In today’s episode, we sit down with William Forstian to explore the grim realities and potential consequences of an EMP attack. From the collapse of utilities to social chaos, we break down how a single event could endanger millions. We also discuss the importance of preparedness and how individuals, communities, and governments can better respond to such crises by drawing insights from Forstian’s critically acclaimed literature.
SPEAKER 10 :
This is Ready Radio, preparing you to be ready for anything, now. Here’s your survival guide for Ready Radio, John Rush.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, and it is Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for listening. As always, live program today on January the 31st, last day of the month. We’ve got a very special guest joining us today. He’s been with us in the past, by the way. William Forstian joining us now. Bill, welcome back. How are you, sir? Oh, it’s always a pleasure to be with you guys. Doing well. It’s been too long since we’ve had you, and I was thinking about you the other day, and then something came into my inbox, and I’m like, perfect timing, let’s do this. For those of you listening and maybe haven’t heard us talk about, you know, have talked with Bill in the past, if you haven’t, he is the author of lots of books, but specifically when it comes to our program here, Ready Radio, one second after, one year after, the final day of And five years after, and yes, I’ve read all of those. And for those of you listening, they are fabulous books. And Bill, you know my thoughts on those. They’re great. You did a great job, and I enjoy it. I’ve read them more than once just because of how good they are. Oh, my gosh. Thank you for the compliment. They’re great. And, again, I mean that sincerely for all of you listening. The style is great. The action in them is great. And, Bill, we’ll talk a lot about this today, but I think your insight and a lot of what you did to even write those, which really – Let’s start there because there’s a lot of folks listening that think, okay, yeah, well, Bill’s just an author. Okay, well, that’s great. What’s this got to do with preparedness and making sure you’re ready for those what-ifs of life and or that maybe final catastrophe that might come upon the globe? What gives you the insight into that? Well, and I’ll let you answer that because actually a lot of things.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, where do you want me to start? How about if I define EMP and what I write about? Let’s do it. Okay. I’ve written four books on the issue of EMP. EMP, shorthand for electromagnetic pulse weapon. It’s created by detonating a small nuclear warhead, about 40 to 60 kiloton, about four or five times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. You detonate it out in space, about 200 to 250 miles up, It sets up an electrostatic discharge called the Compton effect, cascades down to the Earth’s surface, and then from there, all the millions of miles of wiring we have out there become an antenna, feeds that electrostatic discharge into the antennas, and then blows out the power grid. And literally one second after, we start losing the power grid of the United States. Worst case scenario would be somebody like North Korea launching three of these, Eastern, Central, and Western United States. Congressional studies, two of them now, have shown if this was ever done to us, 80 to 90 percent of the population would be dead within a year.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. And I think you and I have even talked, and you’ve mentioned before, and I think you’re maybe off a little bit even, a third of the population is gone in 30 days, right? Right. Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, for example, we had that horrible tragedy in D.C. two days ago. 67 people died tragically. Well, there’s about 5,000 commercial aircraft over the United States at any time about this time of day. Most of them, when this Compton effect hits them, the electronics on board will start shorting off. And, well… Basically, you’re going to have a couple thousand planes that become flying bricks. They go into the ground within the first seconds. 50,000 dead right there to start.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I think one of the misconceptions, Bill, is that, well, haven’t we hardened all of these things? Don’t we have things in place to make sure that if something like that were to happen, and we’ll even get into some of the solar flare CME things as well, Bill, but I think a lot of people have this thought or this idea that, well, yeah, we’ve known about some of these things, so aren’t we protected against those things? I wish.
SPEAKER 07 :
This was first realized in 1962 in a test called Starship Prime, where we launched a weapon into space, blew it, and it shorted out the Hawaiian power grid 500 miles away. And there was an oh-my-God moment from that. But have we done much? You know, the average component in our electrical grid, according to DOE, is 30 to 40 years old. We’re pumping our electricity on an antiquated grid to start with, It has not been upgraded to try and resist this type of situation.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and for those that – a lot of you that are listening believe everything we’re saying and have no problem with this. Some of you maybe that are tuning in the first time haven’t heard us before. We talk about all things to be prepared for regardless of what happens in life. We’re now talking about those things that might shut down the entire electric grid, which if that happened and we went without electricity, where the majority of people are used to having that on a daily basis to, by the way, live. And we’ll get into some of that as well, Bill. Yeah. For those of you listening, just drive around. You know, here in Colorado, we’re actually a younger state, if you would, Bill. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have electricity and all of those things. But my point is we probably have a little bit newer grid and we’ve got newer sections of town, newer subdivisions and so on. So there’s areas of our you know, of our state where things are newer, although. There are areas where when you drive around and look at some of the infrastructure and some of the substations and some of the transformers, you’re like, wait a minute, that thing’s probably as old as I am.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, people will question, well, what do you mean by 80 to 90 percent are gone? Well, look at it this way. Let’s say you’re in Denver, correct? Correct. That’s right. You lose your electricity instantly. You lose your water pumping capability. Correct. You’re without water. Second, command and control. What happens when the bad guys realize the power is off and it’s time to have some fun? Anarchy. Third, food. The average community has about 20 to 25 days’ worth of food on hand, from what’s in the supermarket to what’s in your fridge. But you need refrigeration to make sure that food is okay. Right. Medication, etc., etc., etc., and it starts cascading into a major disaster.
