The Civil Defense Book

Book excerpt: According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security in 2017, millions of Americans-perhaps the majority of the population-would die if the electrical grid went down for a significant period of time. Not only is this disturbing fact is well known to Congress, it is also well known to America's enemies. The United States today remains extremely vulnerable to a wide variety of man-made and natural threats, such as electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, cyber-attack, geomagnetic disturbance (GMD), terrorism, weather and many other threats. In November of 2017, the FEMA Administrator noted in his testimony to Congress that "we do not have a culture of preparedness in this country." The majority of Americans are unaware of the magnitude of the threats to the electric grid and our communities are completely unprepared. We have seen from recent disasters such as hurricanes Katrina, Maria, Harvey and Irma that communities can be on their own for a long period of time until help arrives - and these are regional disasters where massive outside resources are still available. Here is the fatal flaw of the emergency management system in the United States: it depends on our ability to bring outside resources into a disaster area. But what if the majority of the country was the disaster area? What if cities and towns across the country were on their own for a long period of time? Survival will be a local issue. The cavalry will not be coming. The real key to having prepared and resilient communities lies in the communities having a civil defense plan and being prepared for a worst-case scenario, such as a national-scale power outage. This book is about taking pre-disaster mitigation to the next level, so that your town can be ready for any disaster, large or small. It is possible for a town to survive if the grid goes down long term. But only if a few of its citizens act now. This book takes you through the steps to prepare your town for a worst-case national disaster. And in being prepared for a worst-case scenario, you and your town can be prepared for anything from a minor power outage to a hurricane to an electromagnetic pulse, solar flare or cyber-attack taking out the entire power grid. This is the Civil Defense Book!