January 26, 2016 l Lessons from the Nor’easter-Blizzard? l High Frontier

“Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all. A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge; but the simple keep going and suffer for it. Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor.” ~ Proverbs 22: 2-4.

Like many in the Northeast, I am coming off an extended weekend, just watching stalled or no traffic as the snowfall set records — historically number 1 in Baltimore, number 2 in Newark and New York City (less than a tenth of an inch off the all-time record), and number 3 in Washington — and watching the semifinal run-up to the Super Bowl. Thanks to the warning below, I and most others were prepared for an extended weekend at home, warm and with plenty to eat.

Actually, I flew last Thursday into the Washington area from much more pleasant weather in South Carolina because I had meetings in New York on Monday and in Washington on Tuesday evening. I correctly expected bad weather to create air travel delays, but did not anticipate that the Washington Metro and Amtrak between Washington and New York City would actually shut down in advance of the storm, which they wisely did. Bad decision on my part, and major modifications for my agenda beginning with a quiet weekend at home.

Lessons from the Weekend.

But things have now settled down; so after an extended weekend respite, I am resuming my planned efforts to awaken folks of the existential threat posed by plausible attacks on the vulnerable electric grid — and what the powers that be should be doing about it. But for this message, consider a few lessons of the recent “Nor’easter blizzard.”

First, most Americans were relatively unaffected — except for a disruption of travel plans.
Second, loss of electricity was minimal, so major conveniences — and most essentials — were not lost by most exposed Americans.
Third, the period of inconvenience for those affected was limited, and their lives are quickly returning to normal.
Fourth and most important, paying attention to warning assured those affected of minimal danger of potentially life threatening aspects of the record making Nor’easter. Most, like I, stocked their food and water for an extended weekend. Folks stayed off the roads during critically important portions of the storm — and instead were home in warm surroundings in the middle of very cold weather. And those with fireplaces and firewood had an independent source of warmth.

Now, with this experience in mind, contrast it with what would happen in a major shutdown of the electric power grid, due to the natural electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat from “Solar Storms” that will surely happen (the only question is when) or a coordinated terrorist attack, that involves some combination of the following:

Physical Attack: Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Jon Wellinghoff said Metcalf-like attacks (San Jose, California) on only nine identifiable key substations in the USA could shut down the entire grid for 18 months.
Cyber Attack: NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers testified he expects a catastrophic cyber-attack on our critical infrastructure, specifically mentioning the Grid, within a decade.
Manmade EMP: We hardened our strategic systems against EMP attacks, but not civil critical infrastructure such as the electric Grid.

These possible threats could lead to a loss of electricity for months, with catastrophic consequences and loss of life:

Stops our “just-in-time economy” — and its flow of food, water, medicine, fuel, heating, sewage, transportation, elevators, etc. (Read Bill Forstchen’s One Second After.)
Within weeks, major fatalities begin unless advance preparations are made — and most Americans could perish within a year.

So, in comparing these impacts with those experienced this past weekend by those of us in the northeastern USA, many more, perhaps all, Americans are at risk in case of major attack on the electric grid, and the period of that impact could last for months. As I have reported repeatedly, the impact could send us back to a 19^th century existence without the benefits of that agrarian society — and most Americans would likely perish within a year because they are unprepared for this condition.

Moreover, our leaders have had warning for over a decade, since the EMP Commission briefed a closed session of Congress on these issues in 2004. But the “powers that be” have not heeded this warning, though there are signs that Congress is finally awakening to the problem and initiating efforts to deal with it.

Some Welcome Prospects.

Most important, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA 2015) directs the reinstatement of the EMP Commission which was disbanded in 2008 after making public sufficient previously highly classified information for the “powers that be” to protect the electric grid from both natural and manmade EMP. Little or nothing has since been done.

The EMP Commissioners will be qualified for advising congress on the lethargy of the executive branch and the electric power industry in reversing the vulnerability of the electric grid — not only to EMP threats but also to physical and cyber attack.

In particular, they hopefully will assess the reasons why U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) is spending almost a billion dollars to harden our tactical warning and strategic command, control, communications (C3) systems to EMP but relatively little if anything to protect the American people against the existential threat posed by the consequences to the electric power grid posed by the same EMP attack. And there are lots of other questions they should address in behalf of the American people.

Also, the Senate shortly should be taking up two important bills already passed by the House of Representatives:

The Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA) which directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to include EMP among the scenarios that all disaster managers (Federal, State and Local) must plan to accommodate;
The Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage (SHIELD) Act which strengthens the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency (FERC) authority to deal with the faults and vulnerabilities of the electric grid — needed improvements to replace the current dysfunctional regulatory regime.

Your Action Items.

These welcome initiatives should have been taken long ago — and probably will be resisted by the bureaucratic impedance that always resists change. That’s why it is still urgently important for the state and local authorities to take pertinent initiatives within their authorities. For all our readers, I recommend that you should

Inform yourselves — competent studies show that the key to survival is to prepare at the local level.
Assure your local authorities are prepared — First Responders: firemen, police, volunteers, etc.
Assure your National Guard is prepared/trained — as they are to deal with hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, fires, floods, etc.
Assure your local and state leaders engage and train — from the Governor on down, especially your Adjutant General, Directors of Emergency Management and the Law Enforcement Division.
Support these objectives by engaging with your local, state and national elected officials — they represent you!

“We the people” must act in our own behalf at least until the Washington crowd gets its act together. Happily, there are things that the “prudent” can do to protect themselves and their neighbors — and all they hold dear.

Near Term High Frontier Plans.

We will continue to inform our readers of the looming threats we confront — and where appropriate urge them to engage in countering that threat. We will press for building the most cost-effective ballistic missile defenses possible and working with South Carolina folks to build a coalition to engage constructively with private citizens and their local and state representatives and other authorities to work with the SC National Guard in understanding and responding to the existential threats to the electric power grid.

We are especially focused on the nuclear power reactors that produce 60-percent of SC electricity—and more generally 20-percent of the nation’s electricity. If it can be assured that they “operate through” a major blackout of the electric power grid — and I believe it can, then these reactors can play a very important role for resurrecting the grid over an extended time and supporting the general public’s survival in the meantime.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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