Just Out: One Second After by Fortschen-a must read!

[EWHM]

interesting article on solar flares

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/06may_carringtonflare.htm

Massive Solar flares, EMP, 24 angry rednecks, and several other fairly probable scenarios all have one big thing in common.  They do most of their killing by destroying the power grid and thereby crippling most of the infrastructure in the US---specifically they trash the high voltage transformers for which there are very few spares, even fewer suppliers, and very long lead times to replace.  It seems rather criminal that there is so little redundancy for such an important system.

Why are you giving rednecks so much credit?  Most of them can't even spell "EMP".  Besides, why would they blow up the grid?  Then they can't watch TeeVee and heehaw reruns in the AC and their beer would get cold.  Sheesh.  Get your domestic terrorists straight, for the love of Pete.

Look, you.  It was the radical left, like Bill Ayers and this gang of merry bandits that did all the blowing up.  And Janet Reno that ordered the hit on Waco.

24 angry rednecks, or the translation of redneck in the relevant language (North Koreans, Iranians, Chinese, etc probably all have an equivalent term), refers to the coordinated destruction of the power grid by means of high-powered rifles and improvised explosives.  It's not so much that our homegrown rednecks are likely to carry out this particular attack, just that the modest skillset required is personified by them.  Because all it requires is a few handfuls of moderately competent people and materials you can buy at your local stores, more or less any nation state or significant terrorist group could do it pretty easily.

[Hope@ZeroKelvin]

interesting article on solar flares

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/06may_carringtonflare.htm

Massive Solar flares, EMP, 24 angry rednecks, and several other fairly probable scenarios all have one big thing in common.  They do most of their killing by destroying the power grid and thereby crippling most of the infrastructure in the US---specifically they trash the high voltage transformers for which there are very few spares, even fewer suppliers, and very long lead times to replace.  It seems rather criminal that there is so little redundancy for such an important system.

Why are you giving rednecks so much credit?  Most of them can't even spell "EMP".  Besides, why would they blow up the grid?  Then they can't watch TeeVee and heehaw reruns in the AC and their beer would get cold.  Sheesh.  Get your domestic terrorists straight, for the love of Pete.

Look, you.  It was the radical left, like Bill Ayers and this gang of merry bandits that did all the blowing up.  And Janet Reno that ordered the hit on Waco.

24 angry rednecks, or the translation of redneck in the relevant language (North Koreans, Iranians, Chinese, etc probably all have an equivalent term), refers to the coordinated destruction of the power grid by means of high-powered rifles and improvised explosives.  It's not so much that our homegrown rednecks are likely to carry out this particular attack, just that the modest skillset required is personified by them.  Because all it requires is a few handfuls of moderately competent people and materials you can buy at your local stores, more or less any nation state or significant terrorist group could do it pretty easily.

Dude, again, you totally misunderstand what being a redneck really means.  Trust me, I is one, if only by adoption, and I know plenty of multigenerational rednecks.....  It is NOT about blowing up stuff that gives you all the creature comforts of life, like cold beer and cable hunting shows and a place to plug your hunting flashlights into.

Go read your history, you will hardly ever find rednecks advocating for radical social change, in fact, it is quite the reverse.  Rednecks are totally phobic about moving into any kind of "brave new world".  They want tomorrow to be pretty much like today.  They really are live and let live sort of folks, just don't mess with deer season and don't make the pickup truck an endangered species and just leave them the f**k alone.

You are also talking about "moderately competent" people, at least of the bomb making/bank robbing variety.  Again, you need to seek out folks like Bill Ayers or Black Panthers or some radical jihadists.  These are the folks with the proven expertise.  Stop painting rednecks with the brush of violent social change, it pisses me off and is historically inaccurate.

The electrical grid going down in America, by whatever means, is a totally FUBAR situation.  People are going to die by the hundreds of thousands in the first day, millions by the end of 3 weeks.  Our enemies know this.  That is why weakness in our leadership is so dangerous and emboldens them.

Better have a plan, it is coming.

[Katie]

duplicate post, sorry

[Katie]

Ok, I'm reading this book and am through most of it.  My review is this:

1.  The book raised my awareness of an EMP, which could be quite valuable.

2.  The book gave a realistic scenario about the kinds of things that would happen in an attack,and to some degree Post PO, though much more slowly with PO.  It helped me think things through from a different standpoint.

3.  Helped me reflect on the desirability of a slow crash, of the grid anyway.  Get things in order before it's all gone.

4.  Entertaining in a doomerish kind of way.  Not to read this book when you need a green pill.

5.  One negative is the overemphasis on guns and militarism.  I'm not anti gun, but this seemed like a propaganda piece to me.  Guns are the solution was the message.   While they may be necessary, no other aspect seemed to have the air time or level of detail about guns.

6.  Another negative, perhaps related to #5, is a somewhat simplistic view of the world.  I like more subtlety, character development, depth.  If it is teotwawki, this would be an occasion for all kinds of changes in character, values, etc.  While the author tries to portray this, it falls very flat.  The characters seem like stereotypes designed to carry a message of things like guns, "family values", etc.  While I did not object to this in Ishmael, there it was obvious.  This book did not work for me on this level, and I'll be glad to get it done, even while appreciating the warning call it tries to raise.

[freeyourmind]

5.  One negative is the overemphasis on guns and militarism.  I'm not anti gun, but this seemed like a propaganda piece to me.  Guns are the solution was the message.   While they may be necessary, no other aspect seemed to have the air time or level of detail about guns.

