April 19, 2023 • 44 mins
Dr. William Forstchen is an author, historian and expert on EMPs. He has written three fictional books about what happens to a town after an EMP attack, with the fourth book on the way. We discuss what an EMP is, the likelihood of such an attack, and what we can do to prepare or prevent it. You won't want to miss this one!
00:00 - Intro
00:36 - Welcome Bill & Background
02:23 - Becoming an EMP Expert & Novels
05:04 - What is an EMP & Effect
10:35 - Likelihood of an EMP Attack
15:35 - Electronics Damaged & Protection
17:15 - Upgrading the Grid
22:25 - Cost of Rebuilding & Cyber Attacks
28:45 - Funding, Corporations & Government
31:47 - What We Can Do & Fear Reactions
38:55 - Books Into a Movie & Hollywood
39:38 - Hoping for a Safe Future
42:55 - St. Jude's & Humane Society
43:40 - Outro
Books for Sale on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/William-R.-Forstchen/author/B000APZ9N8?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
St. Jude's website:
https://www.stjude.org/
Humane Society website:
https://www.humanesociety.org/
Chuck Shute website:
https://chuckshute.com/
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chuck Shute (00:00):
Okay, Dr. William fortune is my guest today and he
(00:03):
is an author and collegeprofessor and expert on EMP is a
dangerous weapon that can takeout our whole power grid and
make life pretty miserable foreveryone. So you thought things
were bad during the pandemic itcan get a lot worse. So we're
going to discuss what an EMP isexactly the likelihood of one
occurring and what we can do toprevent it so you won't want to
(00:23):
miss this onewell, first of all, I want to
ask you, how do you pronounceyour name because I've heard it
pronounced two different ways.
I've heard fortune and then I'veheard like, forced them or
(00:45):
something. I don't I don't knowwhich one is right. You didn't
correctly the
Dr. William Forstchen (00:47):
person.
Think force chin, forced chin.
Chuck Shute (00:51):
Okay, so it was Newsmax that had it wrong. And
that was a bigger thing. Theysaid fortune. They kept saying
it. And you didn't correct?
Dr. William Forstchen (00:58):
Yeah, no, no, it was Newsmax so we didn't
have time for it to getcorrected. Okay. Okay. Call me
Billy. After that. All right.
Okay.
Chuck Shute (01:07):
Well, welcome, Bill. So yeah, explain to my
audience, your background here.
You obviously have a doctoratefrom Purdue. In military
history. Correct?
Dr. William Forstchen (01:18):
Yes. Male and a history technology.
Chuck Shute (01:21):
Yeah. And the talk Tell me about your dissertation
a little bit. It's aninteresting Indiana's African
Americans go to war.
Dr. William Forstchen (01:28):
Yeah, my doctoral dissertation. Long
story short, I fell into thiswonderful topic. It was the
African American regiment thatwas raised in Indiana and
Indianapolis in 1863. And waspretty well wiped out at the
Battle of the crater July20 1864. So that was a two year
(01:51):
effort buried in the NationalArchives and state archives. I
loved it. And I've done a coupleof books about it sense young
adults novel called we lookedlike men of war, which actually
got an award for me, and then areally kind of gritty book
called The crater, or to makemen free, they changed the
(02:13):
title. And that's about thatexperience at the Battle of the
crater.
Chuck Shute (02:18):
Okay, so and then you've written some books on the
Civil War. And then so how didyou fall into being the the EMP
expert?
Dr. William Forstchen (02:28):
Got two hours. And 99 way, way back in
1991, I was a graduate student.
We had a one in 500 year eventin Lafayette, Indiana. And I you
storm blew out the entire grid,we were talking about the high
tension lines collapsing. Therewere sections of Indiana that
(02:48):
were at power for over a month.
So I'm in a university town, welose power for 11 days. And
within about five days, thingsgot really squirrely, people
really started, you know,somebody had to have a generator
and suddenly people are knockingon their door, can I charge
(03:10):
this? Can I do that? It's likeNational Guardsmen on the power
trucks. People were literallybarricading the trucks that they
pulled onto their street. Sothat got filed away. 1012 years
later, I'm well aware of EMPstudied it in grad school. And I
kept trying to write this novelone second after. And it finally
(03:34):
came to me at a graduationceremony in 2005. I'm sitting
there with all my doctoral robeson it's 90 degrees were
sweltering and dying. And Ilooked at the audience, my
students were small college andI suddenly hit, I'm gonna write
about my town. You know, ourtown gone bad. What would happen
(03:57):
in a small town if the powerwent off and didn't come back
on? So that was the start of itbook was published. 2009 became
a best seller. It's stillselling like crazy. 14 years
later.
Chuck Shute (04:10):
Yeah. And there's sequels as well. There's a three
in the series.
Dr. William Forstchen (04:14):
Yeah. The second book is one year after
picks the story up a year later.
Then the final day, severalyears after that. I deliberately
titled that because I want totell my publisher, I never want
to do this topic again. It getsto you. Yeah. You start
immersing into this and you'regoing to hearings and you're
(04:35):
giving speeches. But as said inthe movie, The Godfather, they
made me an offer. I couldn'trefuse. But yeah, I'll be back
in again. And there you go. Sothe next book, five years after
is coming out August 25.
Chuck Shute (04:55):
Oh, so there's another one. Yeah, there's four
of them. This will be well thisbe the last one. It better be.
Okay. Well So explain to myaudience what exactly an EMP is.
Okay,
Dr. William Forstchen (05:09):
EMP shorthand electromagnetic pulse
weapon. Alright, it's created bylofting about three small
nuclear warheads above theEarth's atmosphere below them
over the eastern United States,central United States, western
United States. They're not thatpowerful as nukes go 40 to 60
(05:31):
Kid ton that four times the sizeof their Hiroshima bomb. But
when they detonate, it sets upan electrostatic discharge
called the competent effect,which was first clearly seen in
a study done in 1962, when theyblew one in space, and it
shorted out the power system inHawaii. So that Compton Effect
(05:55):
cascades down to the Earth'ssurface. And that speed of light
overload sets up anelectrostatic discharge that
overloads the power grid, andeverything starts shutting down.
It is catastrophic. It's nottinfoil hat. There's been
several congressional studies.
Both of them say the same thing.
(06:16):
The bad number is if we were hitby that upwards of 90% of
Americans will be dead a yearlater. That's yeah, easy.
Chuck Shute (06:26):
And this is, but there is like you said the one
in Indiana that was natural,right? I mean, that's also a
possibility as well.
Dr. William Forstchen (06:33):
Yeah.
That was just an ice storm thatjust want catastrophic.
Everything shut down. And butwith an EMP, when it hits, it
blows the grid out. And I know90% sales this this is crazy.
But I'll ask you a questionright now. Where are you
located?
Chuck Shute (06:54):
I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay.
Dr. William Forstchen (06:57):
Oh, great. Can you imagine that on a
July day?
Chuck Shute (07:00):
Yeah, I know. I know. I'd
Dr. William Forstchen (07:01):
be screwed. What? Yeah, what do you
Okay, my question is, where doyou get your water?
Chuck Shute (07:07):
It's from the Salt River Project, which I think our
water comes from Colorado, Ithink I believe it comes all the
way down from the end, we havethis the Colorado River comes
all the way through the SaltRiver Project. And it's a man
made lakes and then through thefiltering system or whatever. So
yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (07:22):
And what happens if there's no
electricity?
Chuck Shute (07:26):
Right? And isn't that like most of America? I
mean, I guess unless you'regetting it from a well on a farm
or something.
Dr. William Forstchen (07:32):
But even then you're using your
electrical power.
Chuck Shute (07:36):
Well, if you have the the old school bucket or
whatever,
Dr. William Forstchen (07:40):
like an old grandpa's out there, the
pump? Yeah. What happens is, Icall it a Maslow's hierarchy of
needs, you're going to lose yourwater immediately. Within
several days, that's going to bebad. Second food supply. There's
a moving anymore. Average townhas about 20 days worth of food
(08:00):
on hand, from what's in yourfreezer, to what's pulling up in
a truck, that's got medication,your pharmacies are gone.
They're no longer takingshipments. Nursing homes would
be an absolute nightmare. Imean, you have a large elderly
population in Arizona. Can youimagine them without power, even
(08:21):
for a week without airconditioning? And then of
course, disease sets in andcommand and control what happens
in your major cities, which arebad enough as is right now.
Imagine if there's no longer apolice presence at all. Things
start going very bad.
Chuck Shute (08:39):
Yeah. Again, you said it was a it would take five
years to recover. And even thenit would only be 20% would be
back, which is
Dr. William Forstchen (08:48):
good.
