In this day and age, there is nothing you can be too cautious of. The fact that any country in this world could be facing an EMP attack is close to 10%. This has caused many people to lose sleep. But, we can assure you that facts are more important than fantasies. Generating a high impact weapon that can cause genocide through electromagnetic pulses might be nearly impossible.
It is still important not to take the risk. The substantial idea is to take personal responsibility and self-reliance seriously. Adapting and preparing for unfavorable conditions might keep you ahead of the game and prove to be propitious.
You should know that one can never fully secure themselves from these radiations. But, it is necessary to do everything you canto protect your home and family before such a horrible event arrives.
If you are a prepper and want to be prepared for an EMP attack, here is a guide mentioning all the things you need to know while preparing for it.
What is an EMP Attack?
EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse. There are mainly two ways by which electromagnetic pulses can be generated,
- The earth is surrounded by strong magnetic fields around it. Whenever an adverse event disturbs the magnetic field, it radiates strong pulses of electrical energy called electromagnetic pulses, which reaches down to the earth’s surface and can cause a high amount of damage.
- Whenever a source abruptly emits energy, it is called electromagnetic pulses. These pulses release gamma rays which ionize particles present in the earth’s atmosphere and create an electromagnetic field that generates high voltages.
EMP attacks can be naturally occurring, human-made, or weapon-oriented. These pulses have the potential to damage electronic devices by short circuits on a small scale. It can also cause mass hysteria when generated on a large scale. Examples of EMP attacks include lightning, gasoline engines, and nuclear weapons.
It is best to know all about EMPs before you start preparing yourself. This will give you a broader outlook on how it works. If you want to know further about EMP attacks, check out our article, everything you need to know about EMP attacks.
What Can an EMP Attack Do?
If we are to face an EMP attack,the most it can do is damage our electrical devices. This means that probably everything we use today could be in danger.
Scientists have found ways to generate EMP. A nuclear EMP attack can destroy several thousand miles of land. As we mentioned before that, a high amount of pulses are required to cause massive damage; but this doesn’t guarantee that they could never be generated. Some EMP attacks might even reduce a considerable amount of population.
No matter the origin, an EMP attack could cause a blackout of the electric grid for months or even years. It can also cause irreparable damage to the essential infrastructures. The most challenging situation would be when things like communication, transportation, finance, food, and water that are necessary to sustain life will be inaccessible.
An EMP attack can cause irreversible damage. We tend to fix devices using other devices. Since all our technology would be destroyed, it would be difficult to restore and get it back to working again.
How to Prepare for an EMP Attack
The best thing to know when you start preparing for an EMP attack is that it is cheap and easy. You should know what to protect and what needs no security. When an EMP attack strikes, we should be prepared to save our technology and learn to live without it as well.
- Protect Your Devices
A thin layer of metal foil, such as aluminum foil or tin foil, can be coated on electronic devices to repel EMPs. It is amazing how just a few layers of foil can help secure your devices from being damaged. EMPs can be efficiently blocked by coating foil on the wires around the house; this helps create a strong immunity against EMP. It is a step that can easily be done in your immediate vicinity.
EMP forces produce excess energy that isn’t supported by our devices. That is why they stop functioning due to power overload. If we were to direct this excess energy directly to transformers through a special wiring system, it could help protect our devices. However, transformers would not be affected by such energy transfer.
- Protect Your Car
Many vehicles these days are built completely dependent on internal electrical systems. EMPs can damage cars and other vehicles. It might even cause them to start a fire if they have a gasoline engine. Wrapping tin foil helps cars as well, but it can be impractical.
What you can do is isolate your walls and ceilings (learn about the different type of ceilings) with layers of foil to create an effective shield against EMP. Then just park your car in the garage and be carefree. This method will also help protect large electronic devices inside your garage.
Having a bicycle might help you commute the easiest after an EMP attack if your vehicles don’t manage to survive.
- Protect Your Documents
Try to back-up your legal family documents if they are on an electronic device and store them in a safe place surrounded by foil.
When using the foil method, it is important to know that walls can be insulated with foil as well. No one would like their home to look like a shiny tin ball. Hence, it would perform just as well when placed on the inside.
- Forget Your Devices For a While
The most challenging part is learning to live without technology. This is the era of science and technology. Man is completely dependent on technology to do everything for himself. But an EMP attack will set back time to many decades. This means that for some time, we would have to do everything ourselves.
Even if we manage to protect our devices, if the surrounding power grid gets damaged, there won’t be electricity to help run our devices.
- Stock Up on Food and Water
It is necessary to know how to preserve food if you don’t want to stock up a lot. Search for ways to preserve eggs and such food items. You can also buy packaged food that has long expiry dates, which will last you a while. Save up on water for drinking purposes and daily use. In short, it is essential to stock up on necessities.
- Save Fuel
Saving fuel to light up the house, cook, and stay warm might be helpful. When most power resources would be down due to the attack, having fuel saved and ready to be used will help you get through an EMP attack.
- Build An Emergency First-Aid Kit
EMP attacks might cause some harm to your health. Therefore, it is best to learn about basic first aid and tend to your or your loved ones’ minor injuries at home. During these times, hospitals might shut down completely, or no communication may make it hard to call an ambulance. That is why keeping both prescribed and non-prescribed medications stored in a medical box will help.
- Prepare a Faraday Cage
An EMP-proof container or a Faraday Cage will help protect your electronic devices from any kind of electromagnetic pulses. You can put your devices like laptops, hard drives, mobile phones, solar panels, batteries, electronics, or light bulbs, etc. in this container.You can search the internet to learn how to prepare one easily at your home.
- Insulate
Lining metal tins or cans with non-conductive materials like rubber will help create an insulating layer through which electromagnetic pulses won’t be able to pass through. You can store electronic devices in these tins as well.
Final Words
These are some very practical ways to EMP-proof your life. Doing them will help you feel at ease with a sense of preparedness and security.We hope that this article will help you learn and get a great deal of knowledge on how to prepare for an EMP attack. These tips will keep you safe and secure your home for the future. We expect that no one ever has to face any adverse circumstances and that everyone always remains out of harm’s way.