SPEAKER 1 :
Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
And really quick, Bill, along those lines, too, people need to remember that by design, Bill, we have become a just-in-time delivery nation pretty much in every area from not only manufacturing but the food we consume, correct?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, when my father was in a nursing home some years back and fighting at the last months of his life, That was just in time delivery. They called me up one day and said, Bill, you’ve got to pay another $4,000 for the delivery that’s coming in today. Nursing homes and all that, they usually only keep one or two days’ work on hand because they don’t want the druggies to be knocking them off.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. You know what? Great point. And that’s where, again, a lot of – again, we forget about those things. We’re so used to – I think, Bill, especially those that don’t think about some of these things and, again, not trying to be critical at all. This program is designed to help everyone come along and understand more of what goes on in the world around them. And the reality, Bill, is we get so used to it. And if we’re not careful, we can catch ourselves doing this very same thing. But, you know, if you want something, you know, we’re so used in this country to just running down to the local whatever. Now, granted, there’s some people that live out in rural areas where it’s more of a chore and a journey. They’ve got to go to town, have their list and so on. But most of the people live in the suburbs and in major cities. Bill, if they need something, they run down and buy it. It’s on the shelf. They grab it. And oh, by the way, if that store doesn’t have it, OK, we’ll run down the street a mile or so away and that one will have it. I mean, the reality is everybody’s used to picking up something that they need at a moment’s notice without even having to worry about stocking it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, I was caught up short myself. I’m just outside of Asheville, North Carolina. I’m ground zero of where the hurricane hit and which only a week ago, 10,000 people were still living in tents and shelters. Right. And I was caught short. And two days later, I’m standing on the line for water, you know. It’s called expectation and normalcy. Work yesterday, work today, we’ll work tomorrow. Well, in my case, it didn’t. I had to go out and hustle for water and such. Now, that was fine because water was being shipped in from other locations. But suppose no water is getting shipped in, then what?
SPEAKER 09 :
And in the situation that we’re discussing here, and again, we’ll get into some of the other variations of this because it doesn’t have to just be a nuclear warhead that causes this, by the way. Bottom line is when you take the entire power grid out. And, Bill, as you know, that affects, I don’t think people really think about this, but it affects everything from the heat in our home to the delivery of supplies to being able to pump fuel into your car, which will get into the car end of things because most of those won’t run anyways. But we can go down the list. The reality, Bill, is there’s so many things that we rely on on a daily basis that, let’s face it, because of the great invention of electricity, we have access to.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, just one example. I was without power for about 30 days. And without water, I was able to go, how do I flush my toilet? Am I going to take five gallons of water from, you know, the water supply I got, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I did have stockpiled food, but a heck of a lot of other things. At the end of 30 days, the important thing here is it was a crew from Canada that hooked me back up in North Carolina. Crews came in from all over the United States to help us rebuild. and a major major disaster they’re not going to come from anywhere else everybody is on their own
SPEAKER 09 :
You are correct in that. And one thing, since we talked last, because one of the conversations you and I had, I believe probably one of the last conversations we had when we last talked, we were talking about water treatment plants and what happens with the sewer and do things back up and so on. And oddly enough, or maybe because of this program and people listening, I actually got a chance to interview an individual that actually works at treatment plants bill and in that particular case you and i are pretty much dead on yes they have some generation there to where they could handle some things for you know a few days but as you know when the delivery system of even that and or are they hardened and if they’re not hardened they don’t have any capacity to even fire anything up but let’s say they’re hardened and they have that part of it figured out and that’s all dialed in the reality is there’s still a limited amount of fuel and so on and the reality of the individual that i talked to is at best at best with the fuel they would have on hand and so on, and that depends on if it’s natural gas-driven or if it’s diesel-driven, but realistically about 30 days max to even be able to handle the treatment. And that’s if everybody hangs around the plant. That’s if people don’t leave to go take care of their own things, their own families, and so on. So bottom line, Bill, what we were talking about with things backing up, if you are on regular municipality service, You’d probably be thinking about how do I close my main line? Because if you’re closest to the plant, it will start backing up from there first and then going, of course, upward. Because, you know, as you know, Bill, crap runs downhill. So bottom line is, yes, you and I were correct. And none of that really gets talked about much when it comes to end of the world scenarios in this relation when the power goes out. Yeah, there is a limited time to how long water down the sewer pipes is even going to run.
