Dr. William Forstchen (author, historian, EMP expert)

Dr. William Forstchen is an author, historian and expert on EMPs.  He has written three fictional books about what happens to a town after an EMP attack, with the fourth book on the way.  We discuss what an EMP is, the likelihood of such an attack, and what we can do to prepare or prevent it.  You won't want to miss this one! 

00:00 - Intro
00:36 - Welcome Bill & Background 
02:23 - Becoming an EMP Expert & Novels
05:04 - What is an EMP & Effect
10:35 - Likelihood of an EMP Attack
15:35 - Electronics Damaged & Protection 
17:15 - Upgrading the Grid
22:25 - Cost of Rebuilding & Cyber Attacks
28:45 - Funding, Corporations & Government
31:47 - What We Can Do & Fear Reactions
38:55 - Books Into a Movie & Hollywood
39:38 - Hoping for a Safe Future
42:55 - St. Jude's & Humane Society
43:40 - Outro

Books for Sale on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/William-R.-Forstchen/author/B000APZ9N8?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

St. Jude's website:
https://www.stjude.org/

Humane Society website:
https://www.humanesociety.org/

Chuck Shute website:
https://chuckshute.com/

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

Okay, Dr. William fortune is my guest today and he is an author and college professor and expert on EMP is a dangerous weapon that can take out our whole power grid and make life pretty miserable for everyone. So you thought things were bad during the pandemic it can get a lot worse. So we're going to discuss what an EMP is exactly the likelihood of one occurring and what we can do to prevent it so you won't want to miss this one well, first of all, I want to ask you, how do you pronounce your name because I've heard it pronounced two different ways. I've heard fortune and then I've heard like, forced them or something. I don't I don't know which one is right. You didn't correctly the

Dr. William Forstchen: 0:47

person. Think force chin, forced chin.

Chuck Shute: 0:51

Okay, so it was Newsmax that had it wrong. And that was a bigger thing. They said fortune. They kept saying it. And you didn't correct?

Dr. William Forstchen: 0:58

Yeah, no, no, it was Newsmax so we didn't have time for it to get corrected. Okay. Okay. Call me Billy. After that. All right. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 1:07

Well, welcome, Bill. So yeah, explain to my audience, your background here. You obviously have a doctorate from Purdue. In military history. Correct?

Dr. William Forstchen: 1:18

Yes. Male and a history technology.

Chuck Shute: 1:21

Yeah. And the talk Tell me about your dissertation a little bit. It's an interesting Indiana's African Americans go to war.

Dr. William Forstchen: 1:28

Yeah, my doctoral dissertation. Long story short, I fell into this wonderful topic. It was the African American regiment that was raised in Indiana and Indianapolis in 1863. And was pretty well wiped out at the Battle of the crater July 20 1864. So that was a two year effort buried in the National Archives and state archives. I loved it. And I've done a couple of books about it sense young adults novel called we looked like men of war, which actually got an award for me, and then a really kind of gritty book called The crater, or to make men free, they changed the title. And that's about that experience at the Battle of the crater.

Chuck Shute: 2:18

Okay, so and then you've written some books on the Civil War. And then so how did you fall into being the the EMP expert?

Dr. William Forstchen: 2:28

Got two hours. And 99 way, way back in 1991, I was a graduate student. We had a one in 500 year event in Lafayette, Indiana. And I you storm blew out the entire grid, we were talking about the high tension lines collapsing. There were sections of Indiana that were at power for over a month. So I'm in a university town, we lose power for 11 days. And within about five days, things got really squirrely, people really started, you know, somebody had to have a generator and suddenly people are knocking on their door, can I charge this? Can I do that? It's like National Guardsmen on the power trucks. People were literally barricading the trucks that they pulled onto their street. So that got filed away. 1012 years later, I'm well aware of EMP studied it in grad school. And I kept trying to write this novel one second after. And it finally came to me at a graduation ceremony in 2005. I'm sitting there with all my doctoral robes on it's 90 degrees were sweltering and dying. And I looked at the audience, my students were small college and I suddenly hit, I'm gonna write about my town. You know, our town gone bad. What would happen in a small town if the power went off and didn't come back on? So that was the start of it book was published. 2009 became a best seller. It's still selling like crazy. 14 years later.

Chuck Shute: 4:10

Yeah. And there's sequels as well. There's a three in the series.

