Pajamas Media has the story:

We are not prepared for an electromagnetic pulse attack. Iran is almost prepared to launch one…

The first thing they will notice is there is no power. Another damn power outage, they will grumble — but then again, there has been no storm. Confused, some will try to call for information, but the phones will be down. The TV, the radio — nothing, no reception.

The panic will come when cars won’t start.

The traffic lights will be out, too. It will get much worse. Most will not survive to see life get back to normal in America.

Thousands will be stranded on subways, and over a million passengers who fly daily across the continent will be stuck at airports with flights canceled. Those already in the air will meet a deadly fate as planes plunge from the sky, their electronics fried.

Within the next few days, water supplies will run out: water-pumping stations will grind to a halt and electric pumps for water purification will also stop. Remaining water supplies will soon become contaminated.

Next is the food supply. Without power, food plants can no longer operate, and without transportation, food inventories in warehouses rot. Many cities will run out of food in just three days, others in just a bit longer.

This will be the result of an electromagnetic pulse attack over the atmosphere of the United States. In less than a billionth of a second, the electrical intensity on Earth becomes so hot that microchips fry, power lines overload, and the electrical grid collapses. Everything with microelectronics in it fails.

Within days, tens of millions of Americans will need to leave their homes looking for water and food. Within five to 10 days, due to water pollution and sanitation issues, many will fall ill — people across America will face starvation, disease, and death. In just one year after the attack, up to two-thirds of the American population will cease to exist.

Our enemies know this. The radicals ruling Iran have openly talked about it as they have called for the destruction of America and a new world order that excludes America. While pursuing their nuclear bomb project, the Revolutionary Guards of Iran have successfully test-launched a ballistic missile from a ship in the Caspian Sea. Recently, they also announced that all their vessels now have been armed with long-range ballistic missiles, and that soon they will start a mission in the Atlantic Ocean that extends into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Guards have also progressed with their missile program under the guise of a space project. Soon they will launch another rocket into space, this time carrying a 330-kilogram payload, a sign that they can now deliver a nuclear warhead to any point on Earth. The Guards have openly stated that the rocket used to launch the satellite can be shot parallel to the Earth’s orbit, which would transform it into an intercontinental ballistic missile.
[…]
Though an EMP attack on America by the jihadists in Tehran must not be ruled out, our modern society in America could also be endangered by a natural phenomenon. Solar explosions from the sun have hit the Earth before and will do so again. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted that a major solar storm could hit in May of 2013. A similar storm in 1859, known as the “Carrington event,” hit telegraph offices worldwide, causing failure in the telegraph system. Today such an event could be catastrophic due to the role microchips play in our infrastructure. [emphasis added]

We can avoid such catastrophes if we, as responsible citizens of the United States, take action. The SHIELD Act (H.R. 668), currently before the U.S. House, needs to be passed this year. If it isn’t, it could very well be too late to protect the national electric grid.

The SHIELD Act would empower the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to work with industry and other government departments and agencies to protect the national electric grid from EMP threats. The act would ensure that the United States has enough extra-high-voltage transformers to survive and recover from an EMP event.

The act also would provide a financial mechanism to pay for the protection of the grid. The FERC estimates that the cost for protecting the electric grid would add only 20 cents to the annual bill of the average rate-payer for a period of three years.

It is critical that we call on our political leaders to take action and protect America. If we fail, we have only ourselves to blame.

The next attack on America could very well be the end of America.

Read it all here; comments are open.

Protecting the power grid is only the first step.

We need to go much further. The federal government is aware of, and concerned about, the danger of EMP weapons. Private industry and the public, not so much. It’s time to start working on shielding all of our infrastructure, including privately-owned medical devices, motor vehicles, appliances, computers, cell phones, and other communications equipment. We’ve scarcely begun that task. It’s a matter of educating the public so that consumers will demand products that are properly shielded to withstand both enemy attacks and solar phenomena.

I must also point out that not all of our enemies are nation states, and EMP weapons can also be delivered by less sophisticated means, such as container ships.

More Information:

• NASA: A Super Solar Flare
• National Geographic: What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today?
• Wikipedia: March 1989 Geomagnetic Storm
• Wikipedia: Electromagnetic pulse