at all. In fact, you can find instructions on how to build them online.
In the future, hand-held electromagnetic weapons are going to become even more powerful and even easier to use. Meanwhile, we are going to continue to become even more dependent on electricity and technology.
Chapter Seventeen
Effects on People
So what would life look like for you and your family if this happened?
Consider the following:
· There would be no heat or air-conditioning for your home.
· Water would no longer be pumped into most homes.
· Your computer would not work; neither would the internet because both Cable and Telephones would be inoperative.
· There would be no television or radio.
· ATMs would shut down, and there would be no banking or credit card transactions.
· Without electricity, gas stations would not be functioning.
· Most people would be unable to do their jobs without power and employment would collapse, bringing the economy to a standstill.
· Hospitals would not be able to function, and a nation heavily dependent upon prescription medication would have to do without.
· All refrigeration would shut down, and frozen foods in our homes and supermarkets would spoil.
· Most vehicles would become inoperable, and traffic lights would no longer be working.
· Airplanes would be grounded.
· Wall Street would shut down.
· Most Government services would collapse.
After an EMP attack, the consequences of a grid down scenario would be felt immediately. However, other than the loss of conveniences and use of technology to which many have grown accustomed, you would not feel any physical effects of the EMP. In fact, other than the resulting power outages, you wouldn’t know that it had occurred.
The best current estimate is that the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) produced by a high altitude nuclear detonation is not likely to have direct adverse effects on people. An important exception is people whose well-being depends on electronic life-support equipment. They would be directly impacted by the electromagnetic pulse that disrupts or damages such devices. Research sponsored by the EMP Commission suggests that some heart pacemakers might be among the devices susceptible to damage from a high-altitude EMP.
While most of the effects on people would be indirect, the impact could be significant in a just-in-time economy, in which local stocks of medicines, food, and other health-critical items are limited. The physical consequences of a high-altitude EMP attack would likely include the failure of the electric power grid and the degradation of telecommunication systems, computers, and electronic components over large areas of the country. A disruption of this scale could cripple critical infrastructures and hinder the delivery of day-to-day necessities, because of the interconnectivity of telecommunication networks and the electrical dependence of most cities, government agencies, businesses, households, and individuals. It also could require a long recovery period. To assess human consequences, the contingency of concern is one in which electricity, telecommunications, and electronics are out of service over a significant area for an extended period.
The human consequences of such a scenario include the social and psychological reactions to a sudden loss of stability in the modern infrastructure over a large area of the country. Lack of information would be a contributing factor to the resulting societal collapse in a grid down scenario. Americans would be in shock initially, and might even deny that the power grid could be down for a significant time. After a period of anger, the population would become scared, and then desperate. Opportunists would rise to take advantage of the situation—a society without the rule of law.
Our politicians are unwilling to admit this, but the biggest threat to America is not the EMP attack itself, but the resulting societal collapse. Unfortunately, what one should fear the most is their fellow man.
Impact of an EMP Attack
While no single event serves as a model for an EMP scenario with the incidence of a long-lasting widespread power outage, communications failure, and other effects, the combined analysis by the EMP Commission of the following case studies, provides useful insight in determining human reactions following an EMP attack. From the EMP Commission:
Blackouts:
· Northeast (1965)
· New York (1977)
· Hydro Quebec (1989)
· Western states (1996)
· Auckland, New Zealand (1998)
· Northeast (2003)
Natural Disasters: NOTE: Add Katrina and Sandy, remove Midwest floods!!!!!
· Hurricane Hugo (1989)
· Hurricane Andrew (1992)
· Midwest floods (1993)
Terrorist Incidents:
· World Trade Center attack (2001)
· Anthrax attacks (2001)
Blackouts
In 1965, a blackout occurred over the northeastern United States and parts of Canada. New Hampshire; Vermont; Massachusetts; Connecticut; Rhode Island; New York, including metropolitan New York City; and a small part of Pennsylvania were in the dark after operators at Consolidated Edison were forced to shut down its generators to avoid damage. Street traffic was chaotic, and some people were trapped in elevators, but there were few instances of antisocial behavior while the lights were out. It was a “long night in the dark,” but the recovery proceeded without incident, and citizens experienced relative civility.