Dr. William Forstchen: 4:14

Yeah. The second book is one year after picks the story up a year later. Then the final day, several years after that. I deliberately titled that because I want to tell my publisher, I never want to do this topic again. It gets to you. Yeah. You start immersing into this and you're going to hearings and you're giving speeches. But as said in the movie, The Godfather, they made me an offer. I couldn't refuse. But yeah, I'll be back in again. And there you go. So the next book, five years after is coming out August 25.

Chuck Shute: 4:55

Oh, so there's another one. Yeah, there's four of them. This will be well this be the last one. It better be. Okay. Well So explain to my audience what exactly an EMP is. Okay,

Dr. William Forstchen: 5:09

EMP shorthand electromagnetic pulse weapon. Alright, it's created by lofting about three small nuclear warheads above the Earth's atmosphere below them over the eastern United States, central United States, western United States. They're not that powerful as nukes go 40 to 60 Kid ton that four times the size of their Hiroshima bomb. But when they detonate, it sets up an electrostatic discharge called the competent effect, which was first clearly seen in a study done in 1962, when they blew one in space, and it shorted out the power system in Hawaii. So that Compton Effect cascades down to the Earth's surface. And that speed of light overload sets up an electrostatic discharge that overloads the power grid, and everything starts shutting down. It is catastrophic. It's not tinfoil hat. There's been several congressional studies. Both of them say the same thing. The bad number is if we were hit by that upwards of 90% of Americans will be dead a year later. That's yeah, easy.

Chuck Shute: 6:26

And this is, but there is like you said the one in Indiana that was natural, right? I mean, that's also a possibility as well.

Dr. William Forstchen: 6:33

Yeah. That was just an ice storm that just want catastrophic. Everything shut down. And but with an EMP, when it hits, it blows the grid out. And I know 90% sales this this is crazy. But I'll ask you a question right now. Where are you located?

Chuck Shute: 6:54

I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay.

Dr. William Forstchen: 6:57

Oh, great. Can you imagine that on a July day?

Chuck Shute: 7:00

Yeah, I know. I know. I'd

Dr. William Forstchen: 7:01

be screwed. What? Yeah, what do you Okay, my question is, where do you get your water?

Chuck Shute: 7:07

It's from the Salt River Project, which I think our water comes from Colorado, I think I believe it comes all the way down from the end, we have this the Colorado River comes all the way through the Salt River Project. And it's a man made lakes and then through the filtering system or whatever. So yeah.

Dr. William Forstchen: 7:22

And what happens if there's no electricity?

Chuck Shute: 7:26

Right? And isn't that like most of America? I mean, I guess unless you're getting it from a well on a farm or something.

Dr. William Forstchen: 7:32

But even then you're using your electrical power.

Chuck Shute: 7:36

Well, if you have the the old school bucket or whatever,

Dr. William Forstchen: 7:40

like an old grandpa's out there, the pump? Yeah. What happens is, I call it a Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you're going to lose your water immediately. Within several days, that's going to be bad. Second food supply. There's a moving anymore. Average town has about 20 days worth of food on hand, from what's in your freezer, to what's pulling up in a truck, that's got medication, your pharmacies are gone. They're no longer taking shipments. Nursing homes would be an absolute nightmare. I mean, you have a large elderly population in Arizona. Can you imagine them without power, even for a week without air conditioning? And then of course, disease sets in and command and control what happens in your major cities, which are bad enough as is right now. Imagine if there's no longer a police presence at all. Things start going very bad.

Chuck Shute: 8:39

Yeah. Again, you said it was a it would take five years to recover. And even then it would only be 20% would be back, which is

Dr. William Forstchen: 8:48

good. Good. You read that? Yeah, when I was I was at a conference about 500 people. And you know, it's about this. And they you know, DOE study said five years, only about 20% of our power grid would be restored and somebody quipped wet and die. I guess it averages out. That's a hell of a bit of arithmetic, isn't it? Hmm.

Chuck Shute: 9:14

Yeah. Where did they get 90%? Who are the 10% surviving and how did it How are they doing that? Can I be part of that? 10%

Dr. William Forstchen: 9:21

Yeah. Well, a lot of it's going to be locked. Being in the right place at the right time with the right food supply. I I am kind of I'm talking about this every day. And I'm telling people I have at least one to two months of emergency supplies on hand and every house that you got food you got water, something you can cook with without poisoning yourself if you're inside the house. And yes, you might have to think about am I going to be secure? This that came out of a couple great congressional studies. First one In 2002, Guy named Dr. Peter pry, he became my mentor. He was the true expert. I defer to him on sadly, Peter died a couple of months ago. And I think part of his death was simply he worked himself to death trying to get legislation passed. And it would stall every single time in Congress can go no further ado, nothing government for years.

