What would you do?

[williethebasset]

idea for discussion inspired by http://thingsfallapart.us/

That story really got me thinking...

You are at home on a saturday in april 2007 sitting at your computer, its 1100 and suddenly your electricty goes out, along with telephone, cell phone, and cable service. There has been an EMP blast above kansas, giving various ranges of damage. What are the steps that you would take?


What would you do in a situation like that described above? I would take the following steps in order as listed:

-Get my rifle and other gun ready for action.
-Go to grocery store via walking or driving (if my car still operates) and get as much energy dense, or canned food as possible. Try to fill up car with gas on return trip. If car isn't usable, take several shopping carts and tie them together with rope. If car can be used, fill fully with all conceivable food and supplies.
-After unloading food into the storage area of the basement, go to CVS and stock up on any supplies not aquired from grocery store.
-After trip to CVS, go to hardware stores in area and take hand driven tools, fertilizer, and seed.
-Following stocking up on supplies, check with neighbors to see who is home and who isn't. If they aren't home within a day, take anything of use, but keep it seperate in the event that they return.
-Get my books about survival out and start reading up.

End of day 1.

Day 2
-Work out a plan with neighbors to consolidate supplies and living into my home and newly constructed homes next to it. The reason being that they are both larger than the rest of the houses, giving more storage/living room, but also have no trees, fences, or shrubs. This would allow a clear field of fire against any hostiles.
-Go to stores in area and look for anything of value that was looked over, particularly medical supplies.

End of Week 1.

Week 2
-Begin trapping animals, catching fish and preparing lawns for growing food. Begin building walls around the multi-house compound.

END

A few notes on why I decided on April 2007: People have not put down harmful pesticides on lawns, and I will have bought two guns by then.

Feel free to give critique, suggestions and post your own ideas.

[ohms_law]

First question that comes to mind is, how do you so immediately know that the problem is as widespread as it is in the story that you're creating? Cities do loose power occasionally. Even counties and entires part's of states. Just because the electricity is out over a widespread area, do you generally assume that there was some sort of attack that has occurred?

Also, say that the entire country has lost electricity. Does that prevent the police and the military from being deployed at all? Remember, widespread electricity and communications have been developed within the short lifespan of the United States, and indeed are generally available to most American's since the 40's. Would an EMP blast really completely destroy the ability of the government to govern at all? Especially considering that military equipment is generally EMP hardened and that there is a significant government infrastructure designed for just such an occurrence.

[nuzzy62]

Since I'm in bermuda and nearly all the flights here are to the states, I'm pretty much stuck.

[williethebasset]

First question that comes to mind is, how do you so immediately know that the problem is as widespread as it is in the story that you're creating? Cities do loose power occasionally. Even counties and entires part's of states. Just because the electricity is out over a widespread area, do you generally assume that there was some sort of attack that has occurred?

Also, say that the entire country has lost electricity. Does that prevent the police and the military from being deployed at all? Remember, widespread electricity and communications have been developed within the short lifespan of the United States, and indeed are generally available to most American's since the 40's. Would an EMP blast really completely destroy the ability of the government to govern at all? Especially considering that military equipment is generally EMP hardened and that there is a significant government infrastructure designed for just such an occurrence.

Not only would power be out, but cellphones, radios, and other electronics that are independent of the power grid would not be working, period. Their insides would be fried. Most cars would also not be working properly unless they were underground, inside, or fueled with carbeaurators.

Many military communications are hardened against EMP, however, I dont believe that police radios are. It would be very hard to deploy or communicate without the modern communications, but there are backup systems in place, I don't know much about them.

If military units were called up, I would probobly be called up and deployed, ROTC is deployable only in the USA. I would volunteer if they asked for volunteers. I think it that governing the country would be difficult to near impossible, even if the entire reserves and national guard were called out, civillians are near 300 million people while all of the branches of the military including reserves and national guard have a few million. I don't know the exact numbers, but it certainly isn't a good ratio if we had to have the military policing the streets.

I'm surprised king and houston havent commented.

[nuzzy62]

In Bermuda they'd deploy the Regiment, but wouldn't give tham any bullets - seriously.

[ohms_law]

Not only would power be out, but cellphones, radios, and other electronics that are independent of the power grid would not be working, period. Their insides would be fried. Most cars would also not be working properly unless they were underground, inside, or fueled with carbeaurators.
Absolutely, but most people wouldn't realize this for a while. I'm simply saying, you're assumption that you, I, or anyone else would immediately know that a nuclear EMP burst had occurred and that everything was down for a long time to come is somewhat presumptuous.

As for the effects of widespread outages like this, there always is an increase in crime and incidences of looting and other similar problems occurring during outages, but I believe that the assumption that society will immediately unravel is just... well, naive I guess.

as for this:

Many military communications are hardened against EMP, however, I dont believe that police radios are. It would be very hard to deploy or communicate without the modern communications, but there are backup systems in place, I don't know much about them.
I know for a fact that the vast majority of military communications equipment, and indeed most military equipment in general, is hardened against EMP bursts. Some civilian equipment (especially communications equipment) is also hardened against EMP bursts specifically, and other tampering and sabotage as well. You're hardly the first person to think of scenarios like this, and national security officials in both State and Federal positions are paid to think through situations like this.

Anyway, I'm hardly saying that some sort of attack with weapons of mass destruction on the United Stats would be a walk in the part. Quite the opposite, I believe that an attack like this would be devastating to not only the US but the rest of the world as well. I don't see anything short of a massive impact event (cometary or meteorite impact) bringing society as a whole, as we currently know it, to a grinding halt like you're talking about.

If such a thing does occur though, assuming that the event itself happens far enough away that the US is not immediately whipped off the face of the earth, it wouldn't be as easy as you imply in your first post for you or anyone else working alone to survive long term. The first couple of months that pass by, there could be widespread panic and looting for a short period of time (a week or two), followed by more and more draconian martial law being imposed. In such an environment, going to the grocery store, trying to work something out with neighbors, and trapping animals could all very easily and quickly lead to confrontations that one person or another would not walk away from. It's pretty easy to think that you would be more prepared to deal with it than you're opponent, but bullet's, knives, and other weapons don't discriminate between the well trained and the untrained. Member's of special forces units talk all the time about the crazy, unforeseen events that occur during operations. No matter how well trained or prepared for combat a soldier or citizen may be, the best laid plans never survive first contact.

I'm not saying that survivalist tactics are completely silly. What I am saying is that it is a good thing to have some sort of plan in place for some sort of disaster. Preparedness is important, but it's not something that anyone should really dwell on. There are some very good, commonly accepted tips to consider for general disaster preparedness that everyone could benefit from. A couple jugs of watter; a store of batteries, battery operated radio and a flash lite; Blanket; etc... While some sort of attack scenario may be somewhat fun to consider, massive blizzards, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes happen all the time. Those are the sort of things that you should really expend thought and energy considering.