Authors: Doug Kelly
You can
imagine what these natural or nuclear phenomena could do to our daily way of
life. Imagine a world without technology. Food and medicine would spoil quickly
without refrigerators, running water would stop as electric pumps failed,
supply routes for food, gas, and other essential items would shut down, and our
way of life would fundamentally change. This could truly be devastating to our
technologically advanced society.
CONCLUSION
The
increasingly pervasive use of and dependence on sensitive electronic equipment
and an aging power grid represents the greatest source of vulnerability by a
threat-sized EMP, solar or otherwise. This is because electronics are used to
control, communicate, compute, store, manage, and implement nearly every aspect
of our civilized society. When an enormous CME creates an EMP in Earth’s
atmosphere it will have the capability to produce widespread and long lasting
disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that support the fabric
of our technological society. Because of the ubiquitous dependence of our
society on the electrical power system and its vulnerability to an EMP coupled
with the EMP’s particular damage mechanisms, it creates the possibility of
long-term catastrophic consequences.
An
EMP may seriously degrade or shut down a large part of the electric power grid
in a geographic area of EMP exposure almost instantaneously. There is also a
possibility of functional collapse of grids beyond the exposed area as
electrical effects propagate from one region to another. The time required for
full recovery of service would depend on both the disruption and damage to the
electrical power infrastructure and to other national infrastructures. Larger
affected areas and stronger EMP field strengths will prolong the recovery time,
if recovery is possible.
Some
critical electrical power infrastructure components are not manufactured in the
United States, and their acquisition ordinarily requires up to a year of
lead-time in routine circumstances. Damage to, or loss of, these components
could leave significant parts of the electrical infrastructure out of service
for periods measured in months to years. There is a point in time at which the
shortage or exhaustion of essential backup systems, including emergency power
supplies, batteries, standby fuel supplies, communications, and manpower
resources, leads to a continuing degradation of critical infrastructures for a
prolonged period of time. Electrical power is necessary to support other critical
infrastructures, including supply and distribution of water, food, fuel,
communications, transport, financial transactions, emergency services, and
government services.
Should
significant parts of the electrical power infrastructure be lost for any
substantial period of time, the consequences are likely to be catastrophic, and
many people may ultimately die for lack of the basic elements necessary to
sustain life in dense urban and suburban communities. The recovery plans for
the individual infrastructures currently in place assume, at worst, limited
setbacks to the other infrastructures that are important to their operation.
Such plans may be of little or no value in the wake of a massive CME
propagating an unprecedented EMP because of its long duration effects on all
infrastructures that rely on electricity or electronics.
I
can only conclude the effect of another Carrington Event sized CME on the Earth
would be apocalyptic. Our critical infrastructures that support our
overpopulated urban centers would fail. The majority of the urban population
would die of dehydration, disease, starvation, and violence from the resulting
social chaos. Some people in rural settings that have access to clean water and
a means of food production would have a better chance of survival. On a
continental or global scale, the net result would be the death of billions of
people.
As
soon as people begin to starve, they will regress into feral creatures and
commence the macabre process of killing each other for water, food, and other
resources we now take for granted. Ask yourself how you will get clean water to
drink when it does not come from your faucet anymore; food when the store
shelves are empty and the delivery trucks no longer operate; medicine when it
cannot be created in its manufacturing facility, and heat for your home during
the winter without electricity. Then ask yourself how you will survive.
It
was early on a Monday morning and Dylan Smith had just finished a five-mile run
under the big sky of Helena, Montana. It was still dark, just before sunrise,
when he began his jog, and that gave him a chance to admire the beautiful stars
in the clear dawn sky. The sun had just begun to break the horizon, fading the
stars slowly away, as he finished his morning run. He truly enjoyed running
early in Montana, especially the way the air smelled. It was clean, fresh, country
air.
Cooling
down from his run, he stepped off the sidewalk and onto the far end of his
hotel’s parking lot, slowly walking to the main entrance as he caught his
breath. The hotel was his temporary home for two weeks while he was in town on
business. He stopped, turned his back to the hotel, and with his hands on his
hips, stood quietly and let the cool breeze remove the heat under his
sweat-soaked clothes. It was nearly summer, but the air was crisp on his skin.
The
rising sun was just breaking the eastern horizon, its halo slowly cresting the
silhouette of the Rocky Mountains. Tilting his head toward the sky, he closed
his eyes and absorbed the peacefulness of the silent morning. Suddenly, with
his eyes still closed, he sensed a flash of colored light rising from the
northern horizon. He opened his eyes to a spectacular assortment of meandering
colored lights, curling free from the silhouette of the Rocky Mountains and
arcing up across the sky, intermingling and dancing with an intense brightness.
Fluorescent hues extended from the northern to the southern horizon in an
instant. The celestial lights were so bright that as he turned to the south, he
noticed that his body cast a faint shadow on the hotel’s parking lot. The tortuous
lights in the sky were approaching a frenzy of brightness and color. He mumbled
under his breath at how amazing this was, and, looking for his cell phone, he patted
the pockets of his sweatpants to find it and record a video of the impromptu
light show. Finding the outline of his phone in his right pocket, he swiftly
retrieved the device and lifted it toward the sky to capture the luminous
ballet unfolding above.