Chuck Shute: 10:28

Yeah, I the flow. Of course, we can't do anything. We can't even we can't agree on simple things. But so what is the likelihood of an EMP being used? Because I heard you say something, there's an interesting quote, like, eventually all military weapons are used, and it would likely be in our lifetime and likely would be against the United States. So those are not good factors.

Dr. William Forstchen: 10:51

Yeah, I may have said that. I may have said all the time. What's your prediction? Well, the first great military technology we'll say was catapults at the time of the Greeks, Greek general once proclaim what uses valor anymore. Now we've got these machines, every single major military innovation, poison gas, World War One, nuclear weapons, World War Two, they finally get used, sooner or later, somebody's going to do it. It might not even be against us. A hotspot I look at is Pakistan and India. They're on the edge all the time. They both have nuclear weapons. Might the temptation be there? My big worry is North Korea. Followed by Iran. You know,

Chuck Shute: 11:41

you know what? Yeah, cuz I think I mean, I would say, I think some people would think China but to me, I'd say China No, because aren't we their biggest customers are very big. If they take us out who's gonna buy all their crap?

Dr. William Forstchen: 11:54

What happens to Walmart? Yeah. Good point. China, has never really been a military expansion is to growth. 2500 years of history. They aren't contain they used to be called the hermit. Excuse me empire? No, because the other thing is mutual assured destruction. If China ever did that to us, we would do it to them. Nobody wins. I worry about the third world players. You know, what's his name in North Korea wakes up one morning finds out he's terminal and he forgets all what the hell I'll finish the day by taking out the United States. And he could do it. They have the capability right now to do it.

Chuck Shute: 12:38

And what about Russia? I would think Putin seems to be on that same kind of wavelength have just got nothing to lose.

Dr. William Forstchen: 12:45

Wow. That's No, I reset a bit here, because I've been talking about this, but Russia doing us. I don't think that would ever happen. Because Putin's own generals would kill him. They would stage a coup. If he said, Hey, let's go take out America today. It's like you're crazy. Again, Russia does as we do them. So I don't see the big players of Russia and China doing it again. I worry about the third world players.

Chuck Shute: 13:21

Yeah. Well, and you had some interesting to the talked about, there was a security expert for the World Trade Center. And he predicted a plane, which would hit it. Yeah. And so is there. I mean, we're talking about this now. Is there going to be any sort of warning? That missile is coming and we have a missile defense system that would detect this? Like, how much time would we have? Or would it just be like you wake up one day, and everything's the powers?

Dr. William Forstchen: 13:46

These are great questions. EMP can be defined as what the military calls an asymmetrical first strike weapons weapons. Meaning it's a whole new way of launching a warfare. Great example 1941. People were predicting the Japanese might put six or seven carriers together and go big. Nobody had ever done it before. We even have reports right up until December 7, that the zero cannot be flown off of a carrier. Well, we found out and of course, if you went back to September 10, and you pointed at the sky and said, Well, you know they could turn that into a cruise missile. Yeah, that's crazy. It will never happen. The sad thing is with asymmetrical strikes, you wake up the day later and go oh my god, I should have seen it.

Chuck Shute: 14:38

And what is it very likely that they would like with the World Trade Center? No, they did like what was it like four different attacks so they would need like you said three or four missiles to get the whole United States

Dr. William Forstchen: 14:50

Yeah, did the i Yeah, the worst case nightmare scenario is three, though even if he just launched one and detonated say above of Pennsylvania, that will blow out the entire eastern grid. There are five major grids in the United States between East and West Texas as an independent grid. You froze there hello. Oh, what's

Chuck Shute: 15:30

your back? Okay. So the grids, sorry.

Dr. William Forstchen: 15:33

Yeah, the grids. And there are five major grids in the United States. I'm getting a notice saying your internet connection is unstable. Are you still hearing me? Yeah. Okay, well, I'm on stable one. I'm still here. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 15:50

Um, yeah, so different grids. And then, I guess the I don't think people understand not only would this just take out the electrical system, but I think all our electronics would potentially be like, if even if we had a solar phone charger, our phones wouldn't work. And then like, would cars work? How does that how would you get a really old car? Or what what point does technology for cars affected by this?