Good. You read that? Yeah, whenI was I was at a conference
about 500 people. And you know,it's about this. And they you
know, DOE study said five years,only about 20% of our power grid
would be restored and somebodyquipped wet and die. I guess it
averages out. That's a hell of abit of arithmetic, isn't it?
(09:11):
Hmm.
Chuck Shute (09:14):
Yeah. Where did they get 90%? Who are the 10%
surviving and how did it How arethey doing that? Can I be part
of that? 10%
Dr. William Forstchen (09:21):
Yeah.
Well, a lot of it's going to belocked. Being in the right place
at the right time with the rightfood supply. I I am kind of I'm
talking about this every day.
And I'm telling people I have atleast one to two months of
emergency supplies on hand andevery house that you got food
(09:44):
you got water, something you cancook with without poisoning
yourself if you're inside thehouse. And yes, you might have
to think about am I going to besecure? This that came out of a
couple great congressionalstudies. First one In 2002, Guy
named Dr. Peter pry, he becamemy mentor. He was the true
(10:07):
expert. I defer to him on sadly,Peter died a couple of months
ago. And I think part of hisdeath was simply he worked
himself to death trying to getlegislation passed. And it would
stall every single time inCongress can go no further ado,
nothing government for years.
Chuck Shute (10:28):
Yeah, I the flow.
Of course, we can't do anything.
We can't even we can't agree onsimple things. But so what is
the likelihood of an EMP beingused? Because I heard you say
something, there's aninteresting quote, like,
eventually all military weaponsare used, and it would likely be
in our lifetime and likely wouldbe against the United States. So
those are not good factors.
Dr. William Forstchen (10:51):
Yeah, I may have said that. I may have
said all the time. What's yourprediction? Well, the first
great military technology we'llsay was catapults at the time of
the Greeks, Greek general onceproclaim what uses valor
anymore. Now we've got thesemachines, every single major
(11:11):
military innovation, poison gas,World War One, nuclear weapons,
World War Two, they finally getused, sooner or later,
somebody's going to do it. Itmight not even be against us. A
hotspot I look at is Pakistanand India. They're on the edge
all the time. They both havenuclear weapons. Might the
(11:32):
temptation be there? My bigworry is North Korea. Followed
by Iran. You know,
Chuck Shute (11:41):
you know what?
Yeah, cuz I think I mean, Iwould say, I think some people
would think China but to me, I'dsay China No, because aren't we
their biggest customers are verybig. If they take us out who's
gonna buy all their crap?
Dr. William Forstchen (11:54):
What happens to Walmart? Yeah. Good
point. China, has never reallybeen a military expansion is to
growth. 2500 years of history.
They aren't contain they used tobe called the hermit. Excuse me
empire? No, because the otherthing is mutual assured
destruction. If China ever didthat to us, we would do it to
(12:17):
them. Nobody wins. I worry aboutthe third world players. You
know, what's his name in NorthKorea wakes up one morning finds
out he's terminal and he forgetsall what the hell I'll finish
the day by taking out the UnitedStates. And he could do it. They
have the capability right now todo it.
Chuck Shute (12:38):
And what about Russia? I would think Putin
seems to be on that same kind ofwavelength have just got nothing
to lose.
Dr. William Forstchen (12:45):
Wow.
That's No, I reset a bit here,because I've been talking about
this, but Russia doing us. Idon't think that would ever
happen. Because Putin's owngenerals would kill him. They
would stage a coup. If he said,Hey, let's go take out America
(13:06):
today. It's like you're crazy.
Again, Russia does as we dothem. So I don't see the big
players of Russia and Chinadoing it again. I worry about
the third world players.
Chuck Shute (13:21):
Yeah. Well, and you had some interesting to the
talked about, there was asecurity expert for the World
Trade Center. And he predicted aplane, which would hit it. Yeah.
And so is there. I mean, we'retalking about this now. Is there
going to be any sort of warning?
That missile is coming and wehave a missile defense system
that would detect this? Like,how much time would we have? Or
would it just be like you wakeup one day, and everything's the
(13:43):
powers?
Dr. William Forstchen (13:46):
These are great questions. EMP can be
defined as what the militarycalls an asymmetrical first
strike weapons weapons. Meaningit's a whole new way of
launching a warfare. Greatexample 1941. People were
predicting the Japanese mightput six or seven carriers
(14:07):
together and go big. Nobody hadever done it before. We even
have reports right up untilDecember 7, that the zero cannot
be flown off of a carrier. Well,we found out and of course, if
you went back to September 10,and you pointed at the sky and
said, Well, you know they couldturn that into a cruise missile.
Yeah, that's crazy. It willnever happen. The sad thing is
(14:31):
with asymmetrical strikes, youwake up the day later and go oh
my god, I should have seen it.
Chuck Shute (14:38):
And what is it very likely that they would like with
the World Trade Center? No, theydid like what was it like four
different attacks so they wouldneed like you said three or four
missiles to get the whole UnitedStates
Dr. William Forstchen (14:50):
Yeah, did the i Yeah, the worst case
nightmare scenario is three,though even if he just launched
one and detonated say above ofPennsylvania, that will blow out
the entire eastern grid. Thereare five major grids in the
United States between East andWest Texas as an independent
(15:13):
grid. You froze therehello. Oh, what's
Chuck Shute (15:30):
your back? Okay. So the grids, sorry.
Dr. William Forstchen (15:33):
Yeah, the grids. And there are five major
grids in the United States. I'mgetting a notice saying your
internet connection is unstable.
Are you still hearing me? Yeah.
Okay, well, I'm on stable one.
I'm still here. Okay.
Chuck Shute (15:50):
Um, yeah, so different grids. And then, I
guess the I don't think peopleunderstand not only would this
just take out the electricalsystem, but I think all our
electronics would potentially belike, if even if we had a solar
phone charger, our phoneswouldn't work. And then like,
would cars work? How does thathow would you get a really old
car? Or what what point doestechnology for cars affected by
(16:13):
this?
Dr. William Forstchen (16:15):
Variable studies on this? I've heard as
high as 90% of cars made after1985 will go they'd be shorted
out because of the computers toa low of 10%. So let's say you
have a car that still works. Andit's five o'clock, and you're in
rush hour and 10% of the carsturn off. What happens? Then
(16:39):
where do you get your gas, thebright working? How do you get
through all this mess oftraffic? Even if your cars work?
You'd have the range of what'ssimply in the gas in your tank?
And that's it. And then you'restranded to? Wow,
Chuck Shute (16:58):
what about I just thought when I Googled emp,
today, I saw this thing, adevice called an EMP shield that
they're selling. Is there anyvalidity to that? Does that
actually help protect some ofyour electronics or your home?
Dr. William Forstchen (17:10):
Yeah, I've talked to some people just
within the last week about that.
Yeah. Shielding against EMP isnot that complex. It's upgrading
circuit breakers systems.
Remember, when you bought yourfirst power strip 30 years ago,
it's obsolete now. All right,because we're upgrading these
(17:32):
things. You have to upgrade thegrid. That will cost money. Dr.
Prime, my mentor said it coststhree to $5 billion dollars to
get a good start, I'd say 30billion. But let's check it 30
billion is chump change now,isn't it?
Chuck Shute (17:50):
I think we sent that to Ukraine this morning,
I'm sure yeah, just changesquick
Dr. William Forstchen (17:53):
change.
Yeah, we'll send you another1000 missiles, it's only 30
billion. I'm upgrading thesystem hardening it. And my
other big bugaboo that I worryabout is we're not making the
components for our electricalgrid in the United States. Large
transformer and a substation.
(18:17):
From the time the power companyorders a new one to delivery
takes up to two years. Guesswhere it comes from? China.
Right? Right, right. So we don'thave a strategic stockpile of
key components that if somethingbad happens, we can put them in
quickly and rebuild the system.
We're just stuck out there. Andcalling up China, if our phones
(18:40):
work and say, Hey, can you helpus? Oh, sure. Sure. Get back to
his five years.
Chuck Shute (18:47):
Yeah, that's gonna be too late. So we don't have
any emergency transformers thatwe know of, that the government
has on hand for something likethis. Very, very
Dr. William Forstchen (18:57):
limited.
You know, I still teach college.
I have a student who wasactually a lineman, boss. I
mean, he was managing winecrews. And we talked a lot about
this. And he said, Bill, ourelectrical system, at least here
in North Carolina is heldtogether with spit and prayers.
(19:18):
The average component in ourelectrical grid is 40 years old.
We're pumping our electricity insystems built in the 70s and
80s. that have not been upgradedsense. Wow, that's happening.
Yes, we don't we don't have thereserves to quickly rebuild if
(19:39):
something bad happens.
Chuck Shute (19:41):
And we have the technology though, if we did
upgrade this or rebuild it, tomake it more stable to to
protect against something likethis.
