Grid Down Preps

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The gist of it was that some street lights blew out because of the specific voltage, setup and orientation of the wires (relative to the detonation) while most others did not, even in the same area.

What it also demonstrates is that making broad generalizations about EMP effects is unwise.

So many variables determine the effects from a particular source as experienced at a particular place, that a wide range of outcomes is possible.

When people say that "EMP will damage abc but won't damage xyz", they may be right some of the time, but won't be right all of the time. In many cases, they won't be right most of the time.

That makes discussing EMP threats complex - but survivalism is about dealing with qualitative analyses and probabilities more than absolutes.
 
The gist of it was that some street lights blew out because of the specific voltage, setup and orientation of the wires (relative to the detonation) while most others did not, even in the same area.
Yes. Voltage spikes and voltage surges are common everywhere and can (and do) destroy stuff. The major effect of an EMP will be the same. Induced spike in power lines like above.
Is there anyone here that does not have a 'surge/spike suppressor' already plugged in somewhere in their home?
I bet not.
My backup system back in Bama logged every 'event' and I could go back thru the data.
Your power is probably not as clean as you think.
It was not uncommon to see a surge every couple months of over 179vac on the 120vac line.
One of the UPS units I had set to chirp when line voltage was over 131vac.
Had to call the power company on 2 occasions to 'crank me down'.
When I got home from work, I could pull up a graph and see within 2 minutes of when it magically went back to 120vac.
Why do they slowly increase your voltage?
Same load, + more volts=more power, =more money.
EMP's affect things that are connected to long wires and are available with any decent lightning storm.
Nothing new.
 
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Your power is probably not as clean as you think.

There is a reason almost every electronic device in your house has its own little transformer and surge suppressor built into it.

Also a reason why your laptop, phone, cars ECU, etc are either inside a metal housing, or plastic painted with metal paint, or have internal metal plates screwed to the plastic. Just the day to day EM environment is pretty messy.
 
solar ark done testing...what does it mean..i dont know..its internet man...lol


Nice of him to mention connected wires as the biggest problem like I did.
Your solar panels will be just fine..... as long as they are not wired up.;)
 
Years ago when I was doing custodial/maintenance for the local school district while doing early morning walk arounds, I saw blue flashes and a loud humming from the local plywood mill when a transformer blew out, as a result a high voltage spike came through the power lines and burned out the windings of a 208 volt three phase 8 hp fan motor, as it is I'm pretty sure the voltage in the area runs spiky due to all of the high hp motors running at both of the mills.
 
What it also demonstrates is that making broad generalizations about EMP effects is unwise.

So many variables determine the effects from a particular source as experienced at a particular place, that a wide range of outcomes is possible.

When people say that "EMP will damage abc but won't damage xyz", they may be right some of the time, but won't be right all of the time. In many cases, they won't be right most of the time.

That makes discussing EMP threats complex - but survivalism is about dealing with qualitative analyses and probabilities more than absolutes.
[/QUOTE
True but...

If we know what the worst case is and prep for same we can handle lesser events.

I ordered 3 books on steam engine governors last night.

Ben
 
There is a reason almost every electronic device in your house has its own little transformer and surge suppressor built into it.

Also a reason why your laptop, phone, cars ECU, etc are either inside a metal housing, or plastic painted with metal paint, or have internal metal plates screwed to the plastic. Just the day to day EM environment is pretty messy.
That shielding is there to comply with FCC regulations. Look at the sticker on the bottom of electronic devices that reads...

This decice will not emit and will not accept interference.

Are you old enough to remember the TV going wonky when the neighbors ran the vacuum cleaner?

That is what the shielding is there for.

The high freq energy that @SheepDog is warning about has wavelengths small enough to sneak past the small gaps in that shielding.

Ben
 
The hardest part of intelligently discussing EMP is the confusion that results from the three different kinds. EMP is generic for "Electro Magnetic Pulse. If it is caused by the sun - a high power Coronal Mass Ejection - then it has two parts. It is high in gamma and Xray that can knock out satellites. This is radiation degradation and is not part of the EMP. The EMP from a solar event is caused by the pressure of the charged particles of the geomagnetic grid. As the geomagnetic grid breaks and snaps back it causes high amperage to build up in transmission lines. The high amperage causes heat in the wires as well as in large transformers and the generators. When the wires melt it makes a mess of the generators and transformers and actually melts the transmission lines as well. %Ths EMP is an E3 pulse and it is the only pulse that affects the earth from any solar event. These EMPs rarely get by the smaller transformers and into houses and cause only blackouts or brownouts at the consumer level. The "Carrington Event" of 1869 was the result of a large CME in an age when the only lines that were run over long distances were the fledgling telegraph wires so the damage was small.