Dr. William Forstchen: 16:15

Variable studies on this? I've heard as high as 90% of cars made after 1985 will go they'd be shorted out because of the computers to a low of 10%. So let's say you have a car that still works. And it's five o'clock, and you're in rush hour and 10% of the cars turn off. What happens? Then where do you get your gas, the bright working? How do you get through all this mess of traffic? Even if your cars work? You'd have the range of what's simply in the gas in your tank? And that's it. And then you're stranded to? Wow,

Chuck Shute: 16:58

what about I just thought when I Googled emp, today, I saw this thing, a device called an EMP shield that they're selling. Is there any validity to that? Does that actually help protect some of your electronics or your home?

Dr. William Forstchen: 17:10

Yeah, I've talked to some people just within the last week about that. Yeah. Shielding against EMP is not that complex. It's upgrading circuit breakers systems. Remember, when you bought your first power strip 30 years ago, it's obsolete now. All right, because we're upgrading these things. You have to upgrade the grid. That will cost money. Dr. Prime, my mentor said it costs three to $5 billion dollars to get a good start, I'd say 30 billion. But let's check it 30 billion is chump change now, isn't it?

Chuck Shute: 17:50

I think we sent that to Ukraine this morning, I'm sure yeah, just changes quick

Dr. William Forstchen: 17:53

change. Yeah, we'll send you another 1000 missiles, it's only 30 billion. I'm upgrading the system hardening it. And my other big bugaboo that I worry about is we're not making the components for our electrical grid in the United States. Large transformer and a substation. From the time the power company orders a new one to delivery takes up to two years. Guess where it comes from? China. Right? Right, right. So we don't have a strategic stockpile of key components that if something bad happens, we can put them in quickly and rebuild the system. We're just stuck out there. And calling up China, if our phones work and say, Hey, can you help us? Oh, sure. Sure. Get back to his five years.

Chuck Shute: 18:47

Yeah, that's gonna be too late. So we don't have any emergency transformers that we know of, that the government has on hand for something like this. Very, very

Dr. William Forstchen: 18:57

limited. You know, I still teach college. I have a student who was actually a lineman, boss. I mean, he was managing wine crews. And we talked a lot about this. And he said, Bill, our electrical system, at least here in North Carolina is held together with spit and prayers. The average component in our electrical grid is 40 years old. We're pumping our electricity in systems built in the 70s and 80s. that have not been upgraded sense. Wow, that's happening. Yes, we don't we don't have the reserves to quickly rebuild if something bad happens.

Chuck Shute: 19:41

And we have the technology though, if we did upgrade this or rebuild it, to make it more stable to to protect against something like this.

Dr. William Forstchen: 19:50

All right. I don't want to get into politics. Yeah, we're not gonna go there. Okay, well, okay. Yeah, you think it's it? I'll take a sip. You know, I mean, this is Van Gogh glass here.

Chuck Shute: 20:03

Yeah, we can try to avoid politics with sometimes it's you can't. I mean, it's like you said of Congress, they've tried to bring legislation. I mean, they can't agree on anything. So how can they agree on trying to fix this?

Dr. William Forstchen: 20:18

The previous administration? Yeah. Okay. I will say, Well, I'll say the word Trump. He took it seriously, towards the end of his term. I knew some people in the White House and they were like, this has become an issue. He is dead serious on this. He mandated to DOD, DOD and all the other groups to do comprehensive review. And then 90 days after the election, they were I mean, after the second administration began, they were to present a comprehensive plan to upgrade and harden the system. Well, guess what happened? When Biden came in? On the first day, the executive orders included killing that report. We are spending over a trillion dollars on so called clean green energy. We're getting a lot of windmills. There's not a dime in there for let's go back and harden the basic components, starting with a transformer down the street to the substation to the wiring and everything else. We're not doing it.

Chuck Shute: 21:29

Oh, that's really fast that you bring up a good point, though, because that is something that a lot of people are proponent for is the green energy. Yeah. Which which is good. I don't think anybody's against green energy. But we also still need the regular energy, regular electricity. And even if it's powered by when mail or solar, whatever, it still needs to come from, wherever they're getting it, harnessing it from to our homes, which would be through the transformers and stuff, right?

