Understanding The Threat to America's Critical Infrastructure From An EMP & Cyber Hacking

Male:    Reports are coming in about massive grid failure that has taken power out along the east coast.

Female:    So far we have no confirmation on what is causing this devastating outage, but rumors of a cyber attack are already being mentioned by authorities.

Male:    We now have reports that Texas has also lost its power in what appears to be a cascading domino effect. With as many as 100 million people now affected, authorities in the West are bracing themselves as they fear the blackout will continue to spread.

Female:    It has been an extraordinary last hour. The entire East Coast went out; Texas followed. Officials confirmed a cyber attack is the most likely cause behind this catastrophic failure. Forgive me, I'm being told right now that Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, they have all gone out as well. It's looking like a total power outage across the entire country.

Male:    A colossal and history-making blackout.

Female:    The likes of which we have never seen before.

Hello, I'm Brannon Howse and welcome to the Worldview Weekend Hour. What you've just seen is a collection of clips from a documentary put out in 2013 by National Geographic Television. That was all really just part of a documentary again by National Geographic Television on what it might look like in the United States of America should there be a nationwide power outage. Starting tonight in this program and in the subsequent programs we're gonna discuss the threat of an electromagnetic pulse bomb. Again this is not hype. This is not fiction. This is not doom and gloom.

We're gonna hear from leading national security experts. We're gonna hear from people like Ted Koppel, the former host, the original founding host of Nightline on ABC. We will read quotes from the former top scientist with the National Security Agency. We will hear from former CIA director James Woolsey, and we'll hear from other well known experts that are warning that America's power grid is not ready for one of several different types of attacks that could bring down our grid. There are actually three power grids in America, but these power grids are vulnerable to, number one, solar storms. Yes, solar storms from the sun. This is something that happens about every 100 to 150 years.

Another way of course is through our power grid being hacked. There are currently over 3,200 different power companies in America due to deregulation and most of those power companies are connected through the Internet in order to maintain the balancing act necessary for the production and flow of power. It is highly interconnected these 3,200 power companies and they're connected largely through the Internet. You will hear national security experts warning that China and Russia have already hacked into America's power grid and have put in what would be the equivalent of like a cyber bomb, that with a couple keystrokes they could bring down the power grid, power grids I should say, plural, 'cause there's three of them as I understand. They could bring down the power grids of America at will.

Now experts will counter that we likely as a nation, our national intelligence community and agencies have also hacked into their power grid and we could bring down their system as well. So it would be mutually shared destruction, thus prohibiting China or Russia from bringing down our power grid through a hack. Well that might be true, but it may not. In addition, what if the ability to do those keystrokes were handed off to rogue agents of the Russian government? What if criminal elements working for Russia were actually inside the United States of America and carried out such an attack in order to give Russia feasible deniability?

So we could see our power grid damaged through the sun, through hacking, and then a physical attack as we will here in California where a transmission substation was attacked by one or two or three men, they don't know because they don't have them on video doing the attack, but one to two or three men and what appeared to be almost in a special forces maneuver, people who either had special forces training or a special forces background, and in 19 minutes brought down this transmission substation in California. Experts say if such an attack were strategically planned and timed precisely at the same time on nine such infrastructure critical sites, it could bring down all the power grids and the electricity in America.

We'll look at that, a physical attack on a power grid. So we have the ability of the sun doing damage through solar storms to our power grid through what would be the equivalent of an EMP through solar flares. We have hacking of our power grid by rogue states and even ISIS. We also have the ability of physical damage, and then finally we have the issue of an electromagnetic pulse bomb being detonated up over the United States of America or even lifted up over the United States of America with a balloon. These again are not scenarios that are out of the realm of possibility and in fact are the very scenarios leading incredible experts and former national security personnel are warning about.

That opening two minutes that you saw from the National Geographic television documentary was again blackout, 2013. It was put out by National Geographic Television. We use those clips under the Federal Fair Use Act as we're using all of these clips under the Federal Fair Use Act for the purpose of education and information and public service, but I would urge you to go and watch the entire hour and a half documentary of what it might look like should the power go out in America. Again, this is a documentary put out in 2013 by National Geographic on a blackout in America.