Dylan
repeatedly tried to turn the device on and noticed that the cell phone
maintained a blank screen. He thought that this was strange because he could
remember turning it on earlier to access the clock to time his run. He fumbled
with the power button several more times before acquiescing to the dead phone. He
dropped it back into his pocket and continued to stare above, slowly turning in
a circle to fully capture the image of the colored lights that had painted the
early morning sky.
Suddenly,
he noticed a loud humming sound. He turned to see sparks violently flying from
a transformer suspended on an electric utility pole not more than a block away.
Then, just as suddenly, the transformer exploded into a ball of fire. The
explosion made him flinch and he turned reflexively to cover his face. For a
brief moment, the flash of light from the explosion cast shadows across the
parking lot, then an arc of sparks was all that remained where the transformer
was attached. The electrical transmission lines were on the ground, arching and
writhing like venomous snakes striking at their prey.
He
cautiously lowered his hands and looked around again. Gradually the intensity
of the aurora began to diminish. As the glow in the sky slowly faded away, he
looked to see if anyone else was witnessing this. Across the parking lot was a
road parallel with the hotel. He saw a car, with the driver’s side door and
hood open, stopped on the road. A man wearing dark coveralls and a baseball cap
turned backwards was bent over the front of the car, cursing into the engine
bay. Turning back to the hotel’s main entrance, Dylan noticed that all the
exterior lights were off and the hotel’s automatic sliding glass front doors
were in the open position. Walking toward the hotel’s entrance, he could see
that inside the lobby was dark, too. As he stepped into the lobby, he could just
barely make out the night clerk standing at the front desk. It was the same
clerk that had greeted him on his return from his other early morning runs and
Dylan felt embarrassed that he still did not know the young man’s name.
“Good
morning,” the clerk said, as he passed a cheap plastic flashlight from one hand
to another. “Sorry, lights are out. Hopefully, they’ll come on soon. You better
get your coffee while it’s still hot.”
As
the clerk spoke, he gestured, using the flashlight to point at the
complimentary breakfast area. There were a few people fumbling around next to
the breakfast buffet, trying to do their best with no electric lights. Dylan
stepped into the dining area and retrieved the cell phone from his sweatpants
again. After sitting down, he tried turning it on once more, this time to use
the glowing screen as a flashlight. His frustration grew each time he pressed
the power button. He knew it was fully charged and wondered why the phone,
being less than a month old, would have failed this soon. Dylan glanced up just
as Kevin Brown stepped up next to him at the small table.
“Mine
threw craps, too,” Kevin commented. Kevin, like Dylan, was an information technology
consultant, and they were traveling together for the same job. They had
traveled to Helena with two other coworkers, Henry and Richard.
Dylan
and Kevin did not fit the nerdy computer geek stereotype. Dylan was physically
fit with a rugged physique. He had just turned forty and was older than Kevin,
who had recently graduated from a university in the Midwest. Although Kevin was
a jogger, routinely exercised, and was very physically fit, he chose not to run
with Dylan. He never could maintain Dylan’s fast pace. Henry was older and
nearing retirement. The joke around the office was that Henry’s first job was
programming an abacus. Richard and Henry fit nicely into the nerdy stereotype.
They never exercised, worshipped cable television, and loved to eat junk food.
“Your
phone isn’t working either?” asked Dylan.
Kevin
shook his head, adding, “I tried to turn on my laptop to check my email, and…nothing.”
“No
email?” Dylan asked.
“No
computer. It’s dead,” replied Kevin.
Dylan
looked down at his cell phone again and tried to think of an explanation why
Kevin’s phone and laptop would have died, too. “I bet it was a power surge.
Your phone and computer were plugged into an outlet during the night and I bet
there was a power surge.” Dylan was anxiously tapping his phone on the table. “They
got fried. That explains the blackout. Something must be wrong at a power
station nearby.”
“Nope,
my laptop and phone weren’t plugged in,” Kevin replied, shaking his head in
frustration.
The
orange glow of the morning sun came through the dusty windows of the hotel’s
breakfast area. The glare from the sunrise reflected off the wall clock’s glass
cover, capturing Dylan’s attention. He had just realized the clock’s hands had
not moved since he sat down. Baffled, he stared at the clock on the wall and could
not believe the incredible coincidence.
“Kevin,
I’m going back to my room. You can use my laptop to get your email. Sit tight, I’ll
be back in a flash.”
Dylan
stood up and briskly went into the hallway and toward his door. He slid his
keycard to disengage the electric lock to his room, but got no response. He
tried swiping the card slow, fast, upward, and finally downward through the
slot. It would not work. Frustrated, he mumbled to himself, “Shit...happy Monday.”
Feeling
defeated, Dylan slowly returned to the hotel’s breakfast room that he left just
moments earlier. Kevin, eating a bowl of cold cereal, had moved to a table
closer to the large picture windows that were now letting in the first few rays
of morning sunlight.