SPEAKER 07 :
And beyond that, okay, you lose the power of the water treatment plant that backs up. What do they finally do? They open the valves and let it go into the river. Goes in the streams. Which means most of the rivers within the United States will be a great way for you to catch salmonella or something worse within a matter of days.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you won’t be drinking out of those is the point, meaning you better figure out other ways to have, you know, fresh water, drinking water. And, again, these are things that, you know, we have talked about. Back to the books, though, really quick, Bill. You do a great job in the books of talking about a lot of these things and going through these processes and taking individual characters along the route and what happens. And I’ve said this before to you and in your books and for everybody listening, Bill, you’re really kind because I think in a lot of cases, things go haywire probably faster than what you even wrote in the book. And you’re very gracious as far as that goes, because I don’t have the same faith in humanity you do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it’s maybe one of the advantages of living in a small town in the mountains in North Carolina. I’ve got a lot of good neighbors and a good community. And the community in this crisis that started on September 27th did pull together. And I found worked pretty well together. Now, the city of Asheville was completely shut down on water for almost two months.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I’m told it started getting hairy. People stealing each other’s water supply. Wow.
SPEAKER 09 :
So, in other words, a lot of what you wrote in the book, in a lot of ways, you experienced on that level, not because of the power going out, but because of a natural disaster.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it started getting to me. Every person I ran into was like, hey, Bill, this is just like your book. And it’s about a week or two that I was like, shut up. Leave me alone.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m laughing with you, not at you, because, yeah, I can imagine how that would go. People are probably thinking, yeah, way to go, pal. Thanks for writing about all this stuff. And how much food do I have in my basement?
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m not going to tell you.
SPEAKER 09 :
And again, for all of you listening, you know why we do this program. We’ve been doing it now several years. We take this time on Fridays from 2 to 3 to really talk about things that you need to do to be prepared, to Bill’s point, not just for an end-of-the-world type scenario with an EMP that would strike the country and take the power grid out, but this is even natural disasters in Colorado. We can have everything from floods to snowstorms to tornadoes and things along those lines. And, Bill, again, to your point, you just never know what’s coming, so be prepared. Really quick, too, one of the things I was talking to somebody else about this today, another good friend of mine named Bill, we were talking, and I don’t know whether I’m more fearful of… a solar flare, which we’ll talk about, an EMP, which we just described, or, Bill, even the reality of other foreign entities that really would love to see the United States of America be crippled and the cyber security, the cyber attack end of things, because the reality is we’re just as vulnerable there as we are on the EMP side. Am I right or wrong?
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, my college, Monterey College, to throw the advertisement in, We have an excellent cybersecurity program. We’re working with NSA and others now. We’ve got about 110 kids in the program. Every once in a while, I’ll just go and sit in one of their labs and just watch and ask a couple questions. It’s happening all the time. The black hats are hitting us all the time, and occasionally they get through. Yep. Yeah. There’s a lot of entities out there that would love to cripple part or all of the United States.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I don’t need to remind folks with what we’ve got going on with different agencies and that right now, Bill, maybe some of these things will actually get fixed and solved. We are still running certain departments in the United States government, and this is not an exaggeration, from hardware and in some cases software that was written and or designed back in the 60s. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Air traffic control is one of them. Unbelievable. Their system is antiquated. Very antiquated. I’m a pilot. And so part of my pilot training at one point was to sit in a couple of control towers and just watch them work. And these guys were saying, yeah, this stuff is 20, 30 years old.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. That I did not know. I knew that there were other departments, IRS, by the way, being one of them, to where they are still using very antiquated tools, if you would, hardware, software to do the things that they do. I did not realize that was true when it came to the air traffic control. It doesn’t surprise me because government has a tendency to just keep doing things the same way over and over again, even if there’s a better way to do it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. Absolutely, yes. And it was scary. I mean, like I said, I’m a pilot. Now, I flew in uncontrolled airspace, so I had a small plane. I just would fool around. Like hell did I want to ever become a commercial pilot, you know?
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s scary to me. I think what we saw happen a few days ago reiterates what you just said, by the way.
SPEAKER 07 :
Mm hmm. Yes. Tragically, I’m hoping the well, the current administration is going to be addressing this. I believe you are correct.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, can you stay with us? I need to take a break. Can you hang around this bill? Absolutely. And the guys will we will be back. And again, if you want to buy any of the books, I recommend read them all. And I mean that sincerely. A lot of insightful information. into the things that we’re even talking about right now. I personally have learned a ton in reading those books, and it changed some things that we do, even as a family and that. So I would very much encourage you to go out and Bill and read Bill’s books. And by the way, there’s a lot more than just, you know, this sort of end of the world scenario. Bill’s written a gazillion books. And I don’t mean that. And I mean, that don’t don’t take that lightly. I mean, there’s a lot of books that he has written. He’s done a lot of great work over the years. But one second after, one year after the final day, and five years after. We’ll be right back. This is Ready Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 09 :
All right, we are back. Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Again, don’t forget our website, ready-radio.com. William Forstian with us today, and his last name is spelled F-O-R-S-T-C-H-E-N. And Bill, for the books, what’s the best place for folks to actually go and buy those? Do you have a single website you like people to go to? Amazon, what’s best?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, it’s easy to say Amazon. So, you know, better books sold here and go to Amazon or almost any bookstore should have them.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. All right. Before we move on, because, again, I think a lot of folks don’t understand the fact that, naturally speaking, what we just talked about in regards to, you know, an EMP nuclear, you know, weapon going off, you know, way out in outer space and so on, which you just described as we were opening up the program, there’s a natural way that that happens as well, correct? Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
coronal mass ejection, CME. The big one happened in 1859 where a solar flare was so intense that it blew out the Victorian internet. Telegraphy stations, the batteries were catching on fire. In fact, railroad ties were smoldering and catching on fire from the electricity feeding through the iron rails wow amazing so dumb question on my part what makes us think we’re immune from that again we’re not uh we’ve been lucky uh the a number of times this type of thing happens We don’t have any real estimate. The last big one was 1859. There was one that hit Quebec in the late 1980s. It could be another 500 years before there’s another one, or it could be tomorrow.
