One Second After
by William R. Forstchen
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Book Reviews of One Second After
Book Review: A MUST READ - A very timely, well thought out, and important work - Everyone should read this book and learn more about EMP
Summary: 5 Stars
My first exposure to the dangers of EMP came through reading this exellent book. This author takes you on what I've recently learned would be an all-too-realistic journey about what would happen when there's a large-scale EMP attack if we don't wake up and do something about it fast. After getting into the book, I started looking into some of the facts and science. Once a read the congressional reports on this subject and other materials that I came across online, I was shocked. First of all, I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard more about this before through the media. Second, I couldn't believe just how likely and devastating this type of scenario would be. And, lastly, I was (and still am) amazed that nothing is being done about it.
In addition to reading this book, you at least need to look at the preface and the first 5-10 pages of the 2004 Congressional EMP report (available at www.empactamerica.net or directly at http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf). Be prepared to be shocked. If you read that report and aren't interested in this book and learning more about EMP, you might want to check your pulse.
Just to give you an idea about how timely this book is, on Tuesday, July 21, 2009, there was a little known hearing by the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology about "Securing the Modern Electric Grid from Physical and Cyber Attacks" in which the bi-partisan congressional sub-committee openly discussed this threat with great urgency as a clear and present danger to our nation, and pointed out that we are woefully unprepared and need to act now. I've never seen anything like it. I highly recommend that you watch a video of that hearing (available at www.empactamerica.net or directly at http://homeland.edgeboss.net/wmedia/homeland/chs/elecgrid.wvx).
Last but not least, there is an unprecedented conference coming up on September 9th and 10th, 2009, in Niagara Falls, NY on protecting America from continental shutdown from an EMP attack. Featured speakers include the Author of "One Second After" William Forstchen, Former Governor & Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee, Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, Members of the EMP Commission itself, and many other EMP experts from the military, industry, and academia. I strongly encourage everyone to go to the conference if you can. If you can't go, please at least take the time to learn more about this subject and get involved as much as you can. You can learn more about that at www.empactamerica.net.
One great way to learn more, and get a realistic understanding about the subject matter of EMP and what we could all face at anytime, is to read the book "One Second After." I've come to realize that it's not just another book; it truly is a very timely "must-read" about a present-day and potentially devastating threat to our country and our lives. I think that this book could have a profound effect on our country when enough people read it. It could turn out to be an alarm bell that spurs action by our government and/or the private sector to protect our power grids and other critical assets before it's too late. If not, it may turn out to be an invaluable survival guide for those of us who do read it and are better prepared to act as individuals. I've been giving this book as a gift to my family and friends, and have been highly recommending it to everyone else - including you now.
Book Review: A National Table Top Exercise for Long-term Disasters such as EMP and Solar Storms
Summary: 5 Stars
On August 7, 2009, the first table top exercise for a year-long power outage was conducted by local emergency management planning officials from Erie County, the city of Buffalo, local towns and mission critical infrastructure managers. This is unique since table top disaster planning scenarios are crafted to encourage us to use our interoperable communications tools and work more effectively together. The EMP/100 year solar storm scenario is qualitatively different from all the other DHS scenarios in that in can take those tools away from us. As in much of the Katrina disaster, we can't be interoperable if we are not operable. (This exercise will be reviewed at the Niagara Falls, NY EMP conference Sep 8-10.)
One Second After is helpful, not only because it walks us through what might be a worst case scenario for EMP, it also prepares us to think about how to work through similar scenarios that can affect power and communications for an extended period of time. The recent warning from the scientific and engineering community presented at August Congressional cyber security hearings has been the recalibration of the worst case 100 yr solar storm scenario. Previously, most thought it might result in a week long black out. Now, consensus from the Space Forum, which includes NASA and NOAA, shows that such a storm could cause a one year black out with power rationing for the subsequent 4-10 years forcing $trillions in economic loss not to mention loss of life.
Once managers of critical infrastructure and emergency management professionals work through these scenarios, they can adjust the reality of such an event for their local environment. Low, medium and high-impact EMP scenarios were outlined in an economic impact assessment of a regional EMP event reported by the updated Congressional Research Service report on EMP from July 21, 2008. The good news is that the underlying economic impact assessment showed that protecting even 10% of critical infrastructure can minimize economic losses by maintaining core infrastructure and situational awareness. That kind of assessment and work is exactly what is called for by the fire code for business continuity, the NFPA 1600.