TIME Magazine described New York’s next blackout, in 1977, as a “Night of Terror.” Widespread chaos reigned in the city until power was restored — entire blocks were looted and set ablaze, people flipped over cars and vans on the streets; the city was in pandemonium. That night 3,776 arrests were made, and certainly not all looters, thieves, and arsonists were apprehended or arrested. While this is a dramatic example of antisocial behavior following a blackout, sociologists point to extraordinary demographic and historical issues that contributed to the looting. For instance, extreme poverty and socioeconomic inequality plagued New York neighborhoods, and many of the looters originated from the poorer sections of the city, engaging in “vigilante redistribution” by looting consumer goods and luxuries. Racial tensions were high, and a serial killer known as Son of Sam had recently terrorized New Yorkers.
In 1989, more than six million customers lost power when a geomagnetic storm caused a massive power failure in Quebec. The electricity failures resulting from this geomagnetic storm reached a much larger area than is typically affected by traditional blackouts resulting from technological failure. However, the outage lasted just over nine hours, most of which were during the day. Local and national papers were curiously silent about the blackout, and little to no unusual or adverse human behavior was attributed to the power loss. The event was most significantly a lesson for operators of the North American electric grids because it revealed vulnerabilities in the system.
In 1998, Auckland, New Zealand, experienced a
significant blackout that lasted more than five weeks and affected more than one million people. Civility reigned for the duration of the outage, which was likely attributed to a number of factors, including:
· There was no significant threat to public health because water and sewage infrastructures were functioning.
· In anticipation of potential incidents, police increased their presence in urban areas.
· The recovery process was underway nearly immediately, communicating to the public that the situation would eventually be under control.
· Nearly all blackout recovery resources of New Zealand were rushed to the capital for recovery efforts.
Recovery efforts from elsewhere in New Zealand were significant, symbolically as well as practically, as demonstrated by the fact that electricity was available elsewhere. Businesses attempted to carry on as normally as possible. Social consequences included criticism and blame of the authorities, both municipal and national because the technological failures were attributed in large part to the privatization of the power sector. However, this response never materialized into violence, crime, or social disorder.
Most recently, New York City and the eight states in the Northeast experienced another significant blackout in August 2003. While the blackout inconvenienced many on a hot summer day, general civility remained intact. News coverage indicated that those affected by the blackout dealt with the obstacles quietly and even developed a sort of camaraderie, while struggling through nights without running water and electricity. In contrast to the 1977 power outage, police made only 850 arrests the night of the 2003 blackout, of which “only 250 to 300 were directly attributable to the blackout,” indicating a slight decline from the average number of arrests on a given summer day. While this blackout was widespread, it was not long lasting, and it did not interrupt the communications infrastructure significantly.
Blackouts provide only a partial picture of life following an EMP attack. Most blackouts are localized and are resolved quickly. Further, usually communication systems are not completely shut down, and major infrastructures can remain intact if significant portions of infrastructure hardware are located outside of the affected area. To best approximate the effects of longer-lasting, widespread infrastructure disruption—with or without electrical power failure—it is necessary to look to natural disasters for examples of human reaction.
Natural Disasters
At the time that Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989, it was the most intense hurricane to strike the coastline of Georgia and the Carolinas in over one-hundred years. Hurricane Hugo’s survivors indicate that some individuals, who suffered personal and financial losses from the hurricane, showed clinically significant symptoms of psychological trauma. According to some researchers, many of the adverse mental health effects of Hugo could be explained by deterioration in perceived social support. Overall, the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms was low, but stress effects lingered long after the hurricane’s physical damage was repaired.
Hurricane Andrew cut a wide path across Florida and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in 1992, causing $26.5 billion in damage. Andrew left 250,000 families homeless and 1.4 million families without electricity immediately following the hurricane.
After such extraordinary destruction and disruption, it is perhaps not surprising that one-third of a sample of individuals met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder four months after the hurricane.
Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew demonstrated to psychologists that disaster-related declines in perceived support explained the difference in symptoms between the two disasters; deterioration was more significant in Andrew and the recovery was weaker. In the long-lasting recovery period, Floridians saw looting, opportunism, and vigilante civil defense. Press coverage of Hurricane Andrew suggests that after a multi-state disaster, people will expect help, and they will expect it from the federal government, as well as from state and local authorities.