SPEAKER 09 :
And really quick, we saw a lot of that activity this past summer, and there weren’t major, major disruptions, but there were things happening that had some things changed ever so slightly in space, we could have had bigger problems.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, the Northern Lights are an indicator of a major CME, and I know last summer we were seeing Northern Lights as far down as North Carolina. That’s right. I assume you were seeing them over in Colorado.
SPEAKER 09 :
We were, absolutely, yes. That was kind of where I’m going with this. It’s like, guys, yeah, never say never because, you know, we weren’t that far from it not that long ago. No, and…
SPEAKER 07 :
We don’t know when it’s going to happen again. We just simply know it will happen again.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, let’s talk transportation for a moment. That’s my area of expertise. And for a lot of you listening, and these are things that I have had lengthy discussions, Bill, on. I’ve got four programs. One, we have a call-in car talk show, and I’ve had this conversation even on that program. And there is all sorts, literally, of varying opinions on what will run and what won’t run. And I personally… And I grew up in that industry and know how many computers anymore on each individual vehicle for the past decade plus. In fact, the majority of vehicles on the road are running on more than one computer, by the way. There’s a multitude. It’s a CAN bus system, they call it. It’s like a little network in your home, if you would, only it’s inside of your vehicle. So, by the way, even if the main computer in your car is somehow protected. Trust me, the rest of them are not. And they are all feeding, as Bill talked about, those wires are all going back to the main ECU. So the reality is, Bill, is even if the main computer in the car is somehow shielded and protected, and some of them are because they put them under the engine, you know, they put them in the engine compartment and places like that. But the reality is all of the rest of those quote unquote antennas are still feeding back to it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, government work at its best. It was about 20 years ago, the government decided to take a look at how would EMP or CME affect automobiles. So they got 50 cars, they took them out to a test stand, and they started increasing the amount of electromagnetic pulse disturbances. And so they went until they finally got to the point where two or three of the cars suddenly wouldn’t start anymore, at which point they stopped doing the study because they had to return all the cars back to a rental agency.
SPEAKER 09 :
And they couldn’t afford all of the repairs and what have you if they kept going.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. So we never got a definitive answer. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Meaning for a lot of you that are listening, there’s again, there are some that think that this is overblown and that a lot of vehicles will actually run. And I will again, being a car person and growing up in that world and knowing how many different computers and things that are on. vehicles today, and by the way, modern vehicles, I mean, I’m talking vehicles built in the last 10 years, they communicate so much with one another that in some cases, even if the body control module goes out, which in some cases, under the dash, under the seat, it still doesn’t run, work, and operate the way that it’s supposed to. So bottom line, there are so many other things going on on modern vehicles that I’ll just say, good luck. I just don’t see those running. I really feel like you’ve got to go all the way back to non- module vehicles, meaning they’re probably going to have to run on points in a condenser in a regular ignition system. Otherwise, I don’t see them running. 1960s cars. Correct.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, I was talking a while back with a station, and we talked about what’s the probability with cars. I’ve heard low probability that about 10 to 20 percent of vehicles would be affected in a major CMA. And my host initially was saying, well, you know, that wouldn’t be too bad. What? And I said, yeah. what’s the major interstate highway going through Denver?
SPEAKER 09 :
We have I-70 and I-25 as a crossroads.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, right there. 10% of the cars short off. What happens to the other 90%?
SPEAKER 09 :
You’re stuck because you can’t get around those. Right, exactly. And by the way, and I don’t know where they’re coming up with those numbers because, again, being somebody that’s been in that industry literally almost my entire life, from the time I was a little boy, I can remember being around cars and being taught how to work on them and do all the different things, owned auto shops for 30 years. Bill, again, I don’t know where that 20% number is coming from because I know how they’re built. I know how they work. I know where a lot of these quote-unquote modules are put. There are some out there that think, well, it’s a metal vehicle, and there’s kind of a Faraday box with it, and it’s got rubber tires. Yeah, no, it’s really not that well insulated, not that well done, especially in today’s world, Bill, where you’ve got all sorts of other composites even on the vehicle shell itself to where most of them are not even full metal all the way around anymore. Correct.