In fact, I would urge you to go to the National Geographic website and order one or more copies – I'm sure you can order it from their website – of that documentary, and watch it with your family and friends and maybe share it with your family and friends and then consider some of the information we're gonna give you on how to prepare. We're not gonna simply just offer you scary stories and scary scenarios. We're gonna offer you how you can actually prepare for what Ted Koppel says he believes is inevitably going to happen within the next ten years. So I will provide for you some of the very things I'm doing for such an event going all the way back to 2009.

In 2007 I began reporting on my radio program on the threat of an electromagnetic pulse bomb being detonated over the United States of America by such countries as Russia or Iran or North Korea. It is said that Iran has been practicing launching a missile off a cargo ship in international waters since, well, many years back, and if they could put a nuclear weapon up over the United States of America 10 to 30 miles up above America and detonate it, the explosion would create what is known as an electromagnetic pulse and would grab the curvature of the earth and experts say it would put down almost all, guaranteed all three of the power grids in America, and it could take months if not years to fully restore power.

Part of the reason is much of the equipment, these large transmitters, these large substations, transmission substations, many of those large pieces of equipment are custom built and must be custom built for every place in which they reside. You can’t just grab one and put it anywhere. In addition, these are manufactured in many cases overseas in places I read such as in Germany and in South Korea, and you're talking about a year or more to have them manufactured and then transported to America and then transported to the site location and then assembled.

Can you imagine what would happen if hundreds or even a few thousand of these were damaged at the same time? You're talking about again months and maybe years before you have full power back on from one end of the country to the other. Again we're gonna go to the experts, people that are highly respected and trusted. One of those is Ted Koppel. I don't know about you, but I grew up under the program Nightline hosted by Ted Koppel. I was probably about 11 years old if I remember correctly when the program Nightline was launched by Ted Koppel.

It was during the Iran hostage crisis if you remember, and some of you were not alive then so you don't remember, but we had an embassy in Iran and we had American workers in that embassy that were taken hostage by Iranians, and they were held for many, many days, many, many months. Out of that crisis was birthed a program known as Nightline hosted by ABC news journalist Ted Koppel. So from the time I was about 11 years old all the way through high school and out of high school I regularly watched, religiously if you will, Nightline.

From a very young age I have enjoyed watching news programs and Nightline was one such program. Regularly when it would come on at 10:30 after the local news Central time even all the way through high school I would watch Nightline. As a result I grew up respecting the journalism and professionalism of Ted Koppel. Now I don't know where Ted Koppel stands on some issues politically because in many regards he's a professional and has not like many modern day news people allowed his personal politics to bleed through the story.

I am sure however that I would not agree with Ted Koppel on some important and vital public policy issues. With that said, I do respect his professionalism and his deep research on many topics. One of them is the topic we're discussing in this broadcast. Ted Koppel is the author of a book entitled Lights Out. It was published in 2015 and again I would urge you to get a copy. It's published by Crown Publishing, Lights Out: A Cyber Attack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath. It's an excellent book and I highly recommend you get a copy yourself. He spent nearly two years and interviewed nearly 65 people, many of them national security experts, on the topic of the attack on the American power system.

We're gonna play some audio clips, video for television. I played these on my radio program. We'll play some video clips of Ted Koppel being interviewed on many different programs about his book and help us to understand the great national security threat to our national power grid. I believe this is a public service announcement what we're doing in this broadcast and the subsequent programs, because most Americans are not aware of this topic. If they are, they only have a cursory understanding of the topic, and yet some experts say within a year of such an attack on our power grid that would leave the country without electricity for many months, nine out of ten Americans would die.

There would be the issue of heat, cooling, food distribution, and then sanitation, because water would be unable to be pumped to higher floors to flush toilets. And so the disease and the lack of sanitation and food and the ability to grow food and farmers to run their tractors and to get the seed and all the things that are needed in our just-in-time inventory system in America would collapse and the devastation would be quite incredible. But yet the experts seem to indicate that such catastrophe or such death or harm is not necessary if people are prepared. Simple preparedness.

Ted Koppel asked a very good question. Why are our government officials not preparing the American people now for what he believes is inevitable? Why are they not preparing now? Why is our government more interested in a social entitlement experiment known as national healthcare? Why is our government more interested in the ever expanding welfare state?

Why are our news people more interested in what is going on with, well, families like the Kardashians and what's going on in social media and Dancing with the Stars? The American people have entertained themselves to death, to quote the title of one book from many years ago, and they're not aware of the great threat that our country faces that many could survive if prepared. Again, in this program and subsequent programs I hope to provide you with the information as well as what you can do to prepare.

