- Forstchen, William R.
One Second After.
New York: Forge, 2009.
ISBN 978-0-7653-1758-2.
-
Suppose, one fine spring day, with no warning or evident cause, the
power went out. After a while, when it didn't come back on,
you might try to telephone the power company, only to discover
the phone completely dead. You pull out your mobile
phone, and it too is kaput—nothing happens at all
when you try to turn it on. You get the battery powered radio
you keep in the basement in case of storms, and it too is
dead; you swap in the batteries from the flashlight
(which works) but that doesn't fix the radio. So, you decide to
drive into town and see if anybody there knows what's going on.
The car doesn't start. You set out on foot, only to discover
when you get to the point along the lane where you can see
the highway that it's full of immobile vehicles with their drivers
wandering around on foot as in a daze.
What's happening—The Day the Earth Stood
Still? Is there a saucer on the ground in Washington?
Nobody knows: all forms of communication are down, all modes
of transportation halted. You might think this yet another
implausible scenario
for a thriller, but what I've just described
(in a form somewhat different than the novel) is pretty much what
the sober-sided experts of the
Commission to Assess the
Threat to the United States from
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack sketch out in their April
2008
Critical
National Infrastructures report and
2004
Executive Report
as the consequences of the detonation of a single nuclear weapon
in space high above the continental United States. There would
be no thermal, blast, or radiation effects on the ground
(although somebody unlucky enough to be looking toward
the location of the detonation the sky might suffer vision
damage, particularly if it occurred at night), but
a massive
electromagnetic pulse
(EMP) created as prompt gamma rays from the nuclear detonation create
free electrons in the upper atmosphere due to the
Compton effect
which spiral along the lines of force of Earth's magnetic field and
emit an intense electric field pulse in three phases which reaches
the ground and affects electrical and electronic equipment in a
variety of ways, none good. As far as is known, the electromagnetic
pulse is completely harmless to humans and other living organisms
and would not even be perceived by them.
But it's Hell on electronics. The immediate (E1) pulse arrives at the
speed of light everywhere within the line of sight of the detonation,
and with a rise time of at most a few nanoseconds, gets into all kinds
of electronics much faster than any form of transient protection can
engage; this is what kills computer and communications gear and any
other kind of electronics with exposed leads or antennas which the
pulse can excite. The second phase (E2) pulse is much like the
effects of a local lightning strike, and would not cause damage to
equipment with proper lightning protection except that in many cases
the protection mechanisms may have been damaged or disabled by the
consequences of the E1 pulse (which has no counterpart in lightning,
and hence lightning mitigation gear is not tested to withstand it).
Finally, the E3 pulse arrives, lasting tens to hundreds of seconds,
which behaves much like the fields created during a major
solar/geomagnetic storm (although the EMP effect may be larger),
inducing large currents in long distance electrical transmission lines
and other extended conductive structures. The consequences of this kind
of disruption are well documented from a number of incidents such as
the 1989 geomagnetic storm which caused the collapse of the Quebec Hydro
power distribution grid. But unlike a geomagnetic storm, the EMP E3 pulse
can affect a much larger area, hit regions in latitudes rarely vulnerable
to geomagnetic storms, and will have to be recovered from in an environment
where electronics and communications are down due to the damage from the
E1 and E2 pulses.
If you attribute much of the technological and economic progress of the
last century and a half to the connection of the developed world by
electrical, transportation, communication, and computational networks
which intimately link all parts of the economy and interact
with one another in complex and often non-obvious ways, you can
think about the consequences of the detonation of a single nuclear
weapon launched by a relatively crude missile (which need not be
long range if fired, say, from a freighter outside the
territorial waters of the target country) by imagining living in
the 21st century, seeing the lights flicker and go out and hearing
the air conditioner stop, and two minutes later you're living
in 1860. None of this is fantasy—all of the EMP effects were documented
in nuclear tests in the 1960s and hardening military gear against
EMP has been an active area of research and development for decades:
this book, which sits on my own shelf, was
published 25 years ago. Little or no effort has been expended on
hardening the civil infrastructure or commercial electronics against
this threat.
