Reports: U.S. Very Vulnerable To A Mass-Blackout EMP Attack
ANDREW FOLLETT
DailyCaller.com
05/18/2016
America’s power grid is still extremely vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, according to a Tuesday Congressional hearing.
An EMP could result from a high-altitude nuclear explosion or triggered naturally from unusual solar activity, causing a short burst of electromagnetic energy. This burst would interact with every electrical device, effectively fry the power grid, and cause blackouts across the entire country.
The hearing concluding that “if an adversary were to attack the United States with an EMP, the results would be catastrophic.” A report from Consumers’ Research published Tuesday came to a similar answer, stating that “the U.S. has been slow to prepare for such an attack in part because it would could cost billions of dollars, but also because neither the utilities nor the federal government will take full ownership of the problem.”
A Congressional commission created to study and address the threat of EMPs published two reports in 2004 and 2008 laying out measures that could harden the power grid. Eight years later, few of its recommendations have been implemented. The Pentagon considered EMPs for use during the Cold War as a “first strike” weapon that would take out critical military command and control infrastructure. Although the U.S. military has spent decades hardening its to infrastructure EMPs, civilian power infrastructure is still mostly vulnerable.
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