The EMP that that will cause more damage is the High Altitude Nuclear Detonation. (HEMP)
It causes more damage because it causes 3 distinct events in rapid succession.
As the bomb is detonated it sends high speed neutrons in all directions and the neutrons that don't run into the nuclear material continue in a straight path away from the bomb. Those free neutrons will hit and possibly cripple any satellites they hit but the neutrons that travel towards the earth have a lot of atmosphere to penetrate before they run into anything with enough mass to stop them.As the neutrons travel through the atmosphere they knock electrons off the air molecules and the electrons get caught in the magnetic flux of the earths magnetic field, spiraling between the north and south poles of the earth. Because the air is missing all those electrons It becomes a positive plasma. This takes only about .5 millionths of a second and the plasma is charged to + 50000v/M. This is the E1 "pulse". It has a high voltage and an extremely fast rise time that it does not require a conductor to pass the voltage. The lifetime of the charge is very short. It dissipates in 20 millionths of a second but in that time the high voltage will burn through the junction of any semiconductor rendering it useless. There is no Faraday cage that will stop a charge carried by a plasma field that is larger than the cage itself.
The E2 pulse follows shortly after the E1 pulse. This E2 pulse has nearly the same properties as lightning. The big difference is that it it spread over a very large area. By itself the E2 would not cause much damage as the high speed electronic switches would simply ground it. That is if the E1 pulse had not already disabled them. Without protection the small transformers at the consumer level are burnt out or cause voltage spikes or brownouts in the home.
The E3 has had time for the explosion to deform the magnetic field and the field to rebound. The higher the yield the stronger the deformation and more damage is done as the field rebounds inducing a high amperage charge into the long transmission lines. This is just like the EMP of a Solar Mass Ejection with the exception that it will only affect the area in the "line of sight" from the bomb to the apparent horizon from the bombs point of view. At an altitude of 250 miles the effects of the HEMP will cover an area of about 3500 mile circle on the surface of the earth.

The EMP from a solar Mass Ejection can cover the entire earth from pole to pole and completely around the earth - even the side facing away from the sun. This "limitation" in the HEMP makes it an extremely good weapon. The weapon can be used at altitudes from slightly less than 30 miles to more than 300 miles above the target area. The higher the detonation the larger the area of destruction.

The third kind of EMP is called EMI. This is typically an X-ray generator on an aircraft that can target a single facility long enough to inject the X-ray into the structure and operating devices. EMI stands for Electro Magnetic Injection. It has limited use because it takes time to work and the craft that delivers the injection signal has to hover or travel at slow speeds making it an easy target.
 
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well for me i look at percentages...now i dont have no official way or understanding do a correct mathematical figuring for emp but in my opinion its pretty low looking at overall history. but...i do have power outages all the time so i have work around for daily living to be less disrupted. those items should,could,would,might,maybe help in the event of emp and depending on its severity and locality it hits.just regular aging infrastructure many of us have is much more a threat than an emp..my 2cents.

i go a week often and more without power. i have far more wind related events bringing trees down putting power out than any other thing. just went through one 2 weeks ago. its dang hot here...a way to have a fan is a must at minimum to cool yourself,especially if doing any work in gardens and such.

i have super cheap low tech stuff for lighting from headlamps to little knock off d-light lanterns. they work fantastic and way just a few ounces and all you do is set them on window seal and they are charged and ready.they even charge in low light. overcast days they show charging as well.they are great to keep sitting around.plus no flame to cause trouble of a fire.its reason guy invented the d light after seeing a little boy get burned by a turned over crappy oil wick lamp they use in africa.

everybody gotta decide what they want and prep for.
 
Here are the specs for the EMP Shields that I have, 228,000 amps per phase, Mil Specs- MIL-STD-188-125-1, MIL-STD-464C, MIL-STD-461 and RS-105 90,000 volts. When I worked for Square D Company, in Seattle and Denver we did what is called "High Pot" testing for ratings that were required by companies that were buying the equipment, it was a high voltage test to make sure there were no easy shorting places in all the buss insulation, I'm not sure but I think the voltage was around 10,000 volts, we also had two main insulation spacings for rating asymmetric amperage, dead shorts on amperages up to 6,000 amps do strange things, buss tries to straighten out any bends, one time I saw a 14 gage steel panel with a large hole burned in the back where an electrician was changing out a bad 250 amp three phase breaker, the power was supposed to be locked out, but when he push the breaker in place, all hell broke loose, we heard that it took off his nose and ears, I believe that because of the size of the burned hole in the back of the panel.
 
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You might want to add a well bucket to your preps for grid down. They work, and you can find well buckets cheaper than this one.