Dr. William Forstchen: 21:57

Upgrading. You know what, it's not sexy. It's not news item. It's nuts and bolts, hard work to replace older systems with newer ones of the basic electric grid. It's not smart energy. It's, you know, Congress ran through a $62 billion bipartisan bill talking about improving energy. Read the report. I'm not a dime in there saying, regarding emp, we're going to do this, this and this. Oh, we're going to make more supercharger stations for electric cars. We're going to do this. Excuse me, we're going to do that. But not the basic nuts and bolts. That's not sexy. It should be.

Chuck Shute: 22:45

Yeah, it's interesting. Because, I mean, obviously, people were really freaked out with the pandemic and all that stuff. And that's that was a very mild thing comparatively to what it could have been. But there's also besides the EMP, there could be cyber attacks, financial attacks, all this stuff. I feel like it's just not or what about I mean, could somebody just poison the water supply? I mean, what if some, if the Waterplace by us like, it's just like a fence. I mean, you could easily hop that over and put who knows what in there. And and that would just kill off tons of people.

Dr. William Forstchen: 23:19

There's a substation within walking distance in my house. If I decide to go crazy, truly crazy one night, we just go down there with a high powered gear rifle, and jacketed grounds, I'd shoot some of the transformers. The oil then leaks out, and I would shut my town of Black Mountain and Swannanoa down for a week. What half a dozen bullets. It's being done. It was done in Washington State. Back in December, it's done in North North Carolina, a town in eastern North Carolina. Somebody shot up the substation, they were without power for a week affecting 100,000 people because they couldn't get the replacement parts in quick enough to bring it back online.

Chuck Shute: 24:12

And you said it would only cost about maybe 30 billion to to fix this issue or make a big dent in it.

Dr. William Forstchen: 24:19

All right. All right. A sleight of hand here. I'm setting you to start what i i have the term I coined the term lifelines of recovery. If you took 10% of the power distribution system in the United States, hardened it bought it up that could resist a major EMP. That will be a star, but we would need to be continuing investing across a 10 year period to do the entire grid. But 30 billion would be a darn good start at least until all the administrators got in and got their change and Get Hired 1000 bureaucrats to manage it. Right? Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 25:06

And what about that other stuff that I mentioned, like the cyber attacks? And the financial is? I mean, that's kind of related, right? Because that's another way that they could attack us were Are we prepared for those kinds of attacks at all?

Dr. William Forstchen: 25:18

better prepared? Get I teach at a small college Montreat College. This isn't a promo for the college. But we are a major, our major area is become a cybersecurity. I mean, our kids are going through that program. And when they come out the other side, they walked in in $200,000 jobs. So I sit in our lab occasionally and watch what they're doing. Yeah, we're starting to get better at cybersecurity issues. That's a constant war. I mean, you sit in their control center, and I'm playing What's this? What's that? Oh, that's another attack. Others attack from Iran. Oh, here comes one from Russia. We're blocking this for blocking that. It's a massive game of chess going on 24/7 365 We're at least doing something better there.

Chuck Shute: 26:11

Yeah, I mean, it was essentially I saw that news story the other day about the kid that leaked all the high security, Pentagon Pentagon stuff. And now he's going to prison. I mean, how does this kid who's I think he's 20? Or 21? Or someone? Yeah. How does he get clearance to all this stuff? That's supposed to be like our top military secrets. He's just a kid.

Dr. William Forstchen: 26:32

I wish he could tell me. I don't know.

Chuck Shute: 26:36

And definitely seems concerning, though, too, is it seems like there's a lot of areas that we are not prepared for, like we're arguing over these issues that seem like you said, maybe more sexy or whatever, like, you know, wind energy and things like this. But I mean, there's a lot of things where we get caught with our pants down, which I think the pandemic kind of showed us a little preview of that.

Dr. William Forstchen: 26:57

Yes, it did. You know, picture it this way. Holland has hundreds of miles, you know, these big dikes and give her a bit in the hall on you know, what I mean, you know, you know, dams and all that the old back the ocean, you just need a leak on one spot to break open and you got serious trouble. So, yeah, we we build a dam to hold these things back. But one leak like this, that 21 year old kid house, I wonder to how the heck did he gain access to all that material? He he's most likely a computer nerd and a whiz, who understands that far better than I do. And he really shook up the entire system.

