What would you do if an EMP went off?

[Soubriquet]

How would it affect your life?
How would it affect your job?

My job would be obsolete.

Online shopper. No internet means no customers can place their orders.

No internet means the shop can’t see if it’s in stock or now.

No internet, no productions, and no working factories would mean a lot of our food would have to come from smaller shops.

No car would mean I would struggle to get to the supermarket even if they managed to get some form of system going

Home life for me would be dull. No Tv, no WiFi etc. I would be bored.

Nope. In my hypothetical bad world, the entire world has been affected. No where is safe

I thought their radius was too small to impact vast numbers.
Anyway, I would eat all my cheese and then die.

@MondayYogurt

I thought their radius was too small to impact vast numbers. Anyway, I would eat all my cheese and then die.

Yes they more than likely are but this is my hypothetical world, and I’m saying the whole world is doomed

Nah, worry not.
Gandalf & the Time Lords would keep us safe.

Watch Die hard 4 - that’s basically what happens 😂
If you think Covids been bad that’s just a blip as Society has overall been kept together
Something like this and you would have virtually no way of controlling anything

So no traffic lights, so lots of car crashes

emergency responders can’t respond to accidents so loads of people dying

Hospitals can’t do any type of surgery as they have no electricity no internet nothing . So again loads of people dying

Can’t access the internet, banks are all down
No money as most people use cards that won’t work

Plus GPS in cars won’t work

Or the big one GPS in planes so you could get plans crashing as they can’t contact the tower

Mobile phones down so phone calls internet online banking basically anything you do on your phone you probably won’t be able to

If you have any thing in your car that’s electric your fucked as it won’t start - electric cars anyone 😂😂

Amazon would be so so fucked 😂

We will be back to pushbikes - not electric though as they won’t work 😂

But thankfully Bruce and his lighter and his wifebeater top come to the rescue and saves Us all and of course Amazon 😂

Unplugged Solar Panels are your friend op. www.solarreviews.com/blog/will-solar-panels-survive-nuclear-emp

Sounds like it would be like living back in the 1980s. We'd cope!

A big enough solar flare would cover a colossal area.

Working for one of the biggest IT companies in the world during a very nasty computer virus, I cleaned my desk for five hours then took three days off.

Carrington? event v interesting. EMP life-changes would depend on how widespread the effects were and what stockpiles of essential equipment are in Faraday cages. There would be value in using your pre-electronics era bug out vehicle and using your stores of paper cash and gold and food and drink.

Well, I would light the fire in the wood stove for heat in the house, cook on the gas BBQ or camping stove or kelly kettle (basically, small wood fire) outdoors, manage with the water and food I have at home for a while, light candles for light in the evening, use our bikes to get to shops, use cash in those shops, play cards or read or craft as entertainment, get out my camping solar shower to heat water....

We'd be ok for a few days this way, but some things would get difficult more quickly than others. Clean water for drinking being the first. Actually, no, entertaining the teen is first, then water. (I have enough in a rainwater butt for toilets for a few days, and it gets refilled pretty frequently here). Refrigeration would probably follow that fairly quickly once the freezer thawed out. And getting fuel for cooking and heating would likely be the next main challenge once what is here is used up.

I also read a novel about this and societal breakdown would be quite swift, I think. It’s things like insulin for diabetics and any other drugs which need to be refrigerated - no longer viable, that’s a lot of people dying. Medical equipment keeping people alive either in hospital or for things like dialysis. Vast numbers of people would be dead within hours/days.

Yes I think society would break down

People like to think stuff like this would bring us together but no. It would be a fight to survive among everyone wanting what they want

Society would not be able to function after a large scale event.
There would be a massive die off of the population as the infrastructures that support us fail.

A sense of proportion might be needed.

Large scale EMP attacks are (or certainly were) considered to be one of the consequences of a nuclear event - as a result many military aircraft and other military hardware are hardened to some degree against such a pulse. It has often been postulated that one of the opening salvos in a nuclear war would be the detonation of nuclear devices outside the atmosphere to knock out communications, satellite navigation etc…

if terrorists gain the capability to generate an EMP that effects large areas the loss of internet, telephone, TV, might be the least of everybody’s problems.

What’s the film called please @Soubriquet? Sounds like my sort of thing

Everyone is thinking so small. Society would collapse. No money as almost everyone just has online money now. No refrigeration/freezer for food shops. No way to transport fresher food from farms or wherever. Hardly any medical help in hospital as they have no lights let alone diagnostic equipment. I'd probably be looking for a suicide pill.

@WhatATimeToBeAlive

Sounds like it would be like living back in the 1980s. We'd cope!

Not really because life has changed so much. Even in the 80s you had heat, lights, transport etc.

Lots of people would die without medical devices and equipment and without access to any drugs that need to be refrigerated. Mass transit would be screwed.

We have an open fire so we could cook/heat water to drink/wash. Society as we know It would completely break down, but, electricity was only invented in the 1800's, hardly the dark ages. Eventually we would bounce back.

Accumulated knowledge still exists - doctors, scientists and engineers wouldn't just forget everything they knew. Libraries exist. I mean, look at people living all over the world without modern amenities. Humans are very adaptable - it's how we have survived as a species.

www.qinetiq.com/en/blogs/finger-on-the-pulse-emp

@Atla but the resources to use those skills won't be there if it was a large scale event involving all your allies or a global event.

@WhatATimeToBeAlive

Sounds like it would be like living back in the 1980s. We'd cope!

More like the 1780s.

@EssexLioness

What’s the film called please *@Soubriquet*? Sounds like my sort of thing

It’s probably not

It’s called Mother/Android and it’s about how helper androids turned killers and the only way to stop them was setting off EMP devices.

The actual story like was about a pregnant mother trying to find somewhere safe to have her baby. It’s on Netflix

There was a TV drama about this - Revolution.

In the case of no power we would have the log burner for heat (in the lounge at least), camp stoves for cooking but gas wouldnt last too long and I imagine would fly off the shelves quickly!
We have lots of camping lanterns, books and a stack of board games so would be able to at least have some sort of entertainment!
jobs both rely heavily on tech/IT so that would stop.

Short term we could manage eg a couple of weeks but long term there would be massive problems, anarchy and probably a lot of violence!