Even if you're on a fixed income we will show you ways that you can prepare for such a crisis as an attack on America's power grid. Let's begin, clips by Ted Koppel being interviewed on his book, Lights Out. Here's our first clip.

Interviewee:    What I'm talking about is a cyber attack against infrastructure, a cyber attack that could affect tens of millions of people for a period of months if not longer.

Interviewer:    Based on your reporting it seems clear from your book that the national security officials believe that this is a matter of when and not if.

Interviewee:    Exactly. In fact, that's a line that a man I came to know when I was embedded with U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq, he is now the commander of SENCOM, four star general Lloyd Austin who said exactly that. It's not a question of if, it's only a question of when.

Notice what he said. He's quoting the general in charge of SENCOM, one of our highest and most strategic military intelligence services. It's not a matter of if, but it's a matter of when. Watch this next clip.

Interviewee:    We know, I say because the former chief scientist of the NSA told me this as did Keith Alexander his boss who was the director of NSA, we know that the Russians are in the grid. We know that the Chinese are in the grid.

"We know the Russians are in our grid and we know the Chinese are in our grid." My friends, we're talking about Russia run by at this time we're filming in November of 2016, run by Putin, a former KGB officer. Folks, make no mistake about it, Putin is your old hard line communist and China, well that's red China, also communist. What you might be shocked to find out as we go through this exercise and research is that many of the nations that are seeking to bring down or could bring down our power grid are many of the nations I see represented in Ezekiel chapter 38.

You will hear that nations such as Iran, Russia, Syria, and many others have the ability or are working to gain the ability to bring down our power grid through hacking or by carrying out an EMP attack. What I find quite fascinating is this. As I've studied this and I've listened to the long list of the nations that national security experts are worried about, I noticed that they're the same nations many of them listed in Ezekiel 38, the Marxist and the Muslims, that build a coalition that come against Israel, and it got me to thinking, from a common sense and strategic standpoint if this coalition of Marxist and Muslims that come together to move against Israel as described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 were going to carry out a successful attack on Israel, would they not first want to eliminate retaliation or defense of Israel by an ally of Israel such as the United States of America?

Would it not make perfect strategic sense for this coalition of nations to bring down America before they attack Israel so that America could not come to the defense of Israel? That's assuming that when this happens America is still an ally of Israel. Unfortunately the way the country seems to be going we are abandoning Israel very, very quickly, but assuming America is still an ally of Israel at this time, would America not look to respond with our military resources in the Middle East to defend and to help Israel? Well it would make perfect sense then for this coalition of nations to bring down America.

Could this be one reason why America seems to be completely missing whereas many nations of the world are specifically named in the Bible? America and its presence, its name seems to be completely absent, yet the Scriptures tell us that we will see Egypt, Syria, Russia, Iran, Turkey, some of the breakaway publics of the former Soviet Union, perhaps Afghanistan, Turkistan, and many other nations that are mentioned in the Bible are very active today and already active in their hostility toward Israel.

So could it be that the topic tonight that we're discussing is the very topic, the very way in which America is removed from being a world superpower militarily and economically, and thus that coalition of nations from Ezekiel 38 and 39 could boldly move against Israel with their attack. It's certainly something to think about. But notice again, Ted Koppel says that national security experts know for a matter of fact that China and Russia are inside our grid. That again is very sobering information. Here is the next clip.

Interviewee:    It is frightening enough that my wife and I decided we were gonna buy enough freeze dried food for all of our kids and their kids.

Interviewer:    In his book Lights Out, veteran journalist Ted Koppel paints a grim picture of a paralyzing power outage in the form of an all out cyber attack on the nation's electrical grid.

Interviewer:    Who are the potential perpetrators here? Who do we have to fear the most? Is it Russia, China, Iran, terrorists, individual actors?

Interviewee:    All those. The interesting thing, Chip, is the ones who are most capable are the ones least likely to do it.

Interviewer:    There are some experts who say they're already in.

Interviewee:    Oh, they are in. There's no question about it.

Interviewer:    They're into our grid.

Interviewee:    They are already in the grid. I was told that by the former chief scientist of NSA. He stated categorically the Russians are in, the Chinese are in. The Iranians may be on the verge of getting in, and then at the bottom of the capability scale folks like ISIS, terrorist groups.