Chuck Shute: 27:41

Yeah, it's frightening. It's frightening to see, like when we did have that pandemic, and there was a little bit of panic. And people were buying up toilet paper. I mean, you saw, like, you saw, like, just a preview of that chaos. And if there's something like the electrical grid goes down, I can't imagine that chaos would I don't think we would last very long.

Dr. William Forstchen: 28:00

We would. Sandy, the 2012 storm that hit New York City, and I used to live right in that area when I was a kid. And within 24 or 48 hours, you were seeing the news cast of lines around the block to Starbucks to try and get him for 15 minutes a charge of cell phone. The cell phone grids still work. But remember on 911 it overloaded? You know, it was a lot more primitive than so yeah, it's it's almost incomprehensible. How many things would just go offline immediately. Your cell phone doesn't work anymore. Your car might not work? You go to the market, people are looting the market. It's a very bad picture.

Chuck Shute: 28:51

Yes, it doesn't. Don't these corporations have a stake in this to make sure that they if they're going to make money, they're going to need power? And isn't that something that they should be concerned about as well? Yeah.

Dr. William Forstchen: 29:03

When I first got into this, starting around 2005, I remember going to my first statewide hearing, along with several other people. And the room was packed with Duke lobbyist who were smiling and shaking hands and everything else. And they were basically saying, yeah, he's a nice novelist. But he's crazy. Now, last year, I gave a major talk to a couple 100 Duke Energy, power, you know, the consultants and the workers and the guides handling security. They in fact, were using my book as a textbook. They're taking it seriously. But again, it's funding. Do you want to pay your stock holders off of 4% dividend this year or you want to say Sorry, can't do this. We're going to be doing infrastructure security. Yes.

Chuck Shute: 30:01

So, again, it comes down to the costs, which I mean, again, the government would would, let's definitely something that they could pass if Congress could agree on this and recognize this as a threat, they could get the funding. And it really should be more their role anyways.

Dr. William Forstchen: 30:17

It should be several times, we did see bills going through the House of Representatives, but then wanting to committee with the Senate. One Senator Murkowski of Alaska killed it. Why didn't have the perks? She wanted the perks for it, because

Chuck Shute: 30:44

there's been a lot of a lot of those bills or there's other stuff in the bills that helps their districts or whatever, the pork or whatever they call it, right. Yeah.

Dr. William Forstchen: 30:52

I mean, you're dealing with a bill with that. And then there's a little rider attached that they're making in useme to honor the Munchkins of Oz in some places, and seriously, they did. The weird things that get attached. There's a museum the Lord's Well, in North Carolina, there was a museum to pottery teacups, what the heck does that have to do with the other things? Yeah, you know, back in the 90s. person I know Newt Gingrich, who, okay, he's a good friend. Yeah, that's read some books together. Right. Yeah. And they finally got through killing the idea that the President could have a line item veto on bills. Alright. It was killed. The President, you need to take the bill or not. You cannot just simply as President Go and say this is ridiculous. No, I'm not going to build a Highway to Nowhere out in the middle of whatever doesn't happen. So you know, the port continues.

Chuck Shute: 32:04

Yeah. So what we could do, besides obviously protect, try and protect ourselves, like you said, stock up on canned foods. I think you mentioned having a water water filtration systems. Could people lobby their congressman or Congresswoman about this, try to bring a bill to this.

Dr. William Forstchen: 32:21

You know, I'm telling I'm telling people now go to your state reps. Because we've seen action on the state level, South Carolina. I've done several visits, talks with them in the last year. Excuse me, coffee, too much coffee. Your state reps are a heck of a lot more responsive. You know, if 50 People got a hold of a state rep and said, This is important to me. They're gonna listen, whereas a congressman would just be Yeah, okay. All right. Get your state reps. South Carolina is doing things North Carolina is starting to do things Texas is starting to do things start at the state level. And then just Yeah, work like hell next year when we go to the next federal election.

Chuck Shute: 33:08

Okay, yeah. And I'm just I'm trying to do my part by having you on the show to talk about this and educate people, because I've heard about this too, and I just didn't know a lot about it. So it's nice to kind of learn. I mean, it's scary. It's really scary, but I feel like if we know about it, then we can prepare. I mean, that's that's a lot of bad things in the world doesn't. Not talking about it doesn't make it go away.

