EMP threat

Government failing to fully address EMP threats to the grid, officials say

EMPs aren’t fiction, although they have been featured in books and movies. Frankenstein arose after a lightning strike, for example. And many say EMPs pose a real threat. Power supplies in Quebec were interrupted in 1989 by a geomagnetic storm. And in 2010, a senior British defense official warned that countries might try to cause an EMP to interrupt electronics.

“Within DHS, there is recognition that space weather and power grid failure are significant risk events,” the GAO says. And DHS has found that those pose a “great risk to the security of the nation.”

But DHS and the Department of Energy (DOE) have not reported taking “any actions to identify critical electrical infrastructure assets as called for” in the 2008 recommendations.