First of all, notice he said that he is taking this information that he has learned in nearly two years of research so seriously that he has purchased freeze dried food for his family, for his wife, himself, his children, and his children's children. By the way folks, something I've not mentioned until recently on radio, in April 2013 I personally bought enough freeze dried food for my family to last several months because I too having researched this since 2007 believe it is indeed a major threat.

I also wanna be prepared for other disasters: power outages due to natural disasters, tornadoes, an ice storm. I live in Memphis on the New Madrid fault, or near enough it that local news stations have routinely run programs on what a massive earthquake might do to those of us living in Memphis this close to the New Madrid fault, and many have been told they should be prepared. So there's many reasons to I believe be able to sustain yourself and not count on the government.

Ted Koppel believes this is serious enough he purchased freeze dried food as you heard for his family including his children and grandchildren.

Ted Koppel even shares how the preparations at our federal government are so bad that high ranking FEMA members can't even agree how to respond to such a crisis. Could this be again? Could it be because we become a Romans I nation with vain, useless, and futile people at all levels of government? Watch this clip.

Interviewer:    I spoke to the two top officials at FEMA. FEMA is the Federal Emergency management Agency. It would be their responsibility to deal with the consequences of an attack in the immediate aftermath. The deputy head of FEMA who is a retired coast guard vice admiral told me that in his opinion in the event that a city like New York or Manhattan was hit, his response would be to evacuate. I said, "Evacuate 8 million people?" "Well," he said, "you don't leave me with much of an option. If it happens you've got to take care of the people and the only way I can see you could do that would be to evacuate." The next day I spoke to his boss and said, "What would you do? Would you evacuate?" He said, "Evacuate? You can't evacuate 8 million people. Where would you put them?" So just to respond directly to your question, the two top people at the agency responsible for dealing with the consequences of an attack like this cannot agree on what they would do.

So even the leaders of FEMA can't seem to agree how to respond. Does that tell you the necessity to prepare on your own? In one of our last clips we heard Ted Koppel mention ISIS or terrorists seeking to impact our power grid. Here's an article from the Washington Examiner. The headline is "New ISIS Threat, America's Electrical Grid. Blackout could kill 9 of 10." Former top government officials who have been warning Washington about the vulnerability of the nation's largely unprotected electric grid are raising new fears that troops from the jihadist Islamic State are poised to attack the system leading to a power crisis that could kill millions. "Inadequate grid security, a porous U.S./Mexico border, and fragile transmission systems make the electrical grid a target for ISIS" said Peter Pry, one of the nation's leading experts on the grid.

The article in the Washington Examiner goes on to say "Others joining Pry at a press conference later Wednesday to draw attention to the potential threat said that if just a handful of the nation's high voltage transformers were knocked out, blackouts would occur across the country. By one estimate, should the power go out and stay out for over a year, nine out of ten Americans would likely parish" said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington. By the way, Frank Gaffney is also a former I believe under secretary of defense for the Reagan administration.

At the afternoon press conference, Gaffney dubbed the potential crisis the grid jihad. A lack of electricity would shut off water systems, impact city transportation services, and shut down hospitals and other big facilities. Fresh and frozen foods also would be impacted, as would banks, financial institutions, and utilities. Peter Pry provided details of recent attacks on electricity systems and said that ISIS could easily team with Mexican drug cartels to ravage America.

He told secrets for example that Knights Templar drug gang blacked out the electric grid of the Mexican state of Michigan in 2013 to provide cover for killing those fighting the drug trade. "The Knights Templar and other criminal gangs in Mexico will do anything for money, and ISIS, the richest terrorist organization in history, has hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal," said Pry. By the way, since this report I've now read a new figure that says ISIS has at its disposable up to $2 billion. That would allow them to hire the needed experts if you will and the off-the-shelf equipment as experts are saying to attack America's power grid.

The article goes on to say, quoting Peter Pry, "ISIS could hire one of the Mexican cartels or one of their criminal gangs already in the U.S. or activate jihadist terrorist cells already in the U.S. and inflict a multi-state blackout immediately within days or weeks, perhaps even a nationwide blackout" Peter Pry explained. By the way, the article concludes by saying, "The Texas Department of Public Safety recently said they believe there is evidence that ISIS plans an attack."

