November 12, 2013—New York Times Identifies Electric Power Grid Vulnerabilities!

Amb. Henry F. Cooper, Chairman . . . Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham, Founder

High Frontier . . Building Truly Effective Defenses . . Reagan’s Vision Lives!

E-Mail Message 131112

New York Times Identifies Electric Power Grid Vulnerabilities!

H. Scott Cooper

November 12, 2013

Today’s electric power grid, which has evolved over most of the last century, has vulnerabilities that previously have led to cascading failures leaving tens of millions of Americans without electricity for days. Fictional, but realistic TV dramas have illustrated the disaster of losing the grid for 10 days in a cyberattack. An indefinite loss of the grid due to a natural or manmade electromagnetic attack would create societal collapse.

This morning’s New Your Times webpage carried a very informative video well worth about 10 minutes of you time. Click here to view.

Specifically it reviews and identifies the cause of a 2003 cascading electric power grid failure that left 50 million Americans without electricity for over 20 hours.

Would you believe a branch falling on a power line in Ohio, coupled to a worker being on lunch break led to this multi-power company, multistate power grid failure throughout the northeast and into Canada? And the video unashamedly observes that the grid still is quite vulnerable today. This was intended to make folks aware of a national exercises, GRID EX II, intended to evaluate some of the consequences of a power failure today.

As the August 16, 2013 New York Times reported, “The electric grid . . . is the glass jaw of American industry. If an adversary lands a knockout blow . . . it could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of Sept. 11.”

That article also noted that Grid Ex II would involve thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, F.B.I. anti-terrorism experts and officials from government agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico. They are reportedly preparing for an emergency drill that simulates physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid. More than 150 companies and organizations were expected to participate in this effort to explore how governments might react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain for everyday necessities.

As we previously reported (Click here.), the National Geographic Chanel gave a fictional representation of what might happen if a cyberattack took down the grid for 10 days . . . a daunting but plausible tale of disastrous consequences. But as consequential as they were, the results of a natural or manmade electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event would be far worse. The entire U.S. “just in time” economy would be returned to the 18^th century existence for an indefinite period, without the agrarian societal support that then existed.

Several hundred million Americans could die within a year from starvation, disease, and societal collapse. Lack of food, medicine, transportation, communications, etc. to which we have all become accustomed.

Tell your friends to learn all you can about this all too real problem and do what you can to protect your family and friends. Keep up with our efforts at High Frontier to defend the nation from an EMP attack and to harden the electric power grid.

These threats are growing and not being effectively countered. We need your help in spreading this information to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do. Will you do your part?

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!