Flooding in the Midwest in 1993 resulted in twenty-five deaths, affected more than 8 million acres, cost billions of dollars in property damage and more than 2 billion dollars in crop damage. Water depths ranged from eleven feet of flooding in Minneapolis to forty-three feet of flooding in St. Louis. Electricity was restored, where possible, within three days and in downtown Des Moines within 23 hours. The floods devastated families, businesses, and individuals, who lost nearly everything and were unable to control events throughout the recovery process. Thousands of people assisted in volunteer recovery efforts by sandbagging and providing needed supplies. Most came from unaffected areas to help the most urgent victims. The flooding provides an example of widespread damage crippling several infrastructures for a significant period, and an example of a disaster in which regional experience may matter tremendously in disaster recovery.
Blackouts and natural disasters have limits as approximations of recovery following an EMP attack. An important element is the relevance of fear and individual panic in these situations versus what might occur following an EMP attack. For this component, it is useful to examine recent terrorist incidents in the United States to gauge the effects of fear for the public. Because terrorist attacks appear to be indiscriminate and random, they can arouse acute anxiety and feelings of helplessness, which shatter beliefs of invulnerability and even a belief in justice and order in the world.
Terrorist Incidents
The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, certainly qualify as seemingly indiscriminate and random. Following this disaster, in which nearly 3,000 people died, those in the immediate and surrounding area showed considerable psychological trauma and damage. Some individuals who experienced these attacks may have lost confidence in their abilities to cope and control outcomes. Overall, however, the survivors of the attacks proved remarkably resilient, flexible, and competent in the face of an arbitrary, violent, and completely unexpected attack.
In October 2001, a month following the attack on the World Trade Center, Americans saw a series of anthrax-infected mail pieces, threatening intended mail recipients and handlers. The death toll was small (five individuals), but public concern was considerable.
This period is an example of an open response to an adversary-initiated threat that disrupted infrastructure. The public demonstrated a great need for control over the situation, through preparedness and information. For example, many Americans took protective measures, despite the astronomical odds against infection. The news media was saturated with reports of anthrax infections, suspected infections, and general information about anthrax and how to respond to infection. Though no culprit was apprehended, the attacks stopped, and normal postal activity resumed.
Some Lessons Learned
Though the United States has not experienced a severe, widespread disruption to infrastructure comparable to an EMP attack, the cases reviewed provide some practical direction for predictions of behavior. For example, it can be expected that emotional reactions such as shock and paralysis that have followed past disasters could be magnified in a large-scale event such as an EMP attack. In particular, the paralysis of government assistance entities, such as law enforcement and emergency services, would aggravate this effect.
In most instances, social disorder would be minimal, in significant part, due to the knowledge that authorities are in control of the situation. Without that assurance from an outside source, it appears likely that people would turn to immediate neighbors or community members for information and support, if possible.
Following disruptive disasters, information is among the most pressing need for individuals. Not surprisingly, people’s first concerns are the whereabouts and safety of their family members and friends. Another urgent priority is an understanding of the situation — knowledge of what has happened, who and what is affected, and the cause of the situation. A related yet distinct information need is for confirmation that the situation will be resolved, either by common sense and experience, in the case of a small-scal
e disaster, or from the involvement of local or federal authorities, in the event of a large-scale disaster. Psychologists note that dramatic events force people to reexamine their fundamental understanding of the world and that survivors need to process an event before they can fully absorb it. This information processing begins the alternating phases of intrusion and avoidance that are primary indicators of post-traumatic stress.
The aftermath of natural disasters is often marked by a period of considerable pro-social behavior such as cooperation, social solidarity, and acts of selflessness. However, this encouraging observation might not be similarly magnified in projections for human behavior following an EMP attack. The key, intangible, immeasurable difference is the knowledge that normal order would resume, based on significant indicators. It is important to note some of the differences between natural disasters and technological disasters, particularly those caused by human intent. Natural disasters "create a social context marked by an initial overwhelming consensus regarding priorities and the allocation of resources,” which explains the enormous outpouring of voluntary support following the floods of 1993. In contrast to natural disasters, which “occur as purposeless, asocial events; civil disturbances can be viewed as instrumentally initiated to achieve certain social goals.” An EMP attack would certainly be perceived similarly, whether the adversary was a terrorist organization or a state.