Lehman's Own Galvanized Well Bucket
Thanks for posting that! I never even knew that existed before your post. Since then, I've even ordered some other things from Lehmans. I just got the bucket delivered a short time ago, since it was apparently on back order. Hubs asked what it was for. I told him what it was, then said "if all goes well, we'll never even have to use it". I also have a manual well pump that I could use in an emergency. I consider both just to be extreme SHTF items, b/c I hope to never have to use either of them.

We have plenty of water sources around us, but it will be nice to not HAVE to go anywhere to get clean water and negates the need to use a generator to run a pump to get water. This saves fuel and calories while also enhancing security by not having to travel anywhere to obtain water. It's also noiseless and portable so-as to work anywhere that there is already a well. I feel better knowing I have that area covered. For the price, it was well worth the peace of mind.
 
it will be nice to not HAVE to go anywhere

It could also be life saving. There could come a time when its too dangerous to walk past a window with the curtain open. If you read accounts of people surviving civil wars etc, you see that a common way to end up lined up on a bridge and executed, is to be running around outside trying to find supplies. No matter how many water sources you have nearby, you should have one that is RIGHT THERE. Preferably without even having to step outside.

I think the ability to go to 'silent running' for at least some period is an important one.
 
So since we live where we do, I've been uneasy about it - even before all the hoopla. Everything in the house is grid electric which in my opinion is the most vulnerable of situations. (I wonder how many people are not even aware of that?) I finally received our indoor propane heater. Yay! It has enough BTU to heat our whole house :) I just feel better about it. When I told Hubby, he agreed it's probably a good thing to have. We've only had 1 winter power outage and managed with our little buddy heater and all the doors closed and slept in the living room but would rather not have to resort to that.
 
So since we live where we do, I've been uneasy about it - even before all the hoopla. Everything in the house is grid electric which in my opinion is the most vulnerable of situations. (I wonder how many people are not even aware of that?) I finally received our indoor propane heater. Yay! It has enough BTU to heat our whole house :) I just feel better about it. When I told Hubby, he agreed it's probably a good thing to have. We've only had 1 winter power outage and managed with our little buddy heater and all the doors closed and slept in the living room but would rather not have to resort to that.
In 1996 we were in an all electric townhouse... 3 major storms came through in a period of a week, we had an Astro-van at the time and you couldn't see where it was..... Our front door was 4 steps up and the snow was above the door knob.... We opened the door and threw the dog out on the top of the snow so she could do her business... Few minutes she scratched at the door, looked like a ground hog hole.... We were without power for the next 7 days, no heat, no hot water, no stove... We sat up tents in the living room and cooked on camp stoves that were in the back packs... Without those 72 hr kits and our practice runs we would have been in deep stuff...... When we bought our home, we bought what we could afford, but we had to have gas heat and a wood stove (I installed that) so we can get by if we have to.... In the back of my mind I keep thinking there's a big one waiting out there, just waiting for me to let my guard down......
 
In 1996 we were in an all electric townhouse... 3 major storms came through in a period of a week, we had an Astro-van at the time and you couldn't see where it was..... Our front door was 4 steps up and the snow was above the door knob.... We opened the door and threw the dog out on the top of the snow so she could do her business... Few minutes she scratched at the door, looked like a ground hog hole.... We were without power for the next 7 days, no heat, no hot water, no stove... We sat up tents in the living room and cooked on camp stoves that were in the back packs... Without those 72 hr kits and our practice runs we would have been in deep stuff...... When we bought our home, we bought what we could afford, but we had to have gas heat and a wood stove (I installed that) so we can get by if we have to.... In the back of my mind I keep thinking there's a big one waiting out there, just waiting for me to let my guard down......
I've had wood heat as an option since 1994 - that is until about 2-3 years ago. It's a little unnerving. I've cooked many times on the wood stove no biggy. We also have other options for cooking. Isn't it peculiar what some folks are okay with and some folks aren't? I guess I just like to know if plan A doesn't work, plan B is waiting in the wings. Or C or D or E. . .
 
Me, too. A cousin that knows we prep was visiting the other day and was talking about buying some ready to eat stuff in case of emergency. So I encouraged her. Then I realized she only wants stuff ready to eat that doesn't need to be heated because she can't comprehend a way to heat something other than what is standard. So, I showed her dutch oven outdoors, barbeque with side burner, camp stove, rocket stove, sun oven, wood burning stove top, and even the MRE heaters. I think she'll stick with tuna in a pouch and some saltines. Either that, or she'll just come over.
 
Everything in the house is grid electric which in my opinion is the most vulnerable of situations

Yep. Almost every scenario leads to power loss as one of the first things to go, and in the real world, it's the most common 'SHTF' that people experience. Usually its temporary with little to no consequences, but last winter people in texas managed to freeze to death in their own homes when the power went out.
 

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