Dr. William Forstchen: 33:29

Yeah. Okay. Quick, funny story. Okay. The the book came out, I did a tabletop with my college. This is what we should be looking at if there's an emergency. A couple months later, my daughter and I are sitting on our deck and we're looking out across the mountains of North Carolina, a huge thunderstorm. All right. Suddenly, the entire valley went dark. Not just local, the entire valley. My daughter goes, Daddy does your cell phone work? Yes. Okay. It's an odd EMP is the thunderstorm. And about two or three minutes later, my phone rang. Picked it up. It was an administrator at the college. Is this it? Oh my god has a cmp I said Yeah, I think we're screwed.

Chuck Shute: 34:19

Because you would know because your phone when like nothing

Dr. William Forstchen: 34:22

work, right? And then I said, Hey, is your phone working? Yeah. But I got half a dozen calls for the next couple hours of friends and my husband's in the basement. He's pulling this out at night and he says is that no, no, no, it's just an electrical storm. So yeah, that's my favorite funny story about this. Yep. We got to live our lives. We got to enjoy ourselves, you know, our kids, our girlfriend, everything else. Don't make this the obsession. But it should be out there. You should be thinking about this and doing some basic planning. I one other thing. I tell her you Buddy have a God. God back. Get out of dodge God. You can buy a ready made one or make one yourself you said have a couple of days got at least two or three pints of water, some energy bars, a solar blanket. an Uzi and a 50 caliber are hunting. No, no just

Chuck Shute: 35:25

losing might be a tall order. I

Dr. William Forstchen: 35:28

just I get upset with the prepper survivalist types that are just too far over the top. You know? They sound like Peter Lorre. Remember old Peter Lorre. I have this gun, and 50 caliber, and it's a machine gun. And damn it. That's crazy. Just a basic God bag thrown in the back of your car might make a difference. He gets stuck in an ice storm. EMP whatever, you know, out in Arizona, you get some wicked storms out there. God Bank, it's simple, throw it in your car and also have some silver. Just a couple of silver dollars stuck in the back

Unknown: 36:15

to barter with Yeah.

Dr. William Forstchen: 36:18

Let's say some guys figured out a hand pump or somebody gets some gasoline out of his tank. And somebody goes up waving $100 bill. And you go off saying you got a couple of silver dollars here you want to trade? Which ones you're gonna take? Yeah, that's true, because that will be real currency again,

Chuck Shute: 36:39

or Yeah, food would be currency at that point. Yeah, yes. Food and water. So well, scary stuff. I mean, so the 10% Because you say 90% Will will perish on the 90%. With Paris. Yeah, the 10%. That so you said some of it could be locked. But some of it also could be like, if you live kind of in the country on a farm like you might be able to be there's a lot of people that live off the grid. Right? Isn't that a thing? I mean, that's like a thing that people could be self sufficient. Potentially.

Dr. William Forstchen: 37:07

I'm in mountains of North Carolina, it's rural. And guess a lot more people are thinking off grid or at least marginally. Or having backup systems. I feel bad for the ones that get the Gen X, whatever. transformer and it's powered by propane. How long is that going to last?

Chuck Shute: 37:30

As long as however much propane Yeah, and most people

Dr. William Forstchen: 37:33

have like 20 gig, or 50 gallons, excuse me lasts for a couple of days. Having just, again, basic fundamental supplies that you know, you can get through a month or two. You're not out on the street. You're not begging for stuff. You're secure in your home with your family. And one other thing I always tell people to do is have a rendezvous point, because eight to 10 hours a day our kids are at school, you're at the office, you know, your your spouse is out doing their thing. If somebody when something goes bad, you won't gotta know where to go. We're going to meet at such and such a place, and then we're going to get back home from there. Right.

Chuck Shute: 38:21

Now what about, like, if you have a car in a parking garage, if you're underground with that higher probability that would offer protection?

Dr. William Forstchen: 38:30

EMP has a line of sight of that. Meaning, you know, it's even within the line of sight of the detonation 200 miles up. But yeah, some studies have shown the survivability and sheltered areas, things like that could go up astronomically. In my favorite won't get your car without any problems. If you're in a if you're on the North Slope of something, that there's you don't get the direct hit. It's an indirect hit. Your probability could go up with that.

