Sarah Rumpf-Whitten
A nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike could cripple the U.S. electrical grid, communications, transportation, and other critical infrastructure for months, an expert warned.
Historian William Forstchen, a New York Times bestselling author and an expert on EMPs, discussed with Fox News Digital how the U.S. – and everyday Americans – can prepare for the "existential threat" that the attack poses.
This is a very real threat," he said. "EMP is generated when a small nuclear weapon, 40 to 60 kilotons or about three times the size of a Hiroshima bomb, is detonated 200 miles out in space above the United States. It sets up an electrostatic discharge which cascades to the Earth's surface, feeds into the millions of miles of wires which become antennas, feeds this into the power grid, overloads the grid and blows it out."
Forstchen, citing Congressional reports from 2002 and 2008, said that 80%-90% of Americans would be dead a year later if an EMP strike happened.
While an EMP strike, at first glance, appears to be more science fiction than fact, Forstchen said that the potential for such an attack was recognized decades ago.
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