By the way, there are three power grids in America. Texas is its own power grid and one of the three. Here's another article from the Washington Examiner entitled "Expert: North Korea's H bomb is super EMP weapon." You remember the news, and this is again a report from January 2016, you remember here in 2016 the report of North Korean testing H bombs? Many people believe what they're really testing is an H bomb for the purpose of carrying out an EMP attack. Again all they would need to do is put some kind of a Scud into our atmosphere above our country and detonate a nuclear weapon and let the electromagnetic pulse grab the curvature of the earth and do the damage it would do, or put it up with a balloon.

In addition to that, experts are reporting, national security experts that we'll get into in subsequent programming are reporting that North Korea has already launched a low flying satellite that orbits the earth. What if that satellite has, or if they orbited another one, and loaded it with a small nuclear warhead, that low flying satellite carrying that nuclear warhead could be detonated and again detonated over the United States when it passed over in its orbit.

These are serious issues and ones that are not being raised by most of our elected officials. Right now here we are, today is November 2. We have the presidential election coming up in days. How much have you heard this talked about by the national candidates, people running for the U.S. Senate, people running for the House of Representatives in Washington DC? How many men and women that are running for the governor of their states are talking about this? How many of your local elected officials are talking about this? In fact, legislation has been proposed in Washington that would get our power grid ready, that would secure our power grid. The cost I'm reading is about $2 billion. The legislation is stalled in Washington.

Yes, $2 billion is a lot of money, but the reports are that should the power go out and stay out for several months nationwide, all three grids attacked, you're looking at the hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe into the trillions. Again, what is the purpose of government, to be a national welfare state and redistribute the wealth through welfare programs, or is it security and protection?

Perhaps it's time to quit giving the billions of dollars, and yes we do give billions of dollars in foreign aid to Muslim nations, some of them by the way who want to bring us down, and use it to secure our own infrastructure. Do you realize I'm reading that just with the foreign aid we give annually to one or two Muslim nations if we were to stop giving them that foreign aid we would have the $2 billion necessary to secure our national infrastructure.

Part of the reason I'm doing this program, folks is in hopes that not only will you get personally prepared because I don't think you can count on the government, but that you would put pressure on your elected officials and your state officials, your national and state officials, to take this seriously. We'll look in a future program about Maine. The state of Maine is one of the few states to pass legislation to get their state ready. Certain states might actually be able to survive this far better than other states because they have prepared accordingly, but you heard Ted Koppel mention ISIS.

One of the groups we have to be most worried about is ISIS, and now we read reports of them working with drug gangs in Mexico. Back to the Washington Examiner piece on the H bomb, North Korea. The article said North Korea's surprise detonation of a low yield H bomb dismissed as virtually irrelevant by some media experts is exactly what others have been warning about, a potential super EMP weapon that could easily wipe out the electrical grid, cars and electronics over a wide swath of the United States, again quoted as Peter Pry who served on the former commission to assess the threat to the United States from electromagnetic pulse attack.

He told the group that he was speaking to, "The yield of the North Korea explosion is well within the requirements of a super EMP weapon. Neutron bombs or enhanced radiation weapons such as a super EMP weapons are essentially very low yield H bombs that typically have yields of 1 to 10 kilotons just like the North Korean device" said Pry, executive director of the task force on national and Homeland Security. Watch this next clip.

Interviewee:    We wanted to find out for ourselves, but both the White House and the Department of Energy declined our request for an on-camera interview. The Department of Homeland Security also refused to speak on camera. Instead we were given a statement, which reads in part, "To be clear, the Department of Homeland Security has a plan. We along with the Department of Energy coordinate national efforts to strengthen the security and resilience of the electric grid. We also work with energy sector partners to promote the security and resilience of the grid through myriad activities both seen and unseen." Next we reached out to some of the big electric companies. They refused to speak with us as well.

My friends, if the White House and the Energy Department and the power companies and the Department of Homeland Security all have a plan on how to respond, why has no one seen it? Ted Koppel asked the Department of Homeland Security director, Johnson I believe is his last name, what the plan was and he supposedly pointed to a shelf that contained a bunch of three-ring binders and said "I'm sure there's an action plan somewhere in there." And the word was used that the director of Homeland Security got a little prickly with Ted Koppel when he kept pushing him on, "What is the plan? What is the plan? Why not tell us what the plan is so people can prepare?" Is it that they really don't have a plan? Why would they not know the plan right off the top of their head?

