Off the grid: No phone, no light, no internet, not a single luxury

[Starman]

Just read this apocalypse fiction about what happens to the US when our enemies shoot a nuclear bomb with an EMP on it over the country. Basically, all electronics are wiped out:

The 1986 book "Warday" covered the effects of EMP quite extensively. All nukes emit EMPs of varying intensity.


Basically any motor vehicle built after about 1980 would be pretty much forked.

In addition of course to all solid-state electronics, computers, etc etc etc. Anything with a chip or transistor in it.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

The 1986 book "Warday" covered the effects of EMP quite extensively. All nukes emit EMPs of varying intensity.


Basically any motor vehicle built after about 1980 would be pretty much forked.

In addition of course to all solid-state electronics, computers, etc etc etc. Anything with a chip or transistor in it.

That's pretty much what happened in this guy's book. He based it on real government reports on what would happen if such a weapon were used. Some people argue that the effects of an EMP are overstated, which is fine. It's a work of fiction, and if this is what could happen, the book seems to take a pretty realistic view.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

In 1996, our house lost power for three days plus -- the week before Christmas -- due to an ice storm. Starman is right. The house gets uninhabitable real fast when it's below freezing outside. Me and the dog lasted two days while Alice and the kids went to a local motel. Then the last night, he didn't complain about being boarded at a nice warm kennel and I sure didn't complain about the motel and its television, heat, hot water and especially its functioning bar.
In an ice storm in central Mash three or four years ago, again in December, people were without power for weeks. I can't imagine.
I turned the water on at a trickle in every faucet and prayed to the gods of water temperature. Much to my surprise, this worked.

In the ice storm that hit here a few years ago, my neighborhood (all of four houses, mind you) lost power. But my aunt, whose neighborhood you can walk to from my house, had power. My mom and step-dad stayed at the house and ran a generator to the living room, while my sisters, grandma, uncle and myself camped out at my aunt's for the week.

That was fun.

 

[imjustagirl]

Good thing I live in the ghetto then. Plenty of folks around here with 1960s and 70s cars.

 

[Football_Bat]

Something else handy to keep in case of a blackout is an old-style Western Electric telephone. Just about all the modern cordless phones will not work when the power's out. The old phones get their power off the phone system and will work.

 

[Starman]

Something else handy to keep in case of a blackout is an old-style Western Electric telephone. Just about all the modern cordless phones will not work when the power's out. The old phones get their power off the phone system and will work.

Pretty sure most of the actual landline phone systems are now run through computerized relay stations and if the power goes off, they're forked too.

 

[Starman]

One funny thing about EMP is that in the movie "Independence Day," among all the other insanely anti-scientific plotlines, they made sure to have Vivica A. Fox make her escape in a 20-year-old construction truck -- presumably all the newer vehicles' ignitions had been fried by EMPs from the aliens' destructo-beams.

After she got off work at the strip bar, of course. When aliens are coming to nuke the world, nothing more important than to drop in at the titty bar to pick up your check and take one last shift on the pole. While your 6-year-old son is sitting in the dressing room helping all your stripper friends adjust their feather boas.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

During post-Katrina and Gustav outages, the corded phone worked fine. The cordless did not.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

One funny thing about EMP is that in the movie "Independence Day," among all the other insanely anti-scientific plotlines, they made sure to have Vivica A. Fox make her escape in a 20-year-old construction truck -- presumably all the newer vehicles' ignitions had been fried by EMPs from the aliens' destructo-beams.

After she got off work at the strip bar, of course. When aliens are coming to nuke the world, nothing more important than to drop in at the titty bar to pick up your check and take one last shift on the pole. While your 6-year-old son is sitting in the dressing room helping all your stripper friends adjust their feather boas.

They didn't know the aliens were going to destroy them yet, although Vivica had a bad feeling about them. The one airheaded stripper went to the building with her welcome sign, and ended up getting zapped.