Hello my friend and welcome back! I get a lot of emails from readers asking which would be the worst on humanity, Plague, EMP, or Nuclear attack. For Preppers, it’s a very valid question and it is the topic of today’s post. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat while we visit.
So, what is the very worst scenario possible? (Besides electing another Democratic President, that is). I see all three of these as deadly to most people and would decimate the population of any country. Let’s take a look at each one, to see what the fall out (pardon the pun.) would be.
Let’s start with the EMP scenario and go from there. The thing about an EMP is that your survival chances would directly be dependent on how advanced your civilization is. There are some places in the world that if they were hit with an EMP, they probably wouldn’t even notice it. They do not use electrical devices of any kind and have no use for them. These are third world countries that have survived for thousands of years without it.
No, the most severely impacted people would, without a doubt, be countries with a dependence on technology, like the U.S. Life here in the US would grind to a halt overnight and Government studies have shown that an estimated 90% of Americans would be dead in one year after an EMP attack. This is because we have become so dependent on electronics to maintain our day to day world. Our entire infrastructure would collapse in the blink of an eye. Those with pacemakers and on life saving equipment would be the first to die. The rest would succumb to violence and disease. Only those who are truly prepared and have the mental fortitude to handle the new world would survive. While truly horrible, it is not the worst possible disaster because it would be isolated to one country.
Next, let’s look at a Nuclear Attack. The world is full of Nuclear bombs, even though some countries claim they don’t have them at all. I truly doubt that by the way. Nuclear bombs have the ability to kill thousands or even millions of people, depending on how densely populated the target is. Now that is just the beginning, the fallout will have the ability to kill millions more. They would die from radiation poisoning and suffer an agonizing death. As the body count added up, disease would begin to spread, killing many more. The area where the bomb was detonated would be toxic for many years to come and uninhabitable. If it was a full on attack, where multiple warheads destroyed most of the highly populated areas, you would probably see at least a 90% die off, within the first year as well. However, like the EMP, it would be localized to only a few countries at the most.
Plague however, is a particularly terrible disaster. Even a plague with a 70% kill rate would quickly decimate any country if it were allowed to spread uncontrolled. If it was to become airborne, you could contract it with little or no warning. If it had a slow incubation period, it could be spread all over the world before we even knew what it was. Surviving a plague would require you to be several miles away from other people, who could be carrying the disease. If it could be carried by flies and mosquitos as well then you could quickly turn into a Pandemic and decimate the entire world.
The only upside to this is that you could prepare now and have a safe place for you and your family to go as soon as it was discovered. The same is pretty much true for the EMP as well. If you are in or near a major city when the Nuclear bombs are dropped, then you are pretty much toast. If you are not, then you may have a chance of surviving, though the odds would not be in your favor. Radiation, spread by the wind and rain, would cover the country and your only hope would be to have enough food and water to be able to remain indoors for a year or more.
As you can see, none of these disasters bode well for the average person and less so if you live in the city. Your best hope is to head for a secluded spot in the unpopulated wilderness and shoot anyone that approaches for the first year. Now, as for which one is worst? While a Nuclear attack could destroy an entire country making it uninhabitable for years to come, and the EMP would have a 90% die off as well, I think that a plague would be the worst because it could potentially wipe out all of humanity.
Those with the fortitude to and foresight to prepare now will be the only ones who will even have a chance of surviving, and even then they might not make it. Prepare or die, it’s as simple as that.
Well that is it for today and I hope you have enjoyed today’s post and found value in reading it. Until next time, stay safe, stay strong and stay prepared! God Save America!
-The Sargent-
I would go with the last as well. Plague, zombie Apocalypse.
No analysis of a possible event can be complete without assessing the probabilities of that type of event occurring. While plague and nuclear attack are certainly possible I think the EMP scenario is most probable because it is the easiest to pull off. You don’t have to have numerous high tech missiles and warheads to attack a country like the USA. All you need are one or two low yield nukes, a few scud missiles, and a freighter off the coast of the US from which to launch the missiles. Even a terrorist group like ISIS could pull this off.
A nuclear strike (not a dirty bomb) would plunge the entire world into a deep economic depression. Assuming a strike by a nation – not ISIS or al Qaeda – there would certainly be retaliatory strikes, meaning nuclear war. Millions would die immediately, with untold more dying later. To me, nuclear war would be the most devastating.
If there was an EMP attack that decimated the population there would also be a major nuclear problem also. Who would monitor and care for all the Nuclear power plants. we are screwed
Hi Sargent,
I agree with you that these scenarios have the potential to wipe out any country, if not the species. It’s terrifying that 90% of Americans would die without electricity. Have we really become so weakened by technology?
What are your thoughts on economic collapse? Granted, it wouldn’t be as devastating as a Nuke or a pandemic, but it seems a more likely, given the reckless ways our government steals our cash. Curious to know your thoughts.
Keep up the fight!
Joey
When my mom got a pacemaker last year, I was nervous and did more research. Here’s what I found (although I didn’t copy the source- sorry.) This gave me a lot of comfort, and from other things I have learned both about EMP’s, and pacemakers, I agree with it: EMP and PACEMAKER
Hollywood over dramatizes the capabilities of an EMP and pacemakers don’t work that way.
An EMP generates a pulse of electrical activity that disrupts electronics. Either one of two things will happen. The electronics overheat and melt. Or the electronics are restarted and work fine. Most electronics can handle 10 times the power currently moving through them and won’t fry at a little extra activity. The only type that can’t is high power electronics such as substations and the massive power converters at power plants. But only the sun can produce a high enough EMP burst to affect those stations.
Pacemaker have an internal reset and will be working again 10 seconds after an EMP burst.
Also pacemakers only run when there is a problem to correct. Most people with them need it to keep them alive when they sleep as their heart rate will drop to a dangerous level otherwise. It isn’t a big deal to go for a few hours without a pacemaker for most people.
Interesting analysis! Depending on the extent of the nuclear attack and retaliation in kind, we could see a MAD (mutually assured destruction) scenario. In that case nuclear would be the most severe in consequence to the entire planet. With global dispersal of radiation and a nuclear winter that would follow, extinction would likely be total. However if you are talking about a limited attack with limited response, I could agree with your assessment.
Yes, I was talking about limited strikes on one or two countries. Thanks! 🙂