Unfortunately, many may get caught up in the argument as to whether the EMP issue is a way to push a missile defense program and get stuck in sometimes mean and too often mindless political debate. Since a solar storm can't be shot down with a missile, we can replace that bickering with a call to prepare by hardening 10 per cent or so of our critical infrastructure and think through "work-arounds" while that effort is in progress.
Recent research projects in public-private partnerships with the University of Maryland and the state of Maryland look at the use of EMP-hardened renewable energy systems and fiber optic networks as ways to create robust communication networks and local power alternatives in addition to what might be done to harden the grids. Others are exploring more local food production and storage.
At the end of the book, the question is raised, "why didn't anybody do anything about this ahead of time?" Hopefully, this book, and others like it, will motivate us to work through the issues in our local communities and do something rather than take the easy path of merely arguing over smaller details and partisan political agendas.
Book Review: A disturbingly realistic portrayal of our demise without being preachy or jingoistic
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a saying that every society is three meals away from collapsing. This story reveals how the social contract begin to disintegrate even before then, just by the looming realization of want to come. John Matherson, a former Colonel in the US Army and a professor of military history at a small college, lives a relatively serene life in the quaint town of Black Mountain, nestled in the mountains of Western North Carolina. He grieves for his beloved wife who died a few years back and is a father of two teenaged daughters.
When the power suddenly goes out one late Spring afternoon, John thinks nothing of it, but soon he realizes nothing is working, not his new SUV, not the the battery powered CD player, not his watch even. He comes to the conclusion that it was an EMP, which fries all integrated circuit based technology. Without telecommunications, there is no way to know how extensive the EMP hit. We learn by the lack of response from the outside that the EMP had hit across the US. With that technology now gone, the infrastructure that sustained a densely populated and urban civilization collapses. People's knowledge base that served them in the post-industrial world fail them as they confront the harsh realities of survival. Combined with the loss of communication and transportation, panic sets in in the surrounding regions. Only the town of Black Mountain and its neighbor Swannanoa hold on by the leadership of John Matherson and a few others who come to organize the towns. Besieged by refugees from the dying cities and the roving gangs intent on unleashing their fury, Black Mountain and Swannanoa must stand on its own to survive, for help from the US military assets from overseas and its allies is months, perhaps years away. We later learn through rumor and through the few vacuum tube radios still in existence that the EMPs were a result of three nuclear missiles detonated at a high altitude for the exact purpose of crippling the US; however, we never learn exactly who was behind it, though North Korea and Iran become glass parking lots as a result of being the primary suspects.
Forstchen created a horrifyingly realistic portrayal of how a catastrophic event like this would unfold. He has considered everything, how dependent we have become of a highly advanced yet vulnerable technology, how it's sudden loss would literally kill thousands of those who depend upon modern medicine in the first few months, and how most others alive today would perish from the opportunistic diseases that follow the chaos. John's personal story of his daughter with type one diabetes touches home, and leaves no doubt how truly devastating the EMPs would be for us. Although John Matherson is not an "everyman" in many ways, as he has a "Marlboro man" streak about him, he has all of the trappings and ties of a family man. Forstchen pulls no punches as he take away the most precious people in John's life. "One Second After" is a gripping story that left me devastated. As much as this story served as a warning for us to act to prevent this possibility, Forstchen manages to tell the story without being jingoistic, ideological, or reactionary. That being said, the end of the story leaves no doubt that such an attack would destroy us as a nation.
Book Review: A Compelling Drama and a Real Threat
Summary: 5 Stars
U.S. Army Colonel John Matherson is offered a general's star if he will accept assignment to a NATO post in Europe. But his wife Mary is ill with cancer, and he declines the commission, moving instead with her and their two daughters to her Christian-college hometown in the back woods of North Carolina. There he accepts a teaching position and adapts to a life very different from that of his Newark, NJ childhood. Then, one fine spring day, not only do the lights go out, but cellphones and car transmissions die and electronic devices of all kinds cease to function.
One Second After is a post-apocalyptic tale in the tradition of Lucifer's Hammer and Alas, Babylon. It tells the gripping story of survival in America after an EMP attack cripples the US.
