By F. Michael MaloofEmail/World Net Daily Exclusive/March 15, 2013  “There might be no return to normal as was previously known.”

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Defense will be hard-pressed to respond in any meaningful way to a catastrophic failure of the civilian electric grid infrastructure due to an electromagnetic pulse event, whether natural or man-made, according to a little publicized study.

There not only would be the loss of electricity and communications “on a massive scale, but little in the way of preparation has been done for the loss of the electric grid, despite the significant volume of information” available to local to federal agency levels, it said.

“Preparing for months without a commercial source of clean water (city water pressure is often dependent on electric pumping to storage towers) and stoppage of sewage treatment facilities will require net methods of survival particularly in populated areas,” according to the little known May 2011 military study put out by the U.S. Army War College.

The study was based on a three-day workshop by its Center for Strategic Leadership which deals with issues using the project team concept.

The study, entitled “In the Dark: Military Planning for a Catastrophic Critical Infrastructure Event,” concluded that there in fact is “very little” in the way of back-up capability to the electric grid upon which the communications infrastructure is vitally dependent.

The study pointed out that likely scenarios caused by solar storms and EMP forecast a power grid in failure mode for much longer than any backup power source would last, “maybe even a year or more if a significant number of high power transformers are destroyed and would have to be remanufactured.”

“In some cases, such grid components are manufactured offshore causing even more delay,” the report said. “The net effect of the collapse of the electric grid is that communities would become localized and insular.

“They would be disconnected from the more regional conditions, the possibility of outside assistance such as food and medicine, and the chances of recovery to normal…there might be no return to normal as was previously known.”