SPEAKER 07 :
And it’s great talking with a host like you because you know what I’m talking about. We don’t have to go through 10 minutes, oh, this could happen or that can happen. Anything made after the mid-60s, problematic. Anything made within the last 15 years or so, definite.
SPEAKER 09 :
And don’t forget, folks, this includes a lot of other things that we get used to having on a daily basis to live our lives. And I understand, and for the most part, in the studying that I’ve done, Bill, cell phones are somewhat hardened, but the rest of what they operate off of, the networks, the the GPS system, what’s up in space and the satellites and so on. Yeah, it may work, but it’ll be a brick. It’ll just be a paperweight when it’s all done.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, yet again, we’ll harken back to the minor disaster that I went through in North Carolina. Well, the cell phone towers went down as well. No electricity and everything else, and some were actually knocked down in the storm. People really got squirrely after one or two days of no cell phone. Hmm. I can remember when mine clicked back on, I was like, oh, God, the cell phone is working. Yeah. I went out to my car to charge it back up again.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and that’s a whole other thing, too. It’s like, okay, well, if it works and you’ve even got the ability to pull some notes or data or different things that you may have saved on it, okay, great. You still need a way to keep that charged up. And just because you have a little solar charger, if you’ve not protected it – and this is the biggest debate that I’ve heard, Bill, and one that I don’t know that anybody’s got any – any direct answers on, and that is even those folks that have solar panels and they’ve done what it takes to be off-grid with them because solar panels in general, unless you’ve got a battery backup system, the minute the grid goes out, so does the solar panel system. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, there are several panel manufacturers who claim we are EMP proof. I don’t know about that. There’s only one way to really test it, and I don’t want to go through the testing.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I guess common sense, I’m thinking, okay, how have you made this EMP proof? Unless you’ve somehow shielded everything or you’ve got some sort of a device on there that is immediately shunting everything to ground, which I have a hard time believing, honestly, Bill, because of the cost that they’ve actually gone through. and done that, because my thought process would be every single panel then jumps up in price, and those guys are on a race to the bottom as far as prices go. I’m sorry, I just don’t see that.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, it’s why, maybe to harken back to something a little bit earlier, it’s why when I’m talking with people in groups or radio or whatever, everybody should be prepared at minimum to start to be able to survive for a month or two on your own. Right. Because right there, just even going walking downtown to get more water or milk or whatever. And. Things in downtown might not be all that nice after a day or two, particularly in a large city. Everybody should be prepared for at least a month or two to start.
SPEAKER 09 :
And this will probably, for a lot of you listening and even you, Bill, I’ll see if you’ve got the answer to this, because I didn’t. I was… way off now keep in mind this is a great listener by the way sent me a video of a couple of guys over in london they decided to start walking tying themselves for 24 hours straight to see how far they could actually go so keep in mind 24 hours and they’ve got very light packs on and they’re walking in a very undistressed situation meaning they can walk on the street the sidewalks the parks wherever they would like to go how far do you think in 24 hours they were able to walk 15 miles max. That’s what I thought, too. I thought 15, 20. These guys actually went almost 50, 46 miles. Now, these are younger guys, lanky, not overweight, able to probably put on some miles because of all of that. Now, they had said, listen, you know, we’re not in shape. We don’t go to the gym every day and so on. But these are guys in probably their late 20s, early 30s. You could tell from looking at them they’re not out of shape. Maybe they’re not in the best of shape. But now I will also say this. They did that not sleeping. They were extremely tired. They said everything, every bone in their body hurt by the time they got to the 24-hour mark. They were spent. I guarantee you those guys went home and probably slept for the next two days because they were spent doing that. Point being, if you did a regular pace trying to get someplace, I think, and I had said, you know, between 16 to 20 miles on average is about all somebody’s going to do. And that’s if you’re in really great shape, by the way.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, in my first book on this topic, One Second After, one of the characters is the town doctor. And only 24 hours in, he’s already overloaded with cases. Right. Heart attacks. Right. A person puts an ax through their leg because they decided to try and split some wood, and they haven’t done it in 15 years. All sorts of things. And just to go on something for a couple seconds here, I remember interviewing my pharmacist. Okay. at the end of an hour, she actually broke down crying. She said, Bill, it would be a total disaster. What about cancer patients for medication? What about pancreatic enzyme disorder? Something I had never thought of before. About 1% of the population are on some sort of antipsychotic medication, and about 20 to 25% are on mood-altering drugs. All of that is gone.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. And you wrote about this even in the book. There’s also folks that are on insulin that There’s a limited supply of that. And then think about also, Bill, you know, just everything from blood pressure medicine to you name it. I mean, you start going down the list of things that people have to take every day to survive. And by the way, those of you listening, if you are somebody that requires some of those things, I think just as a rule of thumb, I would be adding to my inventory any way you can. And I know some things have shelf life, but I’ve learned also, Bill, through other interviews, even since we talked, I’ve interviewed some other folks. Most prescriptions… Unless it’s like insulin or something along those lines. But most prescriptions, if they are unopened, literally have like a 20-year shelf life. Correct.
