Powering Through "From Fragile Infrastructures To Community Resilience

We Take Electric Power for Granted. Threats to Our Electric Grid are Real. Here's How to Prepare.(See back cover below for Endorsements.) Powering Through is an action guide and contains, for the first time, a comparison of critical infrastructures that can suffer long duration outages caused by five high impact threats: high altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP); solar geomagnetic storms; cyber-attacks; physical attacks; and Radio Frequency (RF) weapons. We are accustomed to short duration power failures. However, disruptions of weeks, months, or over a year are more and more possible, yet this risk is largely unrecognized. The book examines the interdependent, and critical, infrastructures that would be threatened by a sustained electric grid failure, such as our water and wastewater systems, communications, transportation, emergency and healthcare services, government and military defense, to name only a few. Importantly, the book concentrates on consequence management, starting at the individual, household, and community levels of preparedness. This book heralds a call to action to begin preparing NOW. There are additional authors: Torry Crass, John Jackson, Chuck Manto, Curry Mayer, Robert McCreight, Steve Pappas, Thomas Popik, Dr. James Terbush, William Kaewert, John Contestabile, John Rosica, Mark Walker. Proceeds from the book are being used by the InfraGard National Disaster Resilience Council for further research.

Endorsements for "Powering Through"

"Those of us concerned about our nation's ability to survive and ultimately recover from a sustained and massive loss of electric power are agnostic about the cause. I'm still inclined to believe that a cyberattack represents the likeliest danger, but whatever the cause--electromagnetic pulse, solar flare, or physical attack--recovery remains the greatest single challenge... This collaboration--Powering Through--is a gigantic step in the right direction. While its proposals may be helpful to individual communities, its most immediate value is as a potential blueprint to the federal government and to individual states.... Now, if we can only find a way to get our policy makers to read it."
--Ted Koppel, author of Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath

"Timely and compelling. This guide accomplishes a first by combining under one cover an orientation to the hazards to our electric grid, our water supplies, and cascading vulnerabilities to civilization's infrastructures. This book is a call to action - to mobilize whole communities, to prepare, to respond, and to overcome both natural disaster and willful adversaries."
--Ambassador R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence

"This is a comprehensive guide to thinking through the challenge of losing power for an extended period of time.... I think it will be embraced with relief and enthusiasm by those who seek to engage in helping preserve our great civilization."
--Rep. Andrea Boland, sponsor of enacted Maine law (2013)to protect electric grids

"This book reviews what has been done in recent years to decrease the fragility of the power grid to several large-scale threats and, unlike current federal efforts, does not make the mistake of addressing what can be done for one threat while ignoring others."
--Dr. William R. Graham, former Presidential Science Advisor and Chairman, Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack


"Powering Through is a 'must read' for local and state leaders--and the public. Our nation's very survival will depend upon fortifying our infrastructures and whole of community response if we experience an indefinite blackout of the electric power grid from an EMP attack--or from a massive solar storm.... The only question is when."
--Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, former Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization and Chairman, High Frontier Foundation


"Belligerent and unpredictable nations and stateless terrorist organizations make plans to assault our undefended grid; from cyber-attacks to physical assaults on our power stations to delivering a nuclear device to high orbit above the continental U.S.... This work is at once timely and important... If I knew every member of Congress and every bureaucrat in the Departments of Energy and Defense read this book, I would sleep much more soundly at night."
--Congressman Trent Franks, Co-Chair, Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse Caucus and Member, House Committee on Armed Services


"The great news is that America has delivered energy to every one of us relatively flawlessly. Now, for the first time in our history, our energy is vulnerable and subject to attacks of several kinds. This book clearly communicates the problem/opportunity and the challenge to create resident communities with decisiveness, alacrity, and quietly effective finesses.... We need these solutions implemented with urgency and effectiveness now."
--Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series


"This guide has been uniquely tailored to address and plan for the consequences of a severe solar storm event, high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic pulse, cyber-attack, deployment of a non-nuclear radio frequency weapon, or physical attack on the nation's electric grid. I applaud and strongly support the InfraGard EMP Special Interest Group's foresight to develop a planning guide specifically designed to better prepare the whole of community..."
--Texas State Senator Bob Hall