EMP - Should the Western World be worried?

Same thing with a lightning strike. The metal shell will redirect the electrical current around you, but electromagnetic radiation will still be able to go thru the windows and such. But that's not the lethal part of a lightning strike, so it's okay.

A car is referred to as a faraday cage for this purpose (protecting against electrical current penetrating to the interior), but for protecting against EMF (electro-magnetic fields), the openings in the faraday cage need to be smaller than the wavelength of the frequency you're concerned about. When I worked at Zenith, they had several 'screen rooms' made of copper mesh screen. The mesh looked a bit like a window screen. This had small enough gaps to keep out all TV signals, so they could run their signal reception tests and such inside.

There was recently a story on NPR talking about some people who claimed to be sensitive to EM radiation, to the point where the husband of one person built a faraday cage (screen room) for her to be inside most of the time, eventually they moved to a radio-free zone in West Virginia (a remote valley where all TV, radio and cell phones are banned, and the government has some radio-based telescopes to study space and whatever). Apparently there's a small community of people living there for that very reason, and they don't seem to be the tinfoil-hat types.

 

For those interested in the subject, "Lights Out" by David Crawford is an awesome novel about survival after an EMP event.

 

The performance I remember is:

from [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Evening_with_The_Kingston_Trio"]The Kingston Trio[/ame].

Written by [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Harnick"]Sheldon Harnick[/ame], which is not a familiar name to me.

 

... especially when the satellite has 'wings' (solar panels), is tumbling unpredictably, and is skipping at a very shallow angle across the top of the atmosphere, much like a stone playing skipping across the top of a pond in [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducks_and_drakes"]Ducks and Drakes[/ame] fashion.

 

As far as I know, grounding the Faraday cage to the earth will increase the protection for any electronics inside.

 

There'a a free copy out there somewhere I think it's pre-publication and maybe a bit rough around the edges or incomplete and here's a site that explains a lot of the book.

Survival - Preparedness - SHTF - Reading Room at Survivalmonkey.com

You can also get a copy on Amazon.com in paper or kindle! Great book!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615427359/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0671038680&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0MDF9EM39N2NMW14G98R