The Secure The Grid Minute

Enforcing the Law Without Electricity

This is Tommy Waller with the Secure The Grid Minute.  

Curiously, for the immense challenges facing Puerto Rico in the midst of its unprecedented blackout, there aren’t many in media who are willing to investigate how this cautionary tale could unfold on the U.S. mainland.  Yet, Puerto Rican residents confront the daily challenges that plague any modern society faced with an abrupt blackout. 

One such challenge is crime – which HAS been covered in some recent news reports.  Indeed, crime skyrockets when the lights go out. 

New York’s 1977 blackout, which lasted only 24hrs, resulted in the arrests of more than 4,500 looters, an estimated $300 million worth of property damage, and more than 550 law enforcement officers being injured in the line of duty. 

To learn more about the implications of a pro-longed blackout for law enforcement and everyday American citizens, and to learn what threats to our grid could cause such a scenario to unfold here on the mainland, go to securethegrid.com 

 

Unimaginable Strike From North Korea

This is Tommy Waller with the Secure The Grid Minute. 

Recently North Korea’s state-run media said: “The U.S. should expect it would face an unimaginable strike at an unimaginable time.” 

Just like our nation thought it unimaginable before 9/11 for a group of Islamic jihadis to hijack airplanes and use them as weapons, most Americans – including most in Congress – exhibit a similar, but much more profound and inexcusable failure of imagination – that North Korea could use any one of its numerous nuclear weapons to strike the U.S. with an Electromagnetic Pulse - EMP – attack. 

Such an attack would black out our electric grid for potentially years, which could literally end U.S. civilization. 

Kim Jung Un has tested this type of attack, rehearsed it in numerous ways, and even recently explicitly warned of using it against the United States.  Though the Congressional EMP commission warned about EMP in numerous reports to Congress for more than 14 years, almost NOTHING has been done to defend against it. 

THAT is unimaginable. 

Learn more at www.securethegrid.com    

The Swan Song of the EMP Commission

Former Congressman Curt Weldon, the only member of congress who held simultaneously the Vice Chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee and House Homeland Security Committee, and who was also responsible for giving the United States national missile defense recently stated:   “Only Washington bureaucrats could be so stupid they would terminate the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, also known as the Congressional EMP Commission — just when North Korea threatened to attack the United States with EMP.”

Indeed, on September 30, 2017, this Commission – and the multi-decades of experience of its members – expired.   Yesterday, the Commission’s Chairman, Dr. William R. Graham, and its Chief of Staff,  Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency about the incredible and imminent threats facing the U.S. electric grid and made extraordinarily wise recommendations for addressing these threats.

Let’s hope and pray that these recommendations are taken to heart by members of that committee.  To read the testimony for yourself, click here

Puerto Rico

This is Tommy Waller, Director for Special Projects at the Center for Security Policy, with the Secure The Grid Minute.   CAGUAS, Puerto Rico:  Harry Figueroa, a teacher who went a week without the oxygen that helped him breathe, died there last week at age 58.  His body went unrefrigerated for so long that the funeral director could not embalm his badly decomposed corpse.  His daughter stated “Because of the electricity situation, a lot of people died, and are still dying….You can’t get sick now.” 

America needs to pay close attention to Puerto Rico, help the people of the island as much as we can, and learn some valuable lessons about our dependence on electricity. 

Destructive weather, such as Hurricane Maria, is only one threat to this life sustaining resource.  To learn more about the other – much more significant – threats to our electric grid visit us at www.securethegrid.com. In the meantime, join is in praying diligently for our brothers and sisters to the south.