Many people - even in Congress - are not fully aware of the consequences of an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) that occurs when a nuclear weapon is exploded high in the atmosphere. And the same effect occurs when we are hit with a large solar flare, as happened in 1989 when a not-so-large flare hit eastern Canada and knocked out their grid.
In July 1962, the US carried out the Starfish Prime test, exploding a small 1.44 megaton bomb 250 miles above the mid-Pacific Ocean. This demonstrated that the effects of a high-altitude nuclear explosion were much larger than had been previously calculated. The detonation caused electrical damage in Hawaii, 898 miles away from the detonation point, knocking out about streetlights, setting off burglar alarms and damaging a microwave link. A large device detonated at 250 to 312 miles over Kansas would affect all of the continental U.S.
It does not take much for any country with a nuke to end a lot of human life in America. Their missile need not be accurate - just get it over us and detonate it in the atmosphere. The EMP that ensues can knock out the electrical grid, if not hardened (and most of it isn't). And it would not be a short-term power outage. It could last for several years, as we would not have the means (the power) to rebuild everything, transport the materials to the sites and get things running again.
Worse still, the large transformers are only manufactured in China and Brazil. Even if those countries wanted to help, it could take 6 months to 5 years to rebuild the grid. How many people would die in that time? No food. No banking. No way to earn a living. No way to travel to stores, even if there were goods available.
Transformers would be blown, on a large scale. Even car batteries would be destroyed. No power, no communications, no internet. No transporting goods, such as groceries. No large scale farming.
But it gets worse - America would be so weakened, brought to its knees. Our enemies (and the world is full of them) could just walk in and take over. Anyone bringing in food, for example, would be treated as lords. And if you have food, but your neighbor's kids are literally dying of starvation, your "best bud" neighbor will kill you and your family to get food for his own. It's survival of the fittest. Believe it!
Experts have estimated that a large-scale destruction of our power grid would likely result in the deaths of anywhere from 50% to 90% of America's population.
And all it would take is one nuke detonated high in the atmosphere...or one super flare from the sun, which occurs every 150 years or so. The last was in 1859 known as the Carrington Event. If that were to happen today, the entire planet, not just a continent, could go dark, with so much destruction to infrastructure it would take decades to repair the damage - if ever.