SPEAKER 07 :
And the problem, though, is getting authorization for some of them. That’s right. Absolutely, yes. And we all do it. I know a couple weeks back I had a medication that I do need. I suddenly realized I only had two or three pills left. Expectation and normalcy. Well, I’ll go to the pharmacist tomorrow. Right. And get it refilled.
SPEAKER 09 :
We all do it. Adjust in time delivery again. We do it with our gas tanks. We do it with that. We do it with what’s in the fridge. And we’re all, myself included, we’re all guilty of that. Although my wife makes fun of me because I have this syndrome called fear of running out. And it’s real. I love the syndrome. And so I literally am one of those where if we start to get a little bit low on something, I’m asking the question, okay, where’s the next one at? Because I hate that. I don’t know. I guess, Bill, for me, I just hate that feeling of I’m out of something. Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. And we have to condition ourselves to be a little bit more aware of that. Because like I said, I mean, it was a medication I do need. Okay, I’m in my 70s. What’s my probability of surviving a year of With this, very low. No matter how well-prepared I am. There’s just too many parameters there that at the age of 74, I’m not going to be able to cope with.
SPEAKER 09 :
Point being, if this stuff actually ends up happening, which, again, folks, we’re not trying to scare anybody. This is simply information, getting people up to speed. These are things that can happen. And I also am one that believes that, you know, the further down this road we get, the more apt we are to have some of these things happen. I’m sorry, Bill. I just especially when it comes to some of the cybersecurity ends of things, as you talked about in our last segment, the reality is there are a lot of countries out there that would love to see us fail.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s why I’m so supportive now of the current administration. They’ve been talking about the Iron Dome. The Iron Dome is the system Israel has for tactical incoming missiles. But they’re talking about Iron Dome for the United States. I pray to heaven Iron Dome means we’re going to have to go back to a strategic defense initiative. When it was conceived 40 years ago. The technology wasn’t there. The technology is definitely there now to protect the United States.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. And we have got to make a – how should I say this, Bill? We have to prioritize correctly the things that we want to do to keep this country safe – And I will tell you right now, and most people know where I stand on this, instead of feeding money into people that have EBT cards and are on the system that shouldn’t be, that actually should be working and contributing, we should be doing those things you just mentioned.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. We have to prepare ourselves. And this is several things. One, a robust foreign policy that says North Korea in particular and Iran don’t even think it. Because if you think it, we will take you out first. Yep. and then the technology for an anti-missile defense system, and then upgrading our internal structure. Yep. Yep. Okay. The average component, I said, is 30, 40 years old. But to get major components repaired, say brand-new transformers for a substation, takes sometimes two to three years. And guess who makes them?
SPEAKER 09 :
China. You got it. That’s our other problem. Those are some of the things that we definitely have got to bring home. We have the ability, as you know, Bill, to manufacture those things here. We’ve offshored those things simply because of cost or whatever you want to call it. And by the way, now with the advancement of… you know, AI and robotics and things like that, the ability to bring some of those things back here and manufacture them on a level that we can compete with the rest of the world on, I believe firmly we can. I realize that takes time. I know that’s not an overnight thing. But, Bill, we’ve got to start at some point.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, the analogy I give on that, let’s say it’s December the 8th, 1941, President’s meeting with Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the head of the Navy says, sir, we’ve got a problem. All our aircraft carriers are made in Japan. And then the Army says, all our airplanes are made in Germany. That’s the problems we are facing today.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, great point. It really is. No, it’s a great point. And already, for all of you listening, and some of you are watching this and know what I mean, and we have listeners, Bill, from all sides of the spectrum, aisle, age, et cetera. And what I’m going to say here is we’ve already seen – this was interesting a couple of days ago. I saw an announcement from Volkswagen Porsche Audi. where they’re like, hey, we’re going to get ahead of some of these proposed tariffs that probably are going to come down the pike at some point. We’re going to go ahead and look at building Porsches, for example, which have never been done in this country. We’re going to go ahead and look at doing something like that in the United States of America, where we can actually build those vehicles there and avoid what might be some of these tariffs coming in on down the road. Point being, if they’re seeing this coming, why can’t we?
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. Think of the number of jobs in the United States that would come back in the Rust Belt and elsewhere. If we’re manufacturing things like electrical components, cars, whatever. Upgraded solar panels that maybe could resist something. better electrical distribution systems that could be upgraded. All these could be American jobs. Correct. For the first time in decades.