Dr. William Forstchen (19:50):
All right. I don't want to get into
politics. Yeah, we're not gonnago there. Okay, well, okay.
Yeah, you think it's it? I'lltake a sip. You know, I mean,
this is Van Gogh glass here.
Chuck Shute (20:03):
Yeah, we can try to avoid politics with sometimes
it's you can't. I mean, it'slike you said of Congress,
they've tried to bringlegislation. I mean, they can't
agree on anything. So how canthey agree on trying to fix
this?
Dr. William Forstchen (20:18):
The previous administration? Yeah.
Okay. I will say, Well, I'll saythe word Trump. He took it
seriously, towards the end ofhis term. I knew some people in
the White House and they werelike, this has become an issue.
He is dead serious on this. Hemandated to DOD, DOD and all the
(20:39):
other groups to do comprehensivereview. And then 90 days after
the election, they were I mean,after the second administration
began, they were to present acomprehensive plan to upgrade
and harden the system. Well,guess what happened? When Biden
came in? On the first day, theexecutive orders included
(21:04):
killing that report. We arespending over a trillion dollars
on so called clean green energy.
We're getting a lot ofwindmills. There's not a dime in
there for let's go back andharden the basic components,
starting with a transformer downthe street to the substation to
the wiring and everything else.
(21:27):
We're not doing it.
Chuck Shute (21:29):
Oh, that's really fast that you bring up a good
point, though, because that issomething that a lot of people
are proponent for is the greenenergy. Yeah. Which which is
good. I don't think anybody'sagainst green energy. But we
also still need the regularenergy, regular electricity. And
even if it's powered by whenmail or solar, whatever, it
still needs to come from,wherever they're getting it,
(21:52):
harnessing it from to our homes,which would be through the
transformers and stuff, right?
Dr. William Forstche (21:57):
Upgrading.
You know what, it's not sexy.
It's not news item. It's nutsand bolts, hard work to replace
older systems with newer ones ofthe basic electric grid. It's
not smart energy. It's, youknow, Congress ran through a $62
(22:17):
billion bipartisan bill talkingabout improving energy. Read the
report. I'm not a dime in theresaying, regarding emp, we're
going to do this, this and this.
Oh, we're going to make moresupercharger stations for
electric cars. We're going to dothis. Excuse me, we're going to
do that. But not the basic nutsand bolts. That's not sexy. It
(22:40):
should be.
Chuck Shute (22:45):
Yeah, it's interesting. Because, I mean,
obviously, people were reallyfreaked out with the pandemic
and all that stuff. And that'sthat was a very mild thing
comparatively to what it couldhave been. But there's also
besides the EMP, there could becyber attacks, financial
attacks, all this stuff. I feellike it's just not or what about
I mean, could somebody justpoison the water supply? I mean,
(23:07):
what if some, if the Waterplaceby us like, it's just like a
fence. I mean, you could easilyhop that over and put who knows
what in there. And and thatwould just kill off tons of
people.
Dr. William Forstchen (23:19):
There's a substation within walking
distance in my house. If Idecide to go crazy, truly crazy
one night, we just go down therewith a high powered gear rifle,
and jacketed grounds, I'd shootsome of the transformers. The
oil then leaks out, and I wouldshut my town of Black Mountain
(23:42):
and Swannanoa down for a week.
What half a dozen bullets. It'sbeing done. It was done in
Washington State. Back inDecember, it's done in North
North Carolina, a town ineastern North Carolina. Somebody
shot up the substation, theywere without power for a week
affecting 100,000 people becausethey couldn't get the
(24:05):
replacement parts in quickenough to bring it back online.
Chuck Shute (24:12):
And you said it would only cost about maybe 30
billion to to fix this issue ormake a big dent in it.
Dr. William Forstchen (24:19):
All right. All right. A sleight of
hand here. I'm setting you tostart what i i have the term I
coined the term lifelines ofrecovery. If you took 10% of the
power distribution system in theUnited States, hardened it
(24:39):
bought it up that could resist amajor EMP. That will be a star,
but we would need to becontinuing investing across a 10
year period to do the entiregrid. But 30 billion would be a
darn good start at least untilall the administrators got in
and got their change and GetHired 1000 bureaucrats to manage
(25:03):
it. Right? Yeah.
Chuck Shute (25:06):
And what about that other stuff that I mentioned,
like the cyber attacks? And thefinancial is? I mean, that's
kind of related, right? Becausethat's another way that they
could attack us were Are weprepared for those kinds of
attacks at all?
Dr. William Forstchen (25:18):
better prepared? Get I teach at a small
college Montreat College. Thisisn't a promo for the college.
But we are a major, our majorarea is become a cybersecurity.
I mean, our kids are goingthrough that program. And when
they come out the other side,they walked in in $200,000 jobs.
(25:40):
So I sit in our lab occasionallyand watch what they're doing.
Yeah, we're starting to getbetter at cybersecurity issues.
That's a constant war. I mean,you sit in their control center,
and I'm playing What's this?
What's that? Oh, that's anotherattack. Others attack from Iran.
Oh, here comes one from Russia.
(26:00):
We're blocking this for blockingthat. It's a massive game of
chess going on 24/7 365 We're atleast doing something better
there.
Chuck Shute (26:11):
Yeah, I mean, it was essentially I saw that news
story the other day about thekid that leaked all the high
security, Pentagon Pentagonstuff. And now he's going to
prison. I mean, how does thiskid who's I think he's 20? Or
21? Or someone? Yeah. How doeshe get clearance to all this
stuff? That's supposed to belike our top military secrets.
He's just a kid.
Dr. William Forstchen (26:32):
I wish he could tell me. I don't know.
Chuck Shute (26:36):
And definitely seems concerning, though, too,
is it seems like there's a lotof areas that we are not
prepared for, like we're arguingover these issues that seem like
you said, maybe more sexy orwhatever, like, you know, wind
energy and things like this. ButI mean, there's a lot of things
where we get caught with ourpants down, which I think the
pandemic kind of showed us alittle preview of that.
Dr. William Forstchen (26:57):
Yes, it did. You know, picture it this
way. Holland has hundreds ofmiles, you know, these big dikes
and give her a bit in the hallon you know, what I mean, you
know, you know, dams and allthat the old back the ocean, you
just need a leak on one spot tobreak open and you got serious
trouble. So, yeah, we we build adam to hold these things back.
(27:21):
But one leak like this, that 21year old kid house, I wonder to
how the heck did he gain accessto all that material? He he's
most likely a computer nerd anda whiz, who understands that far
better than I do. And he reallyshook up the entire system.
Chuck Shute (27:41):
Yeah, it's frightening. It's frightening to
see, like when we did have thatpandemic, and there was a little
bit of panic. And people werebuying up toilet paper. I mean,
you saw, like, you saw, like,just a preview of that chaos.
And if there's something likethe electrical grid goes down, I
can't imagine that chaos would Idon't think we would last very
long.
Dr. William Forstchen (28:00):
We would.
Sandy, the 2012 storm that hitNew York City, and I used to
live right in that area when Iwas a kid. And within 24 or 48
hours, you were seeing the newscast of lines around the block
to Starbucks to try and get himfor 15 minutes a charge of cell
(28:22):
phone. The cell phone gridsstill work. But remember on 911
it overloaded? You know, it wasa lot more primitive than so
yeah, it's it's almostincomprehensible. How many
things would just go offlineimmediately. Your cell phone
doesn't work anymore. Your carmight not work? You go to the
(28:44):
market, people are looting themarket. It's a very bad picture.
Chuck Shute (28:51):
Yes, it doesn't.
Don't these corporations have astake in this to make sure that
they if they're going to makemoney, they're going to need
power? And isn't that somethingthat they should be concerned
about as well? Yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (29:03):
When I first got into this, starting
around 2005, I remember going tomy first statewide hearing,
along with several other people.
And the room was packed withDuke lobbyist who were smiling
and shaking hands and everythingelse. And they were basically
saying, yeah, he's a nicenovelist. But he's crazy. Now,
(29:25):
last year, I gave a major talkto a couple 100 Duke Energy,
power, you know, the consultantsand the workers and the guides
handling security. They in fact,were using my book as a
textbook. They're taking itseriously. But again, it's
(29:45):
funding. Do you want to pay yourstock holders off of 4% dividend
this year or you want to saySorry, can't do this. We're
going to be doing infrastructuresecurity. Yes.
Chuck Shute (30:01):
So, again, it comes down to the costs, which I mean,
again, the government wouldwould, let's definitely
something that they could passif Congress could agree on this
and recognize this as a threat,they could get the funding. And
it really should be more theirrole anyways.
