Why I'm More Worried About EMPs Right Now Than I've Been in 30 Years

Well folks, I'm going to cut right to it this week because what I'm seeing in the news has got me more concerned than usual, and that's saying something. Last Tuesday I was having coffee with Jim down at the feed store and he asked me straight up if I thought we needed to worry about an EMP attack. Now Jim's not the type to get rattled easily. He's been farming the same 200 acres for forty years. But even he's picking up on what's happening.

Here's what prompted his question. Three weeks ago on January 24th, North Korea conducted what they're calling a "high altitude launch capability test" that put a satellite into orbit at exactly 311 miles up. That's the sweet spot for an EMP detonation, by the way. Then on February 3rd, Iran announced they've successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to fit on their new Kheibar missile. The Pentagon confirmed it two days later. And just this past Thursday, China flew six military aircraft through our ADIZ over the Pacific while simultaneously conducting what they described as "electromagnetic warfare exercises" off the coast of California.

I've been watching these things develop for thirty years, and I'm telling you right now that 2026 feels different. It's not that any one of these events is unprecedented. It's that they're all happening at the same time while our electric grid is more vulnerable than it's ever been.

Let me give you some context that you won't hear on the evening news. The Congressional EMP Commission issued their final threat assessment back in 2008, and they estimated that a successful EMP attack over the central United States could kill up to 90% of the American population within the first year. Not from the blast itself, but from the collapse of our infrastructure. No power means no water pumping stations. No refrigeration for medicine. No fuel pumps at gas stations. No communication systems for emergency services. The report's been sitting in a file cabinet in Washington ever since.

What Makes 2026 Different

I had a long phone call with my old Army buddy Marcus last week. He works in threat assessment now, can't say exactly where, but he's plugged into things. He told me something that made my blood run cold. Our adversaries have figured out that they don't need ICBMs anymore to deliver an EMP weapon. They can use commercial container ships.

Here's how it works. You put a short range missile in a standard shipping container, the kind you see stacked on cargo ships by the thousands. You sail it into international waters about 300 miles off the coast. You launch straight up. The missile doesn't need sophisticated guidance systems because you're not aiming at a specific target. You just need to get a nuclear warhead up to 250 or 300 miles and detonate it. The electromagnetic pulse radiates outward and downward, and everything electronic within a 1,500 mile radius gets fried.

Marcus told me that Homeland Security estimates there are over 11 million shipping containers entering U.S. ports every year. They physically inspect less than 2% of them. Do the math on that.

The other thing that's changed is the grid itself. I spent three hours last month reading through the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's winter assessment report. You know what I learned? We've shut down 90 gigawatts of baseload coal and nuclear power over the past decade and replaced it with solar panels and wind turbines. Nothing wrong with renewable energy in principle, but here's the problem. Those systems are loaded with microelectronics that are incredibly vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses. The old coal plants had big dumb transformers that could potentially survive an EMP. The new smart grid technology? It's all fried instantly.

The Texas Grid Situation

Speaking of grids, what happened in Texas during the ice storm three weeks ago should be a wake up call for everybody. The state lost 40% of its generating capacity when temperatures dropped below zero for six days straight. Natural gas wells froze. Wind turbines iced over. Solar panels got buried under snow. Over four million people lost power, and 23 people died.

Now imagine that same scenario except it's not weather related and it's not regional. It's the entire eastern interconnection grid, which serves 70% of the U.S. population, and it's not coming back on in three days. It's not coming back on in three months. The Congressional EMP Commission estimated it could take four to ten years to rebuild the grid after a major EMP attack because we don't manufacture large power transformers in this country anymore. We import them from Germany and South Korea, and each one takes 18 to 24 months to build.

Darlene thinks I'm being paranoid when I talk about this stuff, but then I showed her the shopping receipt from February 2021 when we stocked up before that ice storm hit us here in Missouri. We were fine. Our neighbors weren't. The Hendersons two houses down ran out of food on day four because their freezer thawed and they had to throw everything out. We kept them fed, but it made me realize how fast things can go sideways even in a temporary regional emergency.

What You Need to Know About EMPs

Let me explain what actually happens during an EMP event because there's a lot of confusion about this. When a nuclear weapon detonates at high altitude, it creates three different electromagnetic pulses. The E1 pulse happens in nanoseconds and destroys semiconductor electronics. That's your computers, phones, car engine control modules, solar charge controllers, anything with a chip in it. The E2 pulse comes next and is similar to lightning. It'll take out anything that survived E1 and isn't properly grounded. The E3 pulse lasts for minutes and acts like a massive geomagnetic storm. It induces currents in long conductors like power lines and literally melts the big transformers at substations.

Your car might survive depending on the year and model. Older vehicles with minimal electronics have a better chance. My 1986 Ford F-150 would probably keep running. Darlene's 2023 Subaru would become a 4,000 pound paperweight. Anything made after 2008 with extensive computer controls is highly vulnerable.

Here's what really concerns me though. I was talking to Sarah Chen who runs the medical clinic in town, and she told me they've got maybe a three day supply of insulin that doesn't need refrigeration. After that, every diabetic in the county is in serious trouble. The pharmacy keeps most medications in climate controlled storage that requires constant power. The hospital has a backup generator, but it's designed to run for 72 hours max before it needs refueling. And guess what? The fuel pumps at the distribution center run on electricity.

The 72 Hour Reality

I keep coming back to this number because it's critical. In any major disaster, you've got about 72 hours before civil order starts to break down. That's how long most people can get by on whatever they have in their pantry. After three days without power, without water, without information, people start to panic.