I just finished reading the book yesterday, over the course of 3 days. Forstchen is certainly focused on military stategy and logistics, especially battlefield strategy. You can see that in all of his works. I don't think it was too overboard, in fact I think he's probably done a fairly good job emphasizing the importance of community defense in that particular scenario. It really would be necesarry, because that kind of fast crash would result in barbarians and likely warlords rampaging through the countryside. That being said, I agree the book could have benefitted from a bigger emphasis on procuring food and farming. He sugested it happened, but didn't go into any details really.

I haven't read this entire thread but I know there was alot of debate throughout about the effects of EMP portrayed in the book, particularly about killing the cars. My opinion on that debate is thus: Nobody really knows what the effect of EMP would be on automobiles. There's evidence on both sides of the debate. Forstchen chose the "worst case" scenario to emphasize the threat.

[Katie]

5.  One negative is the overemphasis on guns and militarism.  I'm not anti gun, but this seemed like a propaganda piece to me.  Guns are the solution was the message.   While they may be necessary, no other aspect seemed to have the air time or level of detail about guns.

I just finished reading the book yesterday, over the course of 3 days. Forstchen is certainly focused on military stategy and logistics, especially battlefield strategy. You can see that in all of his works. I don't think it was too overboard, in fact I think he's probably done a fairly good job emphasizing the importance of community defense in that particular scenario. It really would be necesarry, because that kind of fast crash would result in barbarians and likely warlords rampaging through the countryside. That being said, I agree the book could have benefitted from a bigger emphasis on procuring food and farming. He sugested it happened, but didn't go into any details really.

I haven't read this entire thread but I know there was alot of debate throughout about the effects of EMP portrayed in the book, particularly about killing the cars. My opinion on that debate is thus: Nobody really knows what the effect of EMP would be on automobiles. There's evidence on both sides of the debate. Forstchen chose the "worst case" scenario to emphasize the threat.

Yes, I think that's it.  I don't normally read books about militarism.  It did get me to think more about the role of a community in responding to emergencies.  Since I'm way into food and not so much into guns, I'd have liked to see that balance, too.  He mentions the food part only briefly.  Yet, I think community preparedness when it comes to food is extremely important.  It's just not glamorous or exciting to most people (gardeners excepted).  Perhaps it's time to make it so.

I finished the book since I last posted and did like the ending.  Well, I didn't "like" it, but thought it was realistic and a good ending in that.

[Tug Again]

Bought it the 23rd, finished it Christmas Day (night). Very readable. You can argue with the premise(s) of "this doesn't work and that doesn't work" but you can't argue with the fact that it's a well-told story. Fact is, we don't know what will happen to a given class of technologies (vehicles) or, to individual pieces of equipment (EMP is line-of-sight, if your otherwise zappable car is parked in the lee of a steep hill, or,in an underground garage, it might not get zapped. We do know that long runs of conductive material(wires, antenna) will conduct EMP into equipment hooked up to them and our common sense tells us that it doesn't matter if your cell phone stays intact, if the cell phone system is fried to a crackly crunch. EMP is bad medicine.

Tug

[Satori]

now out in paperback
ya gotta read this book !

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350284067652&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[haggismudpie]

My copy arrived today.  Early to bed tonight with book and dog.  May be interrupted if daughter's labor pains are real.  Hoping for a 01/01/10 birthday, though.

[Dry Observer]

For example the dogs . Now - I had a REAL problem with the dogs - I have 2 dogs myself - that part made me cry. And I don't usually cry in books. But those dogs did it to me.

After I read the book, I started looking at our two pets with a greater sense of uncertainty.  I had always imagined that I could feed the dogs with squirrels and scraps, but now I am not so sure.

With only a limited supply of shells for my shotgun, would it be sensible to hunt daily just to feed the dogs?

I have decided to factor the dogs into my food production so that I can provide for my entire household, pets and all, if necessary.

Hence my interest in aquaponics (for that and other reasons) -- the tilapia are a source of meat for those animals who require it. The whole "raise food indoors independent of most external conditions" thing is also a factor.

[quietnite]

Just reread it.

Then when out and bought a bunch of dried black-eyed peas on sale.

ShopnStop, ten bags for ten dollars. In case anyone is near one. I think they stocked up as a traditional New Year's food and it's not moving.

I helped 'em

[Dry Observer]

Have alternative power sources available and in place (and shielded, as necessary) at your home and at critical locations in your community -- water/sewage, hospitals, some law-enforcement, some food storage/processing sites, etc.

Of course, not to be a downer, but supposedly some Chinese and Russian scientists have boasted of having "super-EMP" weapons capable of penetrating even the U.S. military's shielding. I don't know how believable that is, and whether that would simply narrow the list of suspects when America's nuclear subs started surfacing. Also, there's the question of just how much surface area these hypothetical weapons would cover.

Personally, I think the thermonuclear counterstrike would be assumed if someone did this to the U.S. and wiped out the population. Also, the one piece of our infrastructure that is specifically designed to function even in the face of nationwide EMPs, the complete collapse of our infrastructure and the sudden annihilation of our cities is the nation's nuclear/thermonuclear arsenal, and I think most adversaries would have to be pretty desperate to chance getting hit with that kind of a response. And if they were that desperate, they likely wouldn't have the resources to make such an assault.

On the other hand, we really need lots of alternative-power systems installed anyway, and more strength and redundancy in the grid, so if people respond to this kind of thing by building up resources we need anyway, so be it.

[Satori]

LIGHTS OUT

free pdf book

wanted to give this a bump
in case anyone hasn't seen it yet

http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdf

[PromiseLandAkitas]

I really liked the book, bought a few to give to those who I am trying to get to prepare.  This might get them to open their eyes a little

[bdstory]

Yes I agree, im burning through this book fast. I read Patriots and loved it but im starting to like this one even more. Patriots was the ideal get ready for the end of the world scenario but One Second After is a bit more realistic IMO. GREAT BOOK. Just wish I could find more like it out there.

Bill