This novel looks at what life might be like in the year following
an EMP attack on the United States, seen through the microcosm of a
medium sized college town in North Carolina where the protagonist
is a history professor.
Unlike many thrillers, the author superbly describes the sense
of groping in the dark when communication is cut and rumours
begin to fly, the realisation that with the transportation
infrastructure down the ready food supply is measured in
days (especially after the losses due to failure of refrigeration),
and the consequences to those whose health depends upon medications
produced at great distance and delivered on a just in time basis.
It is far from a pretty picture, but given the premises of the
story (about which I shall natter a bit below), entirely plausible
in my opinion. This story has the heroes and stolid get-things-done
people who come to the fore in times of crisis, but it also shows
how thin the veneer of civilisation is when the food starts to
run out and the usual social constraints and sanctions begin to
fail. There's no triumphant ending: what is described is a disaster
and the ensuing tragedy, with survival for some the best which can be made
of the situation. The message is that this, or something like it
although perhaps not so extreme, could happen, and that
the time to take the relatively modest and inexpensive (at least
compared to recent foreign military campaigns) steps to render
an EMP attack less probable and, should one occur, to mitigate its
impact on critical life-sustaining infrastructure and prepare for
recovery from what damage does occur, is now, not the
second after the power goes out—all across the continent.
This is a compelling page-turner, which I devoured in just a few days.
I do believe the author overstates the total impact of an EMP
attack. The scenario here is that essentially everything which
incorporates solid state electronics or is plugged into the power
grid is fried at the instant of the attack,
and that only vacuum tube gear, vehicles without electronic
ignition or fuel injection, and other museum pieces remain
functional. All airliners en route fall from the sky when
their electronics are hit by the pulse. But the EMP Commission
report is relatively sanguine about equipment not connected
to the power grid which doesn't have vulnerable antennas.
They discuss aircraft at some length, and conclude that since
all commercial and military aircraft are currently tested and
certified to withstand direct lightning strikes, and all but
the latest fly-by-wire planes use mechanical and hydraulic
control linkages, they are unlikely to be affected by EMP.
They may lose communication, and the collapse of the air traffic
control system will pose major problems and doubtless lead to
some tragedies, but all planes aloft raining from the sky doesn't
seem to be in the cards. Automobiles and trucks were tested
by the commission (see pp. 115–116 of the
Critical
Infrastructures report), and no damage whatsoever
occurred to vehicles not running when subjected to a simulated pulse;
some which were running stopped, but all but a few immediately
restarted and none required more than routine garage repairs.
Having the highways open and trucks on the road makes a
huge difference in a disaster recovery scenario.
But let me qualify these quibbles by noting that nobody
knows what will actually happen: with non-nuclear
EMP and other electromagnetic weapons a focus of current
research, doubtless much of the information on vulnerability
of various systems remains under the seal of secrecy. And
besides, in a cataclysmic situation, it's usually
the things you didn't think of which cause the
most dire problems.
One language note: the author seems to believe that the word
“of” is equivalent to “have” when used
in a phrase such as “You should've” or
“I'd have”—instead, he writes “You should of”
and “I'd of”. At first I thought this was a dialect
affectation of a single character, but it's used all over the
place, by characters of all kinds of regional and cultural
backgrounds. Now, this usage is grudgingly sanctioned
(or at least acknowledged) by the descriptive
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
of English Usage (p. 679, item 2), but it
just drives me nuts; if you consider the definitions of the
individual words, what can “should of” possibly mean?
This novel focuses on the human story of people caught entirely by
surprise trying to survive in a situation beyond their imagining one
second before. If reading this book makes you ponder what steps you
might take beforehand to protect your family in such a circumstance,
James Wesley Rawles's
Patriots (December 2008),
which is being issued in a
new, expanded edition in April 2009,
is an excellent resource, as is Rawles's
SurvivalBlog.
A podcast
interview with William R. Forstchen about
One Second After is available.
March 2009 