SPEAKER 09 :
Correct. And, you know, I’ve interviewed a lot of other folks on my daily program, too, Bill, when it comes to, you know, the STEM end of things and the education that we are not, by the way, putting into our young people. We’re importing a lot of those STEM jobs right now, and that’s another one of those trends that we need to reverse because we need our own learning those things, not folks that we’re importing in from other countries.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, remember, I’m a college professor. So, yeah, we definitely need our education systems as well. Yeah, because the kids I get in, they’re great students, but they don’t know Jack when it comes to history like. Who do we fight against in World War II? Who was on our side? Right. You know, which president did what? Kids don’t know it because they’re not taught it anymore.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, they’re not. Unfortunately, they are not. Yeah. And to your point, we’ve got to get back to the basics, which, again, for all of you listening, that’s what we do here every Friday when it comes to some of these, you know, end of the world type, you know, scenarios. And I say end of the world. Well… And I’m not trying to, again, Bill, I’m not trying to scare people, but turn the electricity off. Turn the lights off for an extended period of time. And we’re like back in the dark ages. It is a completely different world that we live in.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know what got to me the first couple of nights after the disaster hit here? How quiet it all was. Yeah. Except for all the sirens. The sirens were going constantly because hundreds of people were stranded. A couple hundred people died and such. It was so darn quiet. But after a while, it started getting to me.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. Well, because you’re used to the other. And in our world, in our minds, we know what that quiet means. Things aren’t working like they should be. That’s exactly it. And again, for all of you listening, please do what you can. And I know for everybody out there that’s listening today, It’s a little different for each person. It’s not a one-size-fits-all. It may be a little bit different for your family. Some can go to larger extremes to make things happen. Some of you have the ability to put in a hardened generator into your home and things along those lines. But remember, too, that while you’re hooked up to the grid and these things are happening, you may very well have things even inside of your own home that will not work afterwards. You have to be really selective on, okay, am I going to keep a spare X someplace so that if something were to go awry and I fire up my own hardened generator, I’m still able to get back online. For example, Bill, I’m thinking of myself even. So my house is heated with hot water. I’ve got a hot water heat system. So there’s a boiler that heats the water that heats the floors and so on. And There we go. Well, as you know, that’s all computerized now because it knows what is being called for. Am I heating water for the faucet or am I heating water to make sure we have heat? The boiler is smart. It knows those things. Well, you and I both know that if what happens, what we’re talking about with a solar flare, a CME and or an EMP goes off, that board’s no good anymore. It’s done. It’s gone. It’s gone.
SPEAKER 07 :
Again, and I’ve said it three or four times now on this show today, expectation and normalcy. Worked yesterday, it’s going to work tomorrow. Try to think outside the box. Suppose it doesn’t work. How do I deal with this? How do I prepare for it? How do I take care of my family?
SPEAKER 09 :
And for all of you listening, there’s probably, Bill, a few old furnaces and boilers maybe out there running around. But let’s face it, those things have been electronicized, if you would. They’ve been running electronically with boards and computers and smart systems and so on, high efficiency, you could say. Those things have been converted over for the past probably, I don’t think I’m exaggerating, Bill, three-plus decades? More than that, even. By the 60s. It was starting to come in even in the 60s. True. Good point. No, you’re right. Good point. Even ovens and things like that were starting to get computerized at that point in time.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, for example, I basically heat my house with wood, but I said, I’m 74. I don’t go out and split a couple cord of wood. I have to have somebody do it for me now, and I have to pay it. But they’re not going to be there the day after something like this happens.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, and I think one of these things that you write in your books, and I’ve read other authors do the same thing, and the one thing that you guys are all in agreement on, by the way, is the systems that we have in place for fire, rescue, ambulance, and all of that. While that’s great right now and it works well in a lot of cases, not always because you experienced that recently, Bill, but in most cases it works pretty well. But in an event like what we’re talking about today, You know, with maybe the rare exception of a single person that has no responsibilities, no family, no whatever, they might stick around and do some things along those lines. But, Bill, the rest of them are jumping ship to go take care of their own family.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, I interviewed a lot of people on this book. For example, Chief of Police, who’s a friend of mine, back when I wrote the first book, Watch Second After, presented the scenario to him. And I said, OK, Jack, what do you do? He actually started to pick up the phone. And he said, oh, blank. The phone doesn’t work. How do I reach my people? You figure it out. The radio doesn’t work. Or going to the nursing home. That was a heartbreak of how would a nursing home work? For example, Alzheimer patients, they’ll wear a little ankle monitor that will set off an alarm if they try and go outside. Well, during this hurricane, the nursing homes here, half the staff wasn’t showing up. Wow.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Yeah, and part of that’s because they’ve got their own things to take care of.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. Am I going to take care of my kids, or am I going to drive? 20 miles. Right. You take care of your kids.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, yeah. And again, by the way, everything I said a moment ago for all of you listening, you as well, Bill, I’m not faulting any of those emergency responders. The reality is I would be doing the same thing. You’re going to take care of you and your family first and everything else will come second. If you can somehow get that done and maybe coincide that with your other job, the one that you used to have, by the way, which probably isn’t even going to be there moving forward. And some people will still be in some places of, you know, leadership and authority and things like that. But it will change dramatically to the point that, as you said earlier, even number one, the population side, you know, the population side of things decreases overnight.