The story is fluidly written, and the plot grips you. The work is realistic in its portrayal of how people react to disaster. And it is romantic in portraying heroic people who identify their values and then struggle to maintain them. I finished this book in two eager late-bedtime readings. My throat tightened with emotion a few times. The book does have a few minor drawbacks, there is too much exposition as opposed to dramatization. Forstchen often relates the story after the fact rather than describing it in real time. And the repeated use of the expression "should of" instead of "should've" which was meant to convey local dialect seems more like a spelling error than a colorful regionalism. But if a story like this one chokes you up and you find it hard to put the book down, then it's a good read. And if it makes readers think about a serious threat to the civilized world, all the better.
While it does stand alone as a story, it's obvious that the author has a point to make. Hostile reviewers complain far too loudly that this is not a work of great literature. Do yourself a favor, and read some of the four-star and some of the one-star reviews of this book. You will note that the actual substance of the criticisms in those reviews is the same. The reason for the difference in rating will become clear when you note such comments from the one-star reviewers as "extreme right wing views." But Forstchen's goal was not to present a work of despair or self-recrimination acceptable to the aesthetic tastes of the political left. Frankly, I expect Forstchen would forgo the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize for Literature if he could make the issue of preventing an EMP attack just one tenth as fashionable as was dealing with Y2K in its day. Forstchen has given us two good reasons to read this book, the warning message it implies and the story itself. Warner Brothers has optioned the movie rights. There is a Wikipedia article, and the book has an official website, onesecondafter dot com, with links to congressional documents, as well as scientific information and information about the author and the real-life setting for his novel. You can also see the author speak on on YouTube and listen to an hour-long interview at BookTV dot org, which I strongly recommend. And I recommend this book without reservation.
Book Review: Realistic
Summary: 5 Stars
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is a real danger, created by a high yield nuclear device. The higher above the surface of the earth, and the larger the yield, the wider the effect. The U.S. encountered the effect in the Starfish Prime test, a high altitude thermonuclear detonation (over one megaton) that knocked out the power grid on Oahu Island some 800 miles away.
The story told in ONE SECOND AFTER is based upon three large atomic detonation over the United States, occurring close to together with little warning, creating an EMP that destroys all printed circuit boards in the country: Effectively rendering us helpless. Is such an event possible? Would the EMP pulse actually render all electronics inoperable? The answer to both questions is yes. In just a couple of seconds, we would be reduced to having to walk, or ride bicycles or horses. As the author describes, all vehicles, with few exceptions, would simply stop when the EMP arrived.
Forstchen describes the chaos, the rapid decent of civilization, in graphic terms. As graphic as the descriptions are, the real thing would probably be worse. An attack by several atomic devices, or a successful nationwide biological attack would produce similar results. Once the banking system shut down, food and fuel delivers would cease, and then events would mimic Forstchen's story.
The point of the story is that we as a nation must be prepared. Once the event happens, it is too late for preparation. Simply put, our population can only exist at its current level when supported by modern technology. Interrupt the technology and we face the fate of any overpopulated life form--starvation.
Can terrorists, including Iran and North Korea pull off an EMP attack? Not yet. Who can? Russia and China. But that is today. How about the next decade, or the next? On the other hand, an attack with biological agents or simple atomic devices is within a terrorists grasp. Today, we are unprepared for any of these attacks.
Some will dismiss the book as fiction. Yet, short of attempting to make prophecy, fiction is the only available avenue for future seers. Putting one's faith in appeasing one's enemies is the surest way to turn fiction into reality.
CAPT Bill Sanders, USN, describes his experiences at the Nevada Test Site. I too have walked through the nuclear village, descended to the bottom of the Sedan crater (Geiger counter in hand), and been awed by the twisted steel I-beam skeletons that were once part of a tower shot. Watching a shockwave radiate out across the desert floor from an underground nuclear detonation, like the wave created in water by dropping a rock into a still pond, is awesome.
The power and effect of weapons of mass destruction can only be partially appreciated by those who have been involved in their testing. Simply put, civilization can be set back hundreds of years in a brief period of time. Allowing the spread of such technology will one day put an end to civilization as we currently know it.
This is a must read for all Americans.