Chuck Shute: 39:02

Okay, that's another thing. But again, it's like you said some of this could just be luck. Like, where are you parked your car, how much gas you had in there and those kinds of things. So it is interesting. Would they have they? Is there any talk of making your books into a movie? I feel like that would be a good movie, a good disaster movie to?

Dr. William Forstchen: 39:21

Yeah, yeah. I'm talking every week with my agent and the producer and director. Current problem is the Writers Guild is going out on strike on May 1, and that's screwing up everything. But let's do that. I don't want to get into Tourette Syndrome. Let's just say Hollywood is an interesting entity to deal with. And I'll leave it at that. Yeah, I'm

Chuck Shute: 39:49

sure yeah, for Absolutely. Well, that'd be cool though if they could get that but otherwise there is the fourth book coming out in August. Anything else you have to promote?

Dr. William Forstchen: 39:59

Promote No, no, I had a very close friend. He's was one of the key nuclear fighting strategists in the Navy 15 years ago. He did the for the afterword for the first book one second after he was over here. Spent the night, one of the first things we did was we turned off, Alexa pulled the plug, we don't want our hearing what we're going to say. And, you know, we talked, now, he's very good with classified, he doesn't talk about it. But at one point, you know, we looked at each other. And I was like, we'll go crazy. If we keep talking about some of this, you know, all the different scenarios. And it was like, gotta get on with your life, you got to enjoy it. You know, you. If it happens, it happens. And then there'll be a terrible day after that. But on, you know, when I did one second after I did the foreword, you know, the usual Hi, I want to thank my agent. I finished that for with the statement that 30 years from now, I pray that I'm just remembered as a crank. You know, didn't have Yeah, at that fortune guy. I remember his books. So Right. And then my daughter grew up safe. And when we have grandbabies, someday they're safe. Let's, let's hope that's the way it is.

Chuck Shute: 41:32

Yeah, or let's hope that we can all get the preparation that we need and fix the grid and get out and be ready so that if it does happen, that we're ready for it, that would be better.

Dr. William Forstchen: 41:42

If we upgraded sufficiently, our opponents might think twice. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Now they're thinking we could really screw them over good.

Chuck Shute: 41:55

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, then those other things to the cyber or the financial and I mean, gotta be ready for everything. I feel like that should be a definitely there should be some doomsday people in government, maybe there are that are that are predicting these things that are trying to get us ready for this kind of stuff? Because you're right. I mean, it could have went like nobody saw the World Trade Center thing coming like nobody, not very few people predicted that.

Dr. William Forstchen: 42:17

Well, you know, that's a great example. I'm pretty sure he was head of security for Goldman Sachs. And they were constantly told, shelter in place. Something bad had happened sit here, we'll get to. He was preaching for the several years that he had his security there, he's preaching the exact opposite, we will get the hell out as quickly as possible. He saved upwards of 1000 lives by saying immediately within seconds, go, we're getting out. He disappeared. Going back up to get one more team of people out, you know, helping some people. That guy, this will be a statue to him. Think of all the lives he saved by thinking ahead and say, react. Don't just hide in the corner and hope it ain't gonna happen. Ya know, that

Chuck Shute: 43:09

can make a huge difference. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I always end each episode promoting a charity or nonprofit or something that's a that you'd like to promote here at the end for a charity.

Dr. William Forstchen: 43:22

I give regularly to St. Jude's. They have one of the highest ratings out there as nonprofit for the amount of every dollar that goes directly into what they're doing. Very small administrative costs. So St. Jude's is tops. And also of course, the Humane Society.

Chuck Shute: 43:40

Yeah, I've promoted both of those charities several times. So if people have some extra money after they buy all your books, they should throw some money into those charities. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much, Bill. It's been very informative.

Dr. William Forstchen: 43:53

Hey, thanks. It's been a great interview. It's a great question. Thank you. Right.

Chuck Shute: 43:57

Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks so much. I'll talk to you. Once again. Dr. William force, Chen, is several books available now a whole series on a fictional story about an EMP happening. The first one in that series is called one second after, and the fourth one is called Five years after and that's going to come out this August. So this is the part where I usually tell you to follow the guests on social media. But I don't see that Dr. forsten has much of a social media presence. I do see a Twitter but doesn't seem very active. So you can still support him and this interview by sharing it liking and commenting on social media and YouTube. And of course, make sure you subscribe to our show. And if you can, please give us a rating or review wherever you watch or listen, I appreciate all your support. Have a great day and shoot for the moon.