I saw this firsthand during the New Madrid earthquake scare back in 1990. The prediction turned out to be wrong, thank God, but I watched neighbors who I'd known for twenty years turn into different people when they thought disaster was coming. One guy tried to siphon gas out of my truck at 2 in the morning. These were good people under normal circumstances.

Now multiply that by every city in America simultaneously. No working ATMs. No way to process credit card transactions. No ability to call 911. No traffic lights. No working cell towers. The grocery stores get emptied in hours, and there's no way to restock them because the trucks can't navigate without GPS and the distribution centers can't process orders without computers.

What I'm Doing Right Now

I'm not going to sugarcoat this. If a major EMP attack happens, there's no perfect preparation that's going to make you immune from the consequences. But there's a huge difference between being completely helpless and being able to take care of yourself and your family for an extended period.

Last weekend I pulled my Faraday cage out of the back of the shop and did an inventory. For those who don't know, a Faraday cage is just a metal enclosure that blocks electromagnetic pulses. Mine's made from a galvanized steel trash can with a tight fitting lid. I line the inside with cardboard so nothing touches the metal directly, and I keep spare electronics in there wrapped in aluminum foil for extra protection.

Right now I've got two handheld ham radios in there, a portable solar panel with charge controller, a backup laptop with downloaded maps and reference materials, spare batteries, a small AM/FM radio, and a backup ignition module for the F-150. Total investment maybe 400 dollars over the years. Could save our lives.

I also went through our water situation. We've got the well with a hand pump backup that I installed in 2019. Cost me 600 dollars and a weekend of work, but it means we can still get water even without electricity. I tested it Thursday morning just to make sure everything's still working smoothly. Pulled up 20 gallons without any issues.

The food storage is in good shape. We rotate through our supplies so nothing gets too old, and right now we're sitting on about four months of calories for two people. That's rice, beans, canned goods, freeze dried meals, flour, sugar, salt, cooking oil. I keep a detailed spreadsheet of everything with purchase dates and expiration dates. Darlene jokes that I run our pantry like a warehouse, but she'll be glad about it if things go sideways.

The Communication Problem

One thing people don't think about enough is how you're going to communicate after an EMP. Your cell phone is dead. The internet is gone. Landlines probably won't work. Even if you've got a working radio, who are you going to talk to if nobody else has one?

This is why I've been pushing our neighborhood to set up a simple communication plan. We've got seven families on our road, and I convinced five of them to buy basic CB radios. We agreed on a channel and a check in time twice a day. It's not sophisticated, but it means we can coordinate and share information if something happens. Young Travis across the street thinks I'm crazy, but the Kowalskis and the Martins get it.

I'm also licensed for ham radio, and I check into the local emergency net every Wednesday night. There's about 40 of us in the county now. If an EMP takes out the grid, we'll be one of the few ways to pass information between communities. The emergency coordinator Tom has been working with the sheriff's department to establish protocols for exactly this scenario.

Wendy's Corner

Hey everyone, it's Wendy writing from eastern Oregon. Dad asked me to share what we're doing out here because our situation is pretty different from his. We're much more rural and honestly even more vulnerable in some ways.

Steve and I have been talking a lot about EMPs lately, especially after Dad sent me that article about the North Korea satellite test. Living out here past Bend, we're already pretty isolated. Our nearest grocery store is 35 miles away. If the power goes out and vehicles stop working, we're not walking to town.

The thing that worries me most is the kids. Luke is nine and Charlotte is seven, and they don't really understand why Mom and Dad are storing extra food in the basement or why we're teaching them to use the hand pump on the irrigation well. I don't want to scare them, but I also want them to know basic skills.

Last Saturday we did a practice day. We turned off the power to the house for 24 hours and pretended we didn't have working vehicles. It was actually kind of fun in a weird way. Luke learned how to start a fire in the woodstove, and Charlotte helped me cook dinner on our camp stove. Steve showed them both how to use the manual can opener because apparently they'd never done that before. Everything in our regular kitchen is electric.

The hardest part was entertainment. Both kids are so used to tablets and TV that they didn't know what to do with themselves for the first few hours. But then we pulled out board games and cards, and they eventually got into it. By evening Charlotte said it was like camping except we were at home. I'll take that as a win.

We've also been working on our food storage. It's different out here because we have more space than my parents do in Missouri. We converted half of our basement into a proper pantry with shelves floor to ceiling. We're up to about six months of food now, and we're trying to grow as much as we can during the summer. Last year we canned 150 quarts of tomatoes, green beans, peaches, and applesauce. This year I want to double that.

Steve's been focused on security, which honestly makes me a little uncomfortable to think about, but he's probably right. We're 20 minutes from the nearest neighbor on a bad road. If something happens and civil order breaks down, we're on our own. He's been teaching me to shoot better, and we've established some plans for how we'd handle different scenarios. I won't go into details here, but let's just say we're not going to be easy targets.

The other thing we're working on is community. There's a group of about 15 families in our area who are all thinking about preparedness. We get together once a month and share skills and resources. The Johnsons raise chickens and have been teaching others how to do it. The Yamadas have an amazing garden and know everything about seed saving. Mike Patterson is a retired electrician who's been helping people set up alternative power systems. We're all trying to build resilience together because we know we can't do it alone.

Anyway, stay safe everyone. Give Jasper a hug from his favorite Oregon family.