Are you aware of the fact that there's one state that's reportedly about two hours' drive from Washington DC? It's more of a rule state, and the governor of that state as reported has told the sheriffs and police and other officials in his state that should there be a massive power outage in some major city like Washington DC, they will not allow a bunch of Americans from another state to pour into their state. They will meet them at the border with a bottle of water, a sandwich and a map, and tell them where the closest gas station is. You'll hear that clip from Ted Koppel himself in our next program.

The point is, some of the governors are planning and the planning is to try to stop Americans from going into those states leaving the big cities where they truly are gonna have a problem with the lack of electricity that's needed to pump water up into apartment buildings and condos in order to flush the toilets, not the mention the social unrest and lack of food and other things. But why is our government not releasing the plan? Why are the power companies not talking about it? Could it again be because they are not ready, which is maybe all the more reason why we must be. Again I see this as a public service program for you and your family, your neighbors, your friends, and your church members. Watch this next clip.

Interviewer:    So we turned to Paul Stockton, a former Defense Department official whose duties included cyber security. So what does the average family actually need to be doing? Do they need to be as Ted Koppel has done, stocking up on water and freeze dried food?

Interviewee:    I think those are very important measures. Average citizens need to be able to take care of their own families and their own neighborhoods and their own communities and not assume that Uncle Sam is somehow going to magically bring in the cavalry and rescue them.

Folks, I believe that's again from CBS Sunday Morning News these last few clips. Notice what this individual said. You better not wait on the government being the cavalry. You better be prepared on your own. Now are the power companies ready? I wanna play a clip for you from this same man we just saw being interviewed by CBS, and I want you to notice the words that he uses. He's going to use the words "will use."

He doesn't use the words "may use." He uses the word "will use." The tactics that those that desire to bring down our country, our enemies, the tactics they will use, notice he doesn't say "may use", he says "will use." Notice too that he does not say the power companies are ready, but they're trying to get ready. Watch this clip.

Interviewer:    Are the power companies today prepared to respond to a large scale cyber attack on the grid?

Interviewee:    Power companies today are strengthening their ability to respond to an attack and restore power more quickly.

Interviewer:    Still, Stockton admits.

Interviewee:    Their readiness is not where it needs to be given that the adversary continues to strengthen the sophistication of the weapons that will be used against the United States.

Did you notice what he said? The power companies aren't ready for the strength of the weapons that the enemies of the United States will use. Didn't say "may use", he said "will use." Perhaps this is why Ted Koppel thinks that in the next ten years this is inevitable. Watch that clip one more time.

Interviewer:    Are the power companies today prepared to respond to a large scale cyber attack on the grid?

Interviewee:    Power companies today are strengthening their ability to respond to an attack and restore power more quickly.

Interviewer:    Still, Stockton admits.

Interviewee:    Their readiness is not where it needs to be given that the adversary continues to strengthen the sophistication of the weapons that will be used against the United States.

Notice again he says they're not ready. The power companies are not ready for the weapons that will be used. Notice that he says what they're trying to do is improve the ability to turn the power back on faster. Wait a minute, the issue really now is that it's gonna happen and we need to respond on how we're gonna get the power back on faster? It almost seems as though they believe it's inevitable that the power will go out.

Will it be one grid, two grids, all three grids? By the way, there's a delicate balancing act that must take place between the power companies and the three grids. We'll get into that in a later program, but again, listen to how Ted Koppel after two years of researching this is preparing.

Interviewee:    But to have an extra supply of food and water, to be able to take care of your family and to know that you're not dependent upon government sort of running to the rescue, I think that can actually be quite healthy.

Interviewer:    Well having written the book, I should ask you directly. How prepared are you now?

Interviewee:    Not as prepared as I should be, but I have bought some freeze dried food for the family, for myself and my wife and children and our grandchildren. We do have a water supply and we do have backup generators. Is that gonna be sufficient? I don't know. I hope never to find out, but I fear that I may.

And after two years of research, just how convinced is Ted Koppel that there will be an attack on our power grid?

Interviewer:    So let's ask you directly. Given what you now know about this subject, over the next ten years, what would you put the likelihood at that something like this will happen?

Interviewee:    Well if I didn't think that it was likely, I wouldn't have written the book in the first place. When you say over the next ten years I think it's all but inevitable that it's going to happen in the next ten years.

