WND Exclusive: Lt. Col. James Zumwalt points out we’re at 99 years since the last 100-year EMP event
Our forefathers were a hearty breed, able to cope with difficult times and conditions. Mariners of the day endured voyages lasting several years, living aboard ships lacking much sanitation, food consisting of weevil-infested rock-hard dried bread and salt pork, diseases like scurvy running rampant, harsh discipline and dwindling crew numbers as death took its toll. These sailors proved tough as nails – their persona perhaps best captured in the opening lines of the poem, “Clipper Ships and Captains”:
There was a time before our time,
It will not come again.
When the best ships still were wooden ships,
But the men were iron men.
Despite life throwing numerous challenges, these early generations courageously met them. They represented a far cry from today’s “snowflake” generation intimidated by a mere statue or word perceived as non-politically correct, causing them to feel “unsafe.” What a difference in character a century or two can make.
But that same old fighting spirit of yesteryear will need to be drawn upon again if we, or a future generation, are to survive another anticipated global crisis. This one has been predicted to be riding a 100-year cycle in striking planet Earth. And, the bad news is we just quietly passed the 99th anniversary of its last strike.
For those unable to muster the fortitude to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, hard-pressed to return to whatever normalcy can be achieved, we are in store for something far worse. It is something from which only those possessing the iron man mentality of our forefathers will survive.
Before addressing this yet-to-come cyclical crisis that may well come while we are still fighting COVID-19, let us examine our history in dealing with multiple crises simultaneously.
Two previous times in our history, America was subjected to a serious epidemic while also fighting a war. Thus, these epidemics struck at times the nation could ill afford stay-at-home lockdowns.
The first was a smallpox epidemic (1775-1782), occurring during our Revolutionary War. Similar to COVID-19, smallpox was a very contagious virus spread by inhalation, with victims showing symptoms within 14 days of exposure. About 17% of those infected died. Despite the smallpox epidemic, American colonists toughed it out to fight and win a war, casting off the chains of tyranny enslaving their people.
The second epidemic was the Spanish flu. Entering World War I in 1917, America was hit by the flu the next year. Again, home lockdowns were not an option as fighting the war against Germany took priority. But not since the Black Death of the Middle Ages would we see a virus have such a devastating impact. October 1918 bore witness to the deadliest month in American history, claiming 195,000 lives. Yet, faced with this 1-2 punch of simultaneously fighting a war and an epidemic, America survived.
But three years later, we suffered a cyclical strike of cosmic origin. Despite its severity that day, May 21, 1921, what awaits us in the future will deliver an even harsher impact.
In 1921, the only origin for this strike was natural. It was created by a massive sunspot flare up, propelling coronal mass ejections (CME) toward Earth. Eventually colliding with Earth, the CMEs bombarded the planet with Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) waves for three days. While not necessarily killing humans, EMPs destroyed anything electrically operated. And today, with our heavy dependence upon electricity – much more so than in 1921 – it is estimated 200 million Americans alone would die in the wake of EMP strikes. The lingering EMP electrical damage would dry up food chains, sending us back to the Stone Age as destroyed electrical grids would take one to two years to repair.
Also to be noted is that EMPs today can also be created by man – generated by a high altitude nuclear airburst with the ultimate ground area impacted determined by its altitude. Of obvious concern is that several countries with interests contrary to ours either have this capability or are trying to acquire it.
An EMP hit, much more likely of cosmic origin than man-made, lies within our future. With the potential of claiming 200 million lives, the consequences of ignoring this threat will be apocalyptic. The estimated 12-hour early warning we might have will allow little time to prepare for what is to come.
We knew we would experience an EMP wave when we conducted our first nuclear test in 1945, taking measures to shield electronics from it. However, it was not until later, in the 1950s and early 1960s, that the full extent of an EMP’s destructive strike was realized. Despite that, nothing has been done about this threat until 2019 when President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to strengthen the resiliency of critical infrastructure against EMP hits. We are now in a race against the 100-year cycle clock to make our grid networks EMP-proof.
When it strikes, EMP-created chaos will not be our only concern. Solar storms and earthquake activity studies over a 16-year period (1991-2007) have discovered that all 682 earthquakes occurring within that time frame that had a magnitude 4.0 or greater were preceded by solar flares.
COVID-19 has taken its toll on Americans in many ways. But we ain’t seen nothing yet. When an EMP hits, which is only a matter of when, not if, should our electrical grids not be adequately protected, we will long for the days of the coronavirus.
If so, we can only hope the poem above, suggesting a tough breed of Americans “will not come again” – poetic in verse – is incorrect in substance. For as a generation of snowflakes melts around them, it will only be the men and women of iron ultimately surviving an EMP-devastated world.