Dr. William Forstchen (30:17):
It should be several times, we did see
bills going through the House ofRepresentatives, but then
wanting to committee with theSenate. One Senator Murkowski of
Alaska killed it. Why didn'thave the perks? She wanted the
(30:42):
perks for it, because
Chuck Shute (30:44):
there's been a lot of a lot of those bills or
there's other stuff in the billsthat helps their districts or
whatever, the pork or whateverthey call it, right. Yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (30:52):
I mean, you're dealing with a bill with
that. And then there's a littlerider attached that they're
making in useme to honor theMunchkins of Oz in some places,
and seriously, they did. Theweird things that get attached.
There's a museum the Lord'sWell, in North Carolina, there
(31:13):
was a museum to pottery teacups,what the heck does that have to
do with the other things? Yeah,you know, back in the 90s.
person I know Newt Gingrich,who, okay, he's a good friend.
Yeah, that's read some bookstogether. Right. Yeah. And they
(31:34):
finally got through killing theidea that the President could
have a line item veto on bills.
Alright. It was killed. ThePresident, you need to take the
bill or not. You cannot justsimply as President Go and say
this is ridiculous. No, I'm notgoing to build a Highway to
(31:55):
Nowhere out in the middle ofwhatever doesn't happen. So you
know, the port continues.
Chuck Shute (32:04):
Yeah. So what we could do, besides obviously
protect, try and protectourselves, like you said, stock
up on canned foods. I think youmentioned having a water water
filtration systems. Could peoplelobby their congressman or
Congresswoman about this, try tobring a bill to this.
Dr. William Forstchen (32:21):
You know, I'm telling I'm telling people
now go to your state reps.
Because we've seen action on thestate level, South Carolina.
I've done several visits, talkswith them in the last year.
Excuse me, coffee, too muchcoffee. Your state reps are a
heck of a lot more responsive.
(32:43):
You know, if 50 People got ahold of a state rep and said,
This is important to me. They'regonna listen, whereas a
congressman would just be Yeah,okay. All right. Get your state
reps. South Carolina is doingthings North Carolina is
starting to do things Texas isstarting to do things start at
the state level. And then justYeah, work like hell next year
(33:06):
when we go to the next federalelection.
Chuck Shute (33:08):
Okay, yeah. And I'm just I'm trying to do my part by
having you on the show to talkabout this and educate people,
because I've heard about thistoo, and I just didn't know a
lot about it. So it's nice tokind of learn. I mean, it's
scary. It's really scary, but Ifeel like if we know about it,
then we can prepare. I mean,that's that's a lot of bad
things in the world doesn't. Nottalking about it doesn't make it
(33:29):
go away.
Dr. William Forstchen (33:29):
Yeah.
Okay. Quick, funny story. Okay.
The the book came out, I did atabletop with my college. This
is what we should be looking atif there's an emergency. A
couple months later, my daughterand I are sitting on our deck
and we're looking out across themountains of North Carolina, a
huge thunderstorm. All right.
Suddenly, the entire valley wentdark. Not just local, the entire
(33:51):
valley. My daughter goes, Daddydoes your cell phone work? Yes.
Okay. It's an odd EMP is thethunderstorm. And about two or
three minutes later, my phonerang. Picked it up. It was an
administrator at the college. Isthis it? Oh my god has a cmp I
said Yeah, I think we'rescrewed.
Chuck Shute (34:19):
Because you would know because your phone when
like nothing
Dr. William Forstchen (34:22):
work, right? And then I said, Hey, is
your phone working? Yeah. But Igot half a dozen calls for the
next couple hours of friends andmy husband's in the basement.
He's pulling this out at nightand he says is that no, no, no,
it's just an electrical storm.
So yeah, that's my favoritefunny story about this. Yep. We
got to live our lives. We got toenjoy ourselves, you know, our
(34:44):
kids, our girlfriend, everythingelse. Don't make this the
obsession. But it should be outthere. You should be thinking
about this and doing some basicplanning. I one other thing. I
tell her you Buddy have a God.
God back. Get out of dodge God.
You can buy a ready made one ormake one yourself you said have
(35:08):
a couple of days got at leasttwo or three pints of water,
some energy bars, a solarblanket. an Uzi and a 50 caliber
are hunting. No, no just
Chuck Shute (35:25):
losing might be a tall order. I
Dr. William Forstchen (35:28):
just I get upset with the prepper
survivalist types that are justtoo far over the top. You know?
They sound like Peter Lorre.
Remember old Peter Lorre. I havethis gun, and 50 caliber, and
it's a machine gun. And damn it.
That's crazy. Just a basic Godbag thrown in the back of your
(35:53):
car might make a difference. Hegets stuck in an ice storm. EMP
whatever, you know, out inArizona, you get some wicked
storms out there. God Bank, it'ssimple, throw it in your car and
also have some silver. Just acouple of silver dollars stuck
(36:13):
in the back
Unknown (36:15):
to barter with Yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (36:18):
Let's say some guys figured out a hand
pump or somebody gets somegasoline out of his tank. And
somebody goes up waving $100bill. And you go off saying you
got a couple of silver dollarshere you want to trade? Which
ones you're gonna take? Yeah,that's true, because that will
be real currency again,
Chuck Shute (36:39):
or Yeah, food would be currency at that point. Yeah,
yes. Food and water. So well,scary stuff. I mean, so the 10%
Because you say 90% Will willperish on the 90%. With Paris.
Yeah, the 10%. That so you saidsome of it could be locked. But
some of it also could be like,if you live kind of in the
country on a farm like you mightbe able to be there's a lot of
(36:59):
people that live off the grid.
Right? Isn't that a thing? Imean, that's like a thing that
people could be self sufficient.
Potentially.
Dr. William Forstchen (37:07):
I'm in mountains of North Carolina,
it's rural. And guess a lot morepeople are thinking off grid or
at least marginally. Or havingbackup systems. I feel bad for
the ones that get the Gen X,whatever. transformer and it's
powered by propane. How long isthat going to last?
Chuck Shute (37:30):
As long as however much propane Yeah, and most
people
Dr. William Forstchen (37:33):
have like 20 gig, or 50 gallons, excuse me
lasts for a couple of days.
Having just, again, basicfundamental supplies that you
know, you can get through amonth or two. You're not out on
the street. You're not beggingfor stuff. You're secure in your
home with your family. And oneother thing I always tell people
(37:56):
to do is have a rendezvouspoint, because eight to 10 hours
a day our kids are at school,you're at the office, you know,
your your spouse is out doingtheir thing. If somebody when
something goes bad, you won'tgotta know where to go. We're
going to meet at such and such aplace, and then we're going to
get back home from there. Right.
Chuck Shute (38:21):
Now what about, like, if you have a car in a
parking garage, if you'reunderground with that higher
probability that would offerprotection?
Dr. William Forstchen (38:30):
EMP has a line of sight of that. Meaning,
you know, it's even within theline of sight of the detonation
200 miles up. But yeah, somestudies have shown the
survivability and shelteredareas, things like that could go
up astronomically. In myfavorite won't get your car
without any problems. If you'rein a if you're on the North
(38:52):
Slope of something, that there'syou don't get the direct hit.
It's an indirect hit. Yourprobability could go up with
that.
Chuck Shute (39:02):
Okay, that's another thing. But again, it's
like you said some of this couldjust be luck. Like, where are
you parked your car, how muchgas you had in there and those
kinds of things. So it isinteresting. Would they have
they? Is there any talk ofmaking your books into a movie?
I feel like that would be a goodmovie, a good disaster movie to?
Dr. William Forstchen (39:21):
Yeah, yeah. I'm talking every week
with my agent and the producerand director. Current problem is
the Writers Guild is going outon strike on May 1, and that's
screwing up everything. Butlet's do that. I don't want to
get into Tourette Syndrome.
Let's just say Hollywood is aninteresting entity to deal with.
(39:44):
And I'll leave it at that. Yeah,I'm
Chuck Shute (39:49):
sure yeah, for Absolutely. Well, that'd be cool
though if they could get thatbut otherwise there is the
fourth book coming out inAugust. Anything else you have
to promote?
Dr. William Forstchen (39:59):
Promote No, no, I had a very close
friend. He's was one of the keynuclear fighting strategists in
the Navy 15 years ago. He didthe for the afterword for the
first book one second after hewas over here. Spent the night,
(40:23):
one of the first things we didwas we turned off, Alexa pulled
the plug, we don't want ourhearing what we're going to say.
And, you know, we talked, now,he's very good with classified,
he doesn't talk about it. But atone point, you know, we looked
at each other. And I was like,we'll go crazy. If we keep
talking about some of this, youknow, all the different
(40:45):
scenarios. And it was like,gotta get on with your life, you
got to enjoy it. You know, you.