Dylan
held up his hotel door’s keycard and said, “Guess what? The electric lock
doesn’t work.”
Kevin
looked at his own keycard and asked, “Then how do you get into your room?”
“I’m
going to find out,” Dylan said, as he turned to go to the front desk.
There
were several people standing by the desk, all with the same complaint. They had
closed their room doors and now, since the keycards did not work, they could
not get back in. The clerk looked flustered, confused, and fatigued. He was
doing the best he could under the circumstances.
“I’m
sorry, everyone,” explained the clerk, “Maintenance should be here by now. My
phones are down and I can’t get hold of anyone.”
Dylan
knew the clerk just had begun working at the hotel recently and only worked the
night shift. The young fellow probably could not help him, but he felt
obligated to interject himself into the conversation. He stepped up to the desk
and held his keycard up for the clerk to see. “Isn’t there a real key to use in
the door in this type of situation?”
“Yeah,
but I don’t have the tools to take the faceplate off the door lock to access
the key hole. The maintenance staff has that and they know how to do it. I’m
really sorry, the hotel manager, maintenance, and housekeeping should have been
here by now. This is totally weird—”
The
clerk stopped speaking as he recognized the tall man with the backward baseball
cap and coveralls coming through the front lobby. It was Lee, the hotel’s
maintenance man, the same man Dylan had seen on the road with the stalled car.
Dylan stepped back from the desk because it was obvious the clerk needed to
speak with Lee.
Lee
stopped at the front desk. Looking frustrated, he asked, “Where’s the manager?”
“I
don’t know. Should’ve been here by now,” the clerk replied, as he shrugged his
shoulders.
Lee
pointed out the hotel’s open front doors and said, “My car is dead. I tried to
call for a tow, but my cell phone is dead, too.” Lee continued to point in the
direction of his stalled car. “It’s on the side of the road for now and I can’t
even turn on the flashers.” Lee threw his hands into the air to punctuate his
frustration.
“Sorry
about that, but it’s bad in here, too.” The night clerk shrugged his shoulders
once more and said, “Here’s the situation. The door locks have failed for all
of the people standing here. We need to get a key to each room.”
Feeling
overwhelmed with the request, Lee took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and
rolled his eyes. As he took off the baseball cap and stuffed it into the front
pocket of his coveralls, he said to the clerk, “I’ll get the toolbox and remove
the faceplates. Get the keys ready.” Just as Lee started walking away, he
stopped, turned around, and asked, “Did anybody see the light show outside?”
Dylan
responded, “Northern lights?”
Swiftly,
Lee turned and walked toward the maintenance room, speaking over his shoulder.
“That’s my guess. It was better than anything I saw when I was stationed in
Alaska.” Lee raised his hand and extended one finger upward. “Give me a minute,
I’ll be right back.”
Dylan
went back to the table where Kevin was sitting, and discovered that Richard was
seated there, too. Dylan sat down and gave them both an update on the door
locks. Richard had a very different personality from Dylan and Kevin. He was
not known as a pleasant person, and the only reason they tolerated him was the
simple fact that they had to work together. Richard was overweight, smoked,
drank too much alcohol, and ate plenty of junk food. He was forty, like Dylan,
but anyone would guess he was at least sixty. He did not look healthy, with his
yellowed teeth and bloodshot eyes. Richard sat at the table nervously fondling
a pack of cigarettes and eating a sugar doughnut.
“There
was a bright light coming in through the window and it woke my ass up,” Richard
mumbled, speaking with his mouth full of sugar doughnut, then sipping the cold
coffee. “I thought it was the sunrise. My alarm didn’t go off, I have no power
in my room, my laptop is down, the phone in the room doesn’t work, and my cell
phone won’t work, either.”
“Join
the club,” Kevin responded, trying not to show his irritation. Richard smelled
like an ashtray and was spitting doughnut crumbs as he spoke.
Leaning
back in his chair to distance himself from Richard, Dylan said, “I haven’t been
back in my room yet, but I can’t wait to find out if my laptop is down, too.”
As
the three men sat talking at their table, huddled around their dead cell phones,
nobody noticed the short stocky man that had been standing close enough to hear
their conversation. His head was shaved and he was wearing military camouflage.
The insignia indicated that he was in the Air Force. The man was standing with
his back to them and looking out the large windows. He turned to look at Dylan,
and spoke.
“I
bet your laptop is fried along with everything else electronic in your room.”
Dylan
delayed his response. He was not sure if the stranger was talking to him. He
quickly looked around and noticed no one else close by that the man could have
been talking to. “Really? Why do you say that?” Dylan asked, looking at the
name and rank displayed on the stranger’s shirt. His rank was colonel and his
shirt was unbuttoned and not tucked into his camouflaged pants. This was
uncharacteristic of Dylan’s mental stereotype of military personnel.
“I’m
Colonel Byrd.” The colonel extended his hand to greet Dylan, and Dylan met his
hand halfway. “Did anyone here see those lights in the sky? The aurora
borealis?” the colonel asked, making eye contact with all three of the seated
men.