Blog
Ounce of Prevention: Comparing the Costs of Deterring Widescale Disaster
In 2005, President George W. Bush read the book The Great Influenza about the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak and was inspired to push for funding to prevent pandemics. At nearly the same time, his one-time opponent, Al Gore, directed [...]
Should Corporations Prepare for an EMP Event? Protecting Critical Infrastructure in the Private Sector
Previous posts have looked at the military and government responsibility in safeguarding critical public infrastructure in order to survive a crisis stemming from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The fact remains that many critical societal functions are managed not by [...]
Response to the Threat: EMP Policy and Mitigation in the United States
If the dikes around New Orleans were built to government standards to resist the winds and swells of a Category 2 hurricane, those of us knowledgeable of history could spot an obvious problem. Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed much of [...]
Protracted Power Outages: Constraints on Police Forces and Hospitals after an EMP Event
The last major blackout in the US was the Northeastern grid failure of 2003 which affected 50 million residents throughout New England and southern Ontario. Fortunately, the utility company located and corrected the problem. Service was restored in just [...]
Meta-Analysis: A Threat Assessment of Prolonged US Grid Failure
Imagine that power goes out, not just locally but universally. The three major electric grids of North America experience cascading failures. How long does the blackout last? In the scenario of a major geomagnetic storm or high-altitude electromagnetic (HEMP) [...]
Beyond Energy: Cascading Effects Through All Sectors of Infrastructure
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) events, whether natural or man-made, have garnered increasing attention due to their potential to disrupt not only the energy sector but also critical infrastructure across various sectors. The United States government classifies critical infrastructure into 16 [...]