If it happens, it happens. Andthen there'll be a terrible day
after that. But on, you know,when I did one second after I
did the foreword, you know, theusual Hi, I want to thank my
agent. I finished that for withthe statement that 30 years from
(41:09):
now, I pray that I'm justremembered as a crank. You know,
didn't have Yeah, at thatfortune guy. I remember his
books. So Right. And then mydaughter grew up safe. And when
we have grandbabies, somedaythey're safe. Let's, let's hope
that's the way it is.
Chuck Shute (41:32):
Yeah, or let's hope that we can all get the
preparation that we need and fixthe grid and get out and be
ready so that if it does happen,that we're ready for it, that
would be better.
Dr. William Forstchen (41:42):
If we upgraded sufficiently, our
opponents might think twice.
Right? Yeah, absolutely. Nowthey're thinking we could really
screw them over good.
Chuck Shute (41:55):
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, then those other things to
the cyber or the financial and Imean, gotta be ready for
everything. I feel like thatshould be a definitely there
should be some doomsday peoplein government, maybe there are
that are that are predictingthese things that are trying to
get us ready for this kind ofstuff? Because you're right. I
mean, it could have went likenobody saw the World Trade
Center thing coming like nobody,not very few people predicted
(42:16):
that.
Dr. William Forstchen (42:17):
Well, you know, that's a great example.
I'm pretty sure he was head ofsecurity for Goldman Sachs. And
they were constantly told,shelter in place. Something bad
had happened sit here, we'll getto. He was preaching for the
several years that he had hissecurity there, he's preaching
the exact opposite, we will getthe hell out as quickly as
(42:39):
possible. He saved upwards of1000 lives by saying immediately
within seconds, go, we'regetting out. He disappeared.
Going back up to get one moreteam of people out, you know,
helping some people. That guy,this will be a statue to him.
(43:00):
Think of all the lives he savedby thinking ahead and say,
react. Don't just hide in thecorner and hope it ain't gonna
happen. Ya know, that
Chuck Shute (43:09):
can make a huge difference. Well, thank you so
much for doing this. I alwaysend each episode promoting a
charity or nonprofit orsomething that's a that you'd
like to promote here at the endfor a charity.
Dr. William Forstchen (43:22):
I give regularly to St. Jude's. They
have one of the highest ratingsout there as nonprofit for the
amount of every dollar that goesdirectly into what they're
doing. Very small administrativecosts. So St. Jude's is tops.
And also of course, the HumaneSociety.
Chuck Shute (43:40):
Yeah, I've promoted both of those charities several
times. So if people have someextra money after they buy all
your books, they should throwsome money into those charities.
Absolutely. All right. Well,thank you so much, Bill. It's
been very informative.
Dr. William Forstchen (43:53):
Hey, thanks. It's been a great
interview. It's a greatquestion. Thank you. Right.
Chuck Shute (43:57):
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks so much. I'll talk to
you. Once again. Dr. Williamforce, Chen, is several books
available now a whole series ona fictional story about an EMP
happening. The first one in thatseries is called one second
after, and the fourth one iscalled Five years after and
that's going to come out thisAugust. So this is the part
where I usually tell you tofollow the guests on social
(44:17):
media. But I don't see that Dr.
forsten has much of a socialmedia presence. I do see a
Twitter but doesn't seem veryactive. So you can still support
him and this interview bysharing it liking and commenting
on social media and YouTube. Andof course, make sure you
subscribe to our show. And ifyou can, please give us a rating
or review wherever you watch orlisten, I appreciate all your
(44:38):
support. Have a great day andshoot for the moon.
Okay, Dr. William fortune is my guest today and he
(00:03):
is an author and collegeprofessor and expert on EMP is a
dangerous weapon that can takeout our whole power grid and
make life pretty miserable foreveryone. So you thought things
were bad during the pandemic itcan get a lot worse. So we're
going to discuss what an EMP isexactly the likelihood of one
occurring and what we can do toprevent it so you won't want to
(00:23):
miss this onewell, first of all, I want to
ask you, how do you pronounceyour name because I've heard it
pronounced two different ways.
I've heard fortune and then I'veheard like, forced them or
(00:45):
something. I don't I don't knowwhich one is right. You didn't
correctly the
Dr. William Forstchen (00:47):
person.
Think force chin, forced chin.
Chuck Shute (00:51):
Okay, so it was Newsmax that had it wrong. And
that was a bigger thing. Theysaid fortune. They kept saying
it. And you didn't correct?
Dr. William Forstchen (00:58):
Yeah, no, no, it was Newsmax so we didn't
have time for it to getcorrected. Okay. Okay. Call me
Billy. After that. All right.
Okay.
Chuck Shute (01:07):
Well, welcome, Bill. So yeah, explain to my
audience, your background here.
You obviously have a doctoratefrom Purdue. In military
history. Correct?
Dr. William Forstchen (01:18):
Yes. Male and a history technology.
Chuck Shute (01:21):
Yeah. And the talk Tell me about your dissertation
a little bit. It's aninteresting Indiana's African
Americans go to war.
Dr. William Forstchen (01:28):
Yeah, my doctoral dissertation. Long
story short, I fell into thiswonderful topic. It was the
African American regiment thatwas raised in Indiana and
Indianapolis in 1863. And waspretty well wiped out at the
Battle of the crater July20 1864. So that was a two year
(01:51):
effort buried in the NationalArchives and state archives. I
loved it. And I've done a coupleof books about it sense young
adults novel called we lookedlike men of war, which actually
got an award for me, and then areally kind of gritty book
called The crater, or to makemen free, they changed the
(02:13):
title. And that's about thatexperience at the Battle of the
crater.
Chuck Shute (02:18):
Okay, so and then you've written some books on the
Civil War. And then so how didyou fall into being the the EMP
expert?
Dr. William Forstchen (02:28):
Got two hours. And 99 way, way back in
1991, I was a graduate student.
We had a one in 500 year eventin Lafayette, Indiana. And I you
storm blew out the entire grid,we were talking about the high
tension lines collapsing. Therewere sections of Indiana that
(02:48):
were at power for over a month.
So I'm in a university town, welose power for 11 days. And
within about five days, thingsgot really squirrely, people
really started, you know,somebody had to have a generator
and suddenly people are knockingon their door, can I charge
(03:10):
this? Can I do that? It's likeNational Guardsmen on the power
trucks. People were literallybarricading the trucks that they
pulled onto their street. Sothat got filed away. 1012 years
later, I'm well aware of EMPstudied it in grad school. And I
kept trying to write this novelone second after. And it finally
(03:34):
came to me at a graduationceremony in 2005. I'm sitting
there with all my doctoral robeson it's 90 degrees were
sweltering and dying. And Ilooked at the audience, my
students were small college andI suddenly hit, I'm gonna write
about my town. You know, ourtown gone bad. What would happen
(03:57):
in a small town if the powerwent off and didn't come back
on? So that was the start of itbook was published. 2009 became
a best seller. It's stillselling like crazy. 14 years
later.
Chuck Shute (04:10):
Yeah. And there's sequels as well. There's a three
in the series.
Dr. William Forstchen (04:14):
Yeah. The second book is one year after
picks the story up a year later.
Then the final day, severalyears after that. I deliberately
titled that because I want totell my publisher, I never want
to do this topic again. It getsto you. Yeah. You start
immersing into this and you'regoing to hearings and you're
(04:35):
giving speeches. But as said inthe movie, The Godfather, they
made me an offer. I couldn'trefuse. But yeah, I'll be back
in again. And there you go. Sothe next book, five years after
is coming out August 25.
Chuck Shute (04:55):
Oh, so there's another one. Yeah, there's four
of them. This will be well thisbe the last one. It better be.
Okay. Well So explain to myaudience what exactly an EMP is.
Okay,
Dr. William Forstchen (05:09):
EMP shorthand electromagnetic pulse
weapon. Alright, it's created bylofting about three small
nuclear warheads above theEarth's atmosphere below them
over the eastern United States,central United States, western
United States. They're not thatpowerful as nukes go 40 to 60
(05:31):
Kid ton that four times the sizeof their Hiroshima bomb. But
when they detonate, it sets upan electrostatic discharge
called the competent effect,which was first clearly seen in
a study done in 1962, when theyblew one in space, and it
shorted out the power system inHawaii. So that Compton Effect
(05:55):
cascades down to the Earth'ssurface. And that speed of light
overload sets up anelectrostatic discharge that
overloads the power grid, andeverything starts shutting down.
It is catastrophic. It's nottinfoil hat. There's been
several congressional studies.
Both of them say the same thing.
(06:16):
The bad number is if we were hitby that upwards of 90% of
Americans will be dead a yearlater. That's yeah, easy.
Chuck Shute (06:26):
And this is, but there is like you said the one
in Indiana that was natural,right? I mean, that's also a
possibility as well.
Dr. William Forstchen (06:33):
Yeah.
That was just an ice storm thatjust want catastrophic.