Let's play one more clip. What if the power went out let's say just on the Eastern Seaboard, the East Coast, in a major city like New York for several days? Has the state of New York prepared accordingly? Do they have enough meals ready to eat, MREs, or freeze dried food? Ted Koppel says no. Here he is on a CBS morning program. Watch this clip.

Interviewee:    You're talking about a community of, what, 8 million people? The food in a place like Manhattan would run out in a couple of days. New York State has several million MREs, meals ready to eat, but when you take several million and you divide it by 8 million you're talking about maybe a two- or three-day food supply. What happens on day four?

Well our time is just about up. We will play a lot more video clips in our next program by more experts including the former CIA director James Woolsey and expert Peter Pry. We'll also play a video of Newt Gingrich. I don't agree with Newt Gingrich on every issue, but again Newt Gingrich is at least one of the people warning about the need for our country to get prepared and how devastating such an attack on our power grid would be, either one that includes that electromagnetic pulse bomb, hacking our power grid and bringing it down, sunburst creating a natural electronic magnetic pulse, or the grid being physically attacked. Transmission substations being physically attacked, shot up with AK-47s as was the case in California.

We'll play video clips of news reports describing that attack and how former Navy SEALs or current Navy SEALs who analyzed it and the evidence at the scene believe the individuals carried it out like people who had Special Forces training. Again folks, this is a serious national security issue, and I'm not bringing you this program to scare you. I don't care if you wanna purchase anything on our website or not. We had planned to do this program and we're doing these programs on radio long before we offered anything on our website.

It was only because those listening to our radio program began emailing asking where to get information and resources that we decided we would offer some things on our website. I don't care whether you purchase anything on our website or not. Feel free to purchase it elsewhere if you want. The point is, this program was in the works weeks ago and I've been researching this for years, personally planning and preparing for such an event, going back to when I built my own personal patio and bonfire pit in 2009, ordered the equipment to allow me to collect water in 2012, and ordered the freeze dried food for my family in April of 2013.

I'm bringing this to you now because I increasingly feel that we are more vulnerable than ever before, because I have uncovered more and more information that shows our government has no intention of getting ready. I love the people that watch our TV show and radio show; many of you I know personally. Many of you I may not know your name, but I know you when I see you. You have attended our conferences many, many times, enough that I know you when I see you. Many of you I can tell you things personally about your family that you have told me and I remember them.

Some of you in fact are shocked when I remembered details about your family, what your kids are up to that you've told me about, the school they went to, what they were majoring in, the job that you maybe the father hold. I've shot some of you because I remembered many of those details about many of the people that have regularly attended our conferences, and so I'm concerned. Yes, for many years I've said nothing about my own personal preparations because I feared that people would say, well, I was being extreme.

I must say when I see people like James Woolsey, former CIA director, the former assistant secretary of defense Frank Gaffney, and news journalist Ted Koppel along with former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich publicly speaking on these issues, it gave me I believe the freedom to say yes, it's time to do programs and tell people that this is serious. It's serious enough I believe I'm sharing with you my own preparations that I have done for the last few years. Please understand, my purpose is not to cause you fear.

We as Christians are not to have a spirit of fear and of weakness but be of sound mind, yet the Bible has an awful lot to say as we will see in coming programs about being prepared for hard times, putting away, and yes, being able to share with others who have need. So let me stress once again, this program is not to scare you and to elicit any response from you other than being aware and making reasonable and common sense preparations. That's the purpose. I hope you appreciate the research and the spirit in which it's delivered.

If you appreciate our program and that we spend hours researching and developing this broadcast and many, many others, can you imagine the hours it's taken to watch all of these TV programs, all of these interviews, and then grab these clips and put them together? It takes days to get ready for a broadcast that lasts one hour. So if you appreciate what we're doing, would you contribute to our foundation and support our broadcast ministry? You can do so now by going to wvwfoundation.com. It's vital we hear from you in the closing weeks of 2016 as about 30 percent of our annual operating budget comes in the last four weeks of the year.

Can we hear from you even right now? You can make a tax deductible contribution at wvwfoudnation.com or you'll find our mailing address if you prefer to send a check, you'll find our mailing address on that website. You'll also find a phone number. WVWFoundation.com is how you can support is through our tax deductible religious nonprofit organization. Thank you for supporting our broadcast ministries and all the programs that we support here and distribute and produce, both radio and television. Until next time I'm Brannon Howse. Thanks for watching. Take care.

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