SPEAKER 07 :
It decreases radically in very short order. And that’s the scary part of this scenario. Example, you know, gastrointestinal disease is All right. Five to seven days. That’s going to start kicking in from polluted water and other situations. True. Well, even now, you know, we’re used to, OK, get the medication, whatever. What are you going to do when a majority of people or a significant proportion have particular things that start hitting them? They’ll start dying. Right. And again, yeah, me at 74, I’d most likely die, you know, from sort of disease within the first couple of months.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. No, you’re not wrong, Bill. You really aren’t. And these are things that a lot of us have to think through. Again, not in a fearful, morbid type fashion, but just in a, hey, let’s be prepared. Whatever we can possibly do, let’s make that happen. All right. Before we close out, question for you, given what you just went through back in North Carolina, what would you change moving forward? What would I change?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, the big thing is I got a better president, and now he’s going to start addressing it. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I’ll give you that. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. That’s the big thing. Secondly is a public awareness of the need for Iron Dome, protect the United States, upgrade our electrical grid. Teach people how to deal with this situation. The old line from the Boy Scouts, be prepared. Everybody should be prepared.
SPEAKER 09 :
And you’re in an area where I think a lot of people, you know, the perception of the rest of Americans were, wait a minute, these folks are, you know, these are people that live that way on a regular basis. They know how to care for themselves. If there’s any part of the country that can do this, it’s them. And yet we still saw that devastation.
SPEAKER 07 :
As I mentioned, until Trump arrived here, his very first visit out was here. About 10,000 people were still basically homeless, and that’s four months after the storm.
SPEAKER 09 :
Unbelievable. Okay, not to get off on another tangent, but that stuff didn’t make the news. We knew it. I talked about some of that here on this program, but that wasn’t making national news.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, it wasn’t because… In contrast, L.A. is a media hub. Right. Over a bunch of million-dollar homes. We’re talking about small mountain communities here, people living in double watch. Yeah, made the news for two or three days, and then it was forgotten. And people here really did feel forgotten until Trump showed up.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, good for him. And you know my feelings on all of that and where I was long before we got him elected. You know where I was on all of that and where I stood. And, yes, there will be many a change come moving forward, and that includes not only what he’s doing but a lot of the folks that he’s even – some of the confirmations that are even going on right now, the people that he wants to see alongside him handle these things. It is a big change around from what we’ve been used to.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, there’s an old saying that God looks out for drunks, fools in the United States of America. We definitely need some looking out for from God now.
SPEAKER 09 :
Amen. Amen. You know what, Bill? Always a joy when I saw your name come up in my inbox, and I was like, absolutely, got to get you back. It’s been far too long, and we’ll have to do this again sooner than later because it’s always a joy. It’s a pleasure.
SPEAKER 07 :
And, yeah, I saw your name come up as well, and it’s like, great.
SPEAKER 09 :
I love these guys. All right, awesome. Well, Bill, thank you very much. And you know what? Tell all the rest of the folks that are around you that we are praying for them. We’re on their side, and we’re happy that, you know, Trump is there now trying to help get some things handled. Thank you, and maybe I’ll close with, be prepared. Hey, we will. Thank you, Bill. Appreciate you very much. Again, that is William Forstchen, F-O-R-S-T-C-H-E-N, and I’ve read all of his books. They are absolutely fabulous. One second after. one year after, the final day, and five years after. And I will tell you that every one of those are fabulous books. I’ve got the audio books on all of them, and I will periodically re-listen to them because of just how good they are. He is a great writer, does a great job, and he has done a lot of things outside of that, besides the fact that he’s an American historian and a professor of history, which you heard him talk about, but he’s done a lot of other things with a lot of other great people.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
All right, that is it for Ready Radio. Got about a minute here left today. And again, please, and I’m not saying that just because Bill was on, but they are great books. They really are thought-provoking, getting you to think about, hey, what should I actually have on hand? What should I be looking at for some of these types of events that might come along? And as he was saying, even he, who is an author, who probably was looking more for an end-of-the-world type event to come along, but the hurricane then hit, and he ends up in the same boat as a lot of the things he was actually writing about. So it can happen to any of us at any time. And what I’m saying is his books are a really thought-provoking way of looking at some of those things, and I highly recommend you go buy those. Again, William.com. Again, folks, thank you so much for listening. Ready-radio.com is our website. Go check it out. And our next program is next. Don’t go anywhere. This is Ready Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 10 :
You’re listening to AM560 KLZ, your home station. Rush to Reason with John Rush is coming up next on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 09 :
John Rusher on the next Rush to Reason. It’s Friday, and Andy Pate is my co-host, and Andy has two movie reviews this week, Companion and Dogman. And then movie rental hour will be Movies with Dogs. Not dog movies, but Movies with Dogs. That’s the next Rush to Reason, weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m., brought to you by some great sponsors, one of which is Hi-Fi Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric. Find them at klzradio.com or download our free app, KLZ Radio.
SPEAKER 10 :
Listen to KLZ AM HD Denver at AM 560 and 100.7 KLZ FM. KLZ is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