Everything shut down. And butwith an EMP, when it hits, it
blows the grid out. And I know90% sales this this is crazy.
But I'll ask you a questionright now. Where are you
located?
Chuck Shute (06:54):
I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay.
Dr. William Forstchen (06:57):
Oh, great. Can you imagine that on a
July day?
Chuck Shute (07:00):
Yeah, I know. I know. I'd
Dr. William Forstchen (07:01):
be screwed. What? Yeah, what do you
Okay, my question is, where doyou get your water?
Chuck Shute (07:07):
It's from the Salt River Project, which I think our
water comes from Colorado, Ithink I believe it comes all the
way down from the end, we havethis the Colorado River comes
all the way through the SaltRiver Project. And it's a man
made lakes and then through thefiltering system or whatever. So
yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (07:22):
And what happens if there's no
electricity?
Chuck Shute (07:26):
Right? And isn't that like most of America? I
mean, I guess unless you'regetting it from a well on a farm
or something.
Dr. William Forstchen (07:32):
But even then you're using your
electrical power.
Chuck Shute (07:36):
Well, if you have the the old school bucket or
whatever,
Dr. William Forstchen (07:40):
like an old grandpa's out there, the
pump? Yeah. What happens is, Icall it a Maslow's hierarchy of
needs, you're going to lose yourwater immediately. Within
several days, that's going to bebad. Second food supply. There's
a moving anymore. Average townhas about 20 days worth of food
(08:00):
on hand, from what's in yourfreezer, to what's pulling up in
a truck, that's got medication,your pharmacies are gone.
They're no longer takingshipments. Nursing homes would
be an absolute nightmare. Imean, you have a large elderly
population in Arizona. Can youimagine them without power, even
(08:21):
for a week without airconditioning? And then of
course, disease sets in andcommand and control what happens
in your major cities, which arebad enough as is right now.
Imagine if there's no longer apolice presence at all. Things
start going very bad.
Chuck Shute (08:39):
Yeah. Again, you said it was a it would take five
years to recover. And even thenit would only be 20% would be
back, which is
Dr. William Forstchen (08:48):
good.
Good. You read that? Yeah, whenI was I was at a conference
about 500 people. And you know,it's about this. And they you
know, DOE study said five years,only about 20% of our power grid
would be restored and somebodyquipped wet and die. I guess it
averages out. That's a hell of abit of arithmetic, isn't it?
(09:11):
Hmm.
Chuck Shute (09:14):
Yeah. Where did they get 90%? Who are the 10%
surviving and how did it How arethey doing that? Can I be part
of that? 10%
Dr. William Forstchen (09:21):
Yeah.
Well, a lot of it's going to belocked. Being in the right place
at the right time with the rightfood supply. I I am kind of I'm
talking about this every day.
And I'm telling people I have atleast one to two months of
emergency supplies on hand andevery house that you got food
(09:44):
you got water, something you cancook with without poisoning
yourself if you're inside thehouse. And yes, you might have
to think about am I going to besecure? This that came out of a
couple great congressionalstudies. First one In 2002, Guy
named Dr. Peter pry, he becamemy mentor. He was the true
(10:07):
expert. I defer to him on sadly,Peter died a couple of months
ago. And I think part of hisdeath was simply he worked
himself to death trying to getlegislation passed. And it would
stall every single time inCongress can go no further ado,
nothing government for years.
Chuck Shute (10:28):
Yeah, I the flow.
Of course, we can't do anything.
We can't even we can't agree onsimple things. But so what is
the likelihood of an EMP beingused? Because I heard you say
something, there's aninteresting quote, like,
eventually all military weaponsare used, and it would likely be
in our lifetime and likely wouldbe against the United States. So
those are not good factors.
Dr. William Forstchen (10:51):
Yeah, I may have said that. I may have
said all the time. What's yourprediction? Well, the first
great military technology we'llsay was catapults at the time of
the Greeks, Greek general onceproclaim what uses valor
anymore. Now we've got thesemachines, every single major
(11:11):
military innovation, poison gas,World War One, nuclear weapons,
World War Two, they finally getused, sooner or later,
somebody's going to do it. Itmight not even be against us. A
hotspot I look at is Pakistanand India. They're on the edge
all the time. They both havenuclear weapons. Might the
(11:32):
temptation be there? My bigworry is North Korea. Followed
by Iran. You know,
Chuck Shute (11:41):
you know what?
Yeah, cuz I think I mean, Iwould say, I think some people
would think China but to me, I'dsay China No, because aren't we
their biggest customers are verybig. If they take us out who's
gonna buy all their crap?
Dr. William Forstchen (11:54):
What happens to Walmart? Yeah. Good
point. China, has never reallybeen a military expansion is to
growth. 2500 years of history.
They aren't contain they used tobe called the hermit. Excuse me
empire? No, because the otherthing is mutual assured
destruction. If China ever didthat to us, we would do it to
(12:17):
them. Nobody wins. I worry aboutthe third world players. You
know, what's his name in NorthKorea wakes up one morning finds
out he's terminal and he forgetsall what the hell I'll finish
the day by taking out the UnitedStates. And he could do it. They
have the capability right now todo it.
Chuck Shute (12:38):
And what about Russia? I would think Putin
seems to be on that same kind ofwavelength have just got nothing
to lose.
Dr. William Forstchen (12:45):
Wow.
That's No, I reset a bit here,because I've been talking about
this, but Russia doing us. Idon't think that would ever
happen. Because Putin's owngenerals would kill him. They
would stage a coup. If he said,Hey, let's go take out America
(13:06):
today. It's like you're crazy.
Again, Russia does as we dothem. So I don't see the big
players of Russia and Chinadoing it again. I worry about
the third world players.
Chuck Shute (13:21):
Yeah. Well, and you had some interesting to the
talked about, there was asecurity expert for the World
Trade Center. And he predicted aplane, which would hit it. Yeah.
And so is there. I mean, we'retalking about this now. Is there
going to be any sort of warning?
That missile is coming and wehave a missile defense system
that would detect this? Like,how much time would we have? Or
would it just be like you wakeup one day, and everything's the
(13:43):
powers?
Dr. William Forstchen (13:46):
These are great questions. EMP can be
defined as what the militarycalls an asymmetrical first
strike weapons weapons. Meaningit's a whole new way of
launching a warfare. Greatexample 1941. People were
predicting the Japanese mightput six or seven carriers
(14:07):
together and go big. Nobody hadever done it before. We even
have reports right up untilDecember 7, that the zero cannot
be flown off of a carrier. Well,we found out and of course, if
you went back to September 10,and you pointed at the sky and
said, Well, you know they couldturn that into a cruise missile.
Yeah, that's crazy. It willnever happen. The sad thing is
(14:31):
with asymmetrical strikes, youwake up the day later and go oh
my god, I should have seen it.
Chuck Shute (14:38):
And what is it very likely that they would like with
the World Trade Center? No, theydid like what was it like four
different attacks so they wouldneed like you said three or four
missiles to get the whole UnitedStates
Dr. William Forstchen (14:50):
Yeah, did the i Yeah, the worst case
nightmare scenario is three,though even if he just launched
one and detonated say above ofPennsylvania, that will blow out
the entire eastern grid. Thereare five major grids in the
United States between East andWest Texas as an independent
(15:13):
grid. You froze therehello. Oh, what's
Chuck Shute (15:30):
your back? Okay. So the grids, sorry.
Dr. William Forstchen (15:33):
Yeah, the grids. And there are five major
grids in the United States. I'mgetting a notice saying your
internet connection is unstable.
Are you still hearing me? Yeah.
Okay, well, I'm on stable one.
I'm still here. Okay.
Chuck Shute (15:50):
Um, yeah, so different grids. And then, I
guess the I don't think peopleunderstand not only would this
just take out the electricalsystem, but I think all our
electronics would potentially belike, if even if we had a solar
phone charger, our phoneswouldn't work. And then like,
would cars work? How does thathow would you get a really old
car? Or what what point doestechnology for cars affected by
(16:13):
this?
Dr. William Forstchen (16:15):
Variable studies on this? I've heard as
high as 90% of cars made after1985 will go they'd be shorted
out because of the computers toa low of 10%. So let's say you
have a car that still works. Andit's five o'clock, and you're in
rush hour and 10% of the carsturn off. What happens? Then
(16:39):
where do you get your gas, thebright working? How do you get
through all this mess oftraffic? Even if your cars work?
You'd have the range of what'ssimply in the gas in your tank?
And that's it. And then you'restranded to? Wow,
Chuck Shute (16:58):
what about I just thought when I Googled emp,
today, I saw this thing, adevice called an EMP shield that
they're selling. Is there anyvalidity to that? Does that
actually help protect some ofyour electronics or your home?
Dr. William Forstchen (17:10):
Yeah, I've talked to some people just
within the last week about that.
