EMP security

Newt Gingrich: What if we lost electric power … for years?

Imagine the power just went out. How would your life be immediately affected? Likely, in the short term, you’d be minorly inconvenienced. You’d have to find a candle or a flashlight to read or do household tasks. You might have to change your dinner plan, because you can’t use your electric stove to cook.

But now imagine that the power didn’t come back on – for weeks, months, or years – and imagine the outage is everywhere.

Now, all the food in your fridge (and your grocery store) will go bad. Your cell phone will become useless. Your car might not start – and if it does, gas station fuel pumps will not operate. If you require medication that needs to be refrigerated, it will be ruined – and replacements will be unavailable. (If you require dialysis or some other regular procedure that requires electricity, you will likely die.) The same goes for all of your neighbors and loved ones.

This the scenario we might face if the United States is attacked (or naturally suffers from) an electromagnetic pulse (or EMP) – the topic of this week’s episode of "Newt’s World."