Yeah. Shielding against EMP isnot that complex. It's upgrading
circuit breakers systems.
Remember, when you bought yourfirst power strip 30 years ago,
it's obsolete now. All right,because we're upgrading these
(17:32):
things. You have to upgrade thegrid. That will cost money. Dr.
Prime, my mentor said it coststhree to $5 billion dollars to
get a good start, I'd say 30billion. But let's check it 30
billion is chump change now,isn't it?
Chuck Shute (17:50):
I think we sent that to Ukraine this morning,
I'm sure yeah, just changesquick
Dr. William Forstchen (17:53):
change.
Yeah, we'll send you another1000 missiles, it's only 30
billion. I'm upgrading thesystem hardening it. And my
other big bugaboo that I worryabout is we're not making the
components for our electricalgrid in the United States. Large
transformer and a substation.
(18:17):
From the time the power companyorders a new one to delivery
takes up to two years. Guesswhere it comes from? China.
Right? Right, right. So we don'thave a strategic stockpile of
key components that if somethingbad happens, we can put them in
quickly and rebuild the system.
We're just stuck out there. Andcalling up China, if our phones
(18:40):
work and say, Hey, can you helpus? Oh, sure. Sure. Get back to
his five years.
Chuck Shute (18:47):
Yeah, that's gonna be too late. So we don't have
any emergency transformers thatwe know of, that the government
has on hand for something likethis. Very, very
Dr. William Forstchen (18:57):
limited.
You know, I still teach college.
I have a student who wasactually a lineman, boss. I
mean, he was managing winecrews. And we talked a lot about
this. And he said, Bill, ourelectrical system, at least here
in North Carolina is heldtogether with spit and prayers.
(19:18):
The average component in ourelectrical grid is 40 years old.
We're pumping our electricity insystems built in the 70s and
80s. that have not been upgradedsense. Wow, that's happening.
Yes, we don't we don't have thereserves to quickly rebuild if
(19:39):
something bad happens.
Chuck Shute (19:41):
And we have the technology though, if we did
upgrade this or rebuild it, tomake it more stable to to
protect against something likethis.
Dr. William Forstchen (19:50):
All right. I don't want to get into
politics. Yeah, we're not gonnago there. Okay, well, okay.
Yeah, you think it's it? I'lltake a sip. You know, I mean,
this is Van Gogh glass here.
Chuck Shute (20:03):
Yeah, we can try to avoid politics with sometimes
it's you can't. I mean, it'slike you said of Congress,
they've tried to bringlegislation. I mean, they can't
agree on anything. So how canthey agree on trying to fix
this?
Dr. William Forstchen (20:18):
The previous administration? Yeah.
Okay. I will say, Well, I'll saythe word Trump. He took it
seriously, towards the end ofhis term. I knew some people in
the White House and they werelike, this has become an issue.
He is dead serious on this. Hemandated to DOD, DOD and all the
(20:39):
other groups to do comprehensivereview. And then 90 days after
the election, they were I mean,after the second administration
began, they were to present acomprehensive plan to upgrade
and harden the system. Well,guess what happened? When Biden
came in? On the first day, theexecutive orders included
(21:04):
killing that report. We arespending over a trillion dollars
on so called clean green energy.
We're getting a lot ofwindmills. There's not a dime in
there for let's go back andharden the basic components,
starting with a transformer downthe street to the substation to
the wiring and everything else.
(21:27):
We're not doing it.
Chuck Shute (21:29):
Oh, that's really fast that you bring up a good
point, though, because that issomething that a lot of people
are proponent for is the greenenergy. Yeah. Which which is
good. I don't think anybody'sagainst green energy. But we
also still need the regularenergy, regular electricity. And
even if it's powered by whenmail or solar, whatever, it
still needs to come from,wherever they're getting it,
(21:52):
harnessing it from to our homes,which would be through the
transformers and stuff, right?
Dr. William Forstche (21:57):
Upgrading.
You know what, it's not sexy.
It's not news item. It's nutsand bolts, hard work to replace
older systems with newer ones ofthe basic electric grid. It's
not smart energy. It's, youknow, Congress ran through a $62
(22:17):
billion bipartisan bill talkingabout improving energy. Read the
report. I'm not a dime in theresaying, regarding emp, we're
going to do this, this and this.
Oh, we're going to make moresupercharger stations for
electric cars. We're going to dothis. Excuse me, we're going to
do that. But not the basic nutsand bolts. That's not sexy. It
(22:40):
should be.
Chuck Shute (22:45):
Yeah, it's interesting. Because, I mean,
obviously, people were reallyfreaked out with the pandemic
and all that stuff. And that'sthat was a very mild thing
comparatively to what it couldhave been. But there's also
besides the EMP, there could becyber attacks, financial
attacks, all this stuff. I feellike it's just not or what about
I mean, could somebody justpoison the water supply? I mean,
(23:07):
what if some, if the Waterplaceby us like, it's just like a
fence. I mean, you could easilyhop that over and put who knows
what in there. And and thatwould just kill off tons of
people.
Dr. William Forstchen (23:19):
There's a substation within walking
distance in my house. If Idecide to go crazy, truly crazy
one night, we just go down therewith a high powered gear rifle,
and jacketed grounds, I'd shootsome of the transformers. The
oil then leaks out, and I wouldshut my town of Black Mountain
(23:42):
and Swannanoa down for a week.
What half a dozen bullets. It'sbeing done. It was done in
Washington State. Back inDecember, it's done in North
North Carolina, a town ineastern North Carolina. Somebody
shot up the substation, theywere without power for a week
affecting 100,000 people becausethey couldn't get the
(24:05):
replacement parts in quickenough to bring it back online.
Chuck Shute (24:12):
And you said it would only cost about maybe 30
billion to to fix this issue ormake a big dent in it.
Dr. William Forstchen (24:19):
All right. All right. A sleight of
hand here. I'm setting you tostart what i i have the term I
coined the term lifelines ofrecovery. If you took 10% of the
power distribution system in theUnited States, hardened it
(24:39):
bought it up that could resist amajor EMP. That will be a star,
but we would need to becontinuing investing across a 10
year period to do the entiregrid. But 30 billion would be a
darn good start at least untilall the administrators got in
and got their change and GetHired 1000 bureaucrats to manage
(25:03):
it. Right? Yeah.
Chuck Shute (25:06):
And what about that other stuff that I mentioned,
like the cyber attacks? And thefinancial is? I mean, that's
kind of related, right? Becausethat's another way that they
could attack us were Are weprepared for those kinds of
attacks at all?
Dr. William Forstchen (25:18):
better prepared? Get I teach at a small
college Montreat College. Thisisn't a promo for the college.
But we are a major, our majorarea is become a cybersecurity.
I mean, our kids are goingthrough that program. And when
they come out the other side,they walked in in $200,000 jobs.
(25:40):
So I sit in our lab occasionallyand watch what they're doing.
Yeah, we're starting to getbetter at cybersecurity issues.
That's a constant war. I mean,you sit in their control center,
and I'm playing What's this?
What's that? Oh, that's anotherattack. Others attack from Iran.
Oh, here comes one from Russia.
(26:00):
We're blocking this for blockingthat. It's a massive game of
chess going on 24/7 365 We're atleast doing something better
there.
Chuck Shute (26:11):
Yeah, I mean, it was essentially I saw that news
story the other day about thekid that leaked all the high
security, Pentagon Pentagonstuff. And now he's going to
prison. I mean, how does thiskid who's I think he's 20? Or
21? Or someone? Yeah. How doeshe get clearance to all this
stuff? That's supposed to belike our top military secrets.
He's just a kid.
Dr. William Forstchen (26:32):
I wish he could tell me. I don't know.
Chuck Shute (26:36):
And definitely seems concerning, though, too,
is it seems like there's a lotof areas that we are not
prepared for, like we're arguingover these issues that seem like
you said, maybe more sexy orwhatever, like, you know, wind
energy and things like this. ButI mean, there's a lot of things
where we get caught with ourpants down, which I think the
pandemic kind of showed us alittle preview of that.
Dr. William Forstchen (26:57):
Yes, it did. You know, picture it this
way. Holland has hundreds ofmiles, you know, these big dikes
and give her a bit in the hallon you know, what I mean, you
know, you know, dams and allthat the old back the ocean, you
just need a leak on one spot tobreak open and you got serious
trouble. So, yeah, we we build adam to hold these things back.
(27:21):
But one leak like this, that 21year old kid house, I wonder to
how the heck did he gain accessto all that material? He he's
most likely a computer nerd anda whiz, who understands that far
better than I do. And he reallyshook up the entire system.
Chuck Shute (27:41):
Yeah, it's frightening. It's frightening to
see, like when we did have thatpandemic, and there was a little
bit of panic. And people werebuying up toilet paper. I mean,
you saw, like, you saw, like,just a preview of that chaos.
And if there's something likethe electrical grid goes down, I
can't imagine that chaos would Idon't think we would last very
long.
Dr. William Forstchen (28:00):
We would.
Sandy, the 2012 storm that hitNew York City, and I used to
live right in that area when Iwas a kid. And within 24 or 48
hours, you were seeing the newscast of lines around the block
to Starbucks to try and get himfor 15 minutes a charge of cell
(28:22):
phone. The cell phone gridsstill work. But remember on 911
it overloaded? You know, it wasa lot more primitive than so
yeah, it's it's almostincomprehensible. How many
things would just go offlineimmediately. Your cell phone
doesn't work anymore. Your carmight not work? You go to the
(28:44):
market, people are looting themarket. It's a very bad picture.
Chuck Shute (28:51):
Yes, it doesn't.
Don't these corporations have astake in this to make sure that
they if they're going to makemoney, they're going to need
power? And isn't that somethingthat they should be concerned
about as well? Yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (29:03):
When I first got into this, starting
around 2005, I remember going tomy first statewide hearing,
along with several other people.
And the room was packed withDuke lobbyist who were smiling
and shaking hands and everythingelse. And they were basically
saying, yeah, he's a nicenovelist. But he's crazy. Now,
(29:25):
last year, I gave a major talkto a couple 100 Duke Energy,
power, you know, the consultantsand the workers and the guides
handling security. They in fact,were using my book as a
textbook. They're taking itseriously. But again, it's
(29:45):
funding. Do you want to pay yourstock holders off of 4% dividend
this year or you want to saySorry, can't do this. We're
going to be doing infrastructuresecurity. Yes.
Chuck Shute (30:01):
So, again, it comes down to the costs, which I mean,
again, the government wouldwould, let's definitely
something that they could passif Congress could agree on this
and recognize this as a threat,they could get the funding. And
it really should be more theirrole anyways.
Dr. William Forstchen (30:17):
It should be several times, we did see
bills going through the House ofRepresentatives, but then
wanting to committee with theSenate. One Senator Murkowski of
Alaska killed it. Why didn'thave the perks? She wanted the
(30:42):
perks for it, because
Chuck Shute (30:44):
there's been a lot of a lot of those bills or
there's other stuff in the billsthat helps their districts or
whatever, the pork or whateverthey call it, right. Yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (30:52):
I mean, you're dealing with a bill with
that. And then there's a littlerider attached that they're
making in useme to honor theMunchkins of Oz in some places,
and seriously, they did. Theweird things that get attached.
There's a museum the Lord'sWell, in North Carolina, there
(31:13):
was a museum to pottery teacups,what the heck does that have to
do with the other things? Yeah,you know, back in the 90s.
person I know Newt Gingrich,who, okay, he's a good friend.
Yeah, that's read some bookstogether. Right. Yeah. And they
(31:34):
finally got through killing theidea that the President could
have a line item veto on bills.
Alright. It was killed. ThePresident, you need to take the
bill or not. You cannot justsimply as President Go and say
this is ridiculous. No, I'm notgoing to build a Highway to
(31:55):
Nowhere out in the middle ofwhatever doesn't happen. So you
know, the port continues.
Chuck Shute (32:04):
Yeah. So what we could do, besides obviously
protect, try and protectourselves, like you said, stock
up on canned foods. I think youmentioned having a water water
filtration systems. Could peoplelobby their congressman or
Congresswoman about this, try tobring a bill to this.
Dr. William Forstchen (32:21):
You know, I'm telling I'm telling people
now go to your state reps.
Because we've seen action on thestate level, South Carolina.
I've done several visits, talkswith them in the last year.
Excuse me, coffee, too muchcoffee. Your state reps are a
heck of a lot more responsive.
(32:43):
You know, if 50 People got ahold of a state rep and said,
This is important to me. They'regonna listen, whereas a
congressman would just be Yeah,okay. All right. Get your state
reps. South Carolina is doingthings North Carolina is
starting to do things Texas isstarting to do things start at
the state level. And then justYeah, work like hell next year
(33:06):
when we go to the next federalelection.
Chuck Shute (33:08):
Okay, yeah. And I'm just I'm trying to do my part by
having you on the show to talkabout this and educate people,
because I've heard about thistoo, and I just didn't know a
lot about it. So it's nice tokind of learn. I mean, it's
scary. It's really scary, but Ifeel like if we know about it,
then we can prepare. I mean,that's that's a lot of bad
things in the world doesn't. Nottalking about it doesn't make it
(33:29):
go away.
Dr. William Forstchen (33:29):
Yeah.
Okay. Quick, funny story. Okay.
The the book came out, I did atabletop with my college. This
is what we should be looking atif there's an emergency. A
couple months later, my daughterand I are sitting on our deck
and we're looking out across themountains of North Carolina, a
huge thunderstorm. All right.
Suddenly, the entire valley wentdark. Not just local, the entire
(33:51):
valley. My daughter goes, Daddydoes your cell phone work? Yes.
Okay. It's an odd EMP is thethunderstorm. And about two or
three minutes later, my phonerang. Picked it up. It was an
administrator at the college. Isthis it? Oh my god has a cmp I
said Yeah, I think we'rescrewed.
Chuck Shute (34:19):
Because you would know because your phone when
like nothing
Dr. William Forstchen (34:22):
work, right? And then I said, Hey, is
your phone working? Yeah. But Igot half a dozen calls for the
next couple hours of friends andmy husband's in the basement.
He's pulling this out at nightand he says is that no, no, no,
it's just an electrical storm.
So yeah, that's my favoritefunny story about this. Yep. We
got to live our lives. We got toenjoy ourselves, you know, our
(34:44):
kids, our girlfriend, everythingelse. Don't make this the
obsession. But it should be outthere. You should be thinking
about this and doing some basicplanning. I one other thing. I
tell her you Buddy have a God.
God back. Get out of dodge God.
You can buy a ready made one ormake one yourself you said have
(35:08):
a couple of days got at leasttwo or three pints of water,
some energy bars, a solarblanket. an Uzi and a 50 caliber
are hunting. No, no just
Chuck Shute (35:25):
losing might be a tall order. I
Dr. William Forstchen (35:28):
just I get upset with the prepper
survivalist types that are justtoo far over the top. You know?
They sound like Peter Lorre.
Remember old Peter Lorre. I havethis gun, and 50 caliber, and
it's a machine gun. And damn it.
That's crazy. Just a basic Godbag thrown in the back of your
(35:53):
car might make a difference. Hegets stuck in an ice storm. EMP
whatever, you know, out inArizona, you get some wicked
storms out there. God Bank, it'ssimple, throw it in your car and
also have some silver. Just acouple of silver dollars stuck
(36:13):
in the back
Unknown (36:15):
to barter with Yeah.
Dr. William Forstchen (36:18):
Let's say some guys figured out a hand
pump or somebody gets somegasoline out of his tank. And
somebody goes up waving $100bill. And you go off saying you
got a couple of silver dollarshere you want to trade? Which
ones you're gonna take? Yeah,that's true, because that will
be real currency again,
Chuck Shute (36:39):
or Yeah, food would be currency at that point. Yeah,
yes. Food and water. So well,scary stuff. I mean, so the 10%
Because you say 90% Will willperish on the 90%. With Paris.
Yeah, the 10%. That so you saidsome of it could be locked. But
some of it also could be like,if you live kind of in the
country on a farm like you mightbe able to be there's a lot of
(36:59):
people that live off the grid.
Right? Isn't that a thing? Imean, that's like a thing that
people could be self sufficient.
Potentially.
Dr. William Forstchen (37:07):
I'm in mountains of North Carolina,
it's rural. And guess a lot morepeople are thinking off grid or
at least marginally. Or havingbackup systems. I feel bad for
the ones that get the Gen X,whatever. transformer and it's
powered by propane. How long isthat going to last?
Chuck Shute (37:30):
As long as however much propane Yeah, and most
people
Dr. William Forstchen (37:33):
have like 20 gig, or 50 gallons, excuse me
lasts for a couple of days.
Having just, again, basicfundamental supplies that you
know, you can get through amonth or two. You're not out on
the street. You're not beggingfor stuff. You're secure in your
home with your family. And oneother thing I always tell people
(37:56):
to do is have a rendezvouspoint, because eight to 10 hours
a day our kids are at school,you're at the office, you know,
your your spouse is out doingtheir thing. If somebody when
something goes bad, you won'tgotta know where to go. We're
going to meet at such and such aplace, and then we're going to
get back home from there. Right.
Chuck Shute (38:21):
Now what about, like, if you have a car in a
parking garage, if you'reunderground with that higher
probability that would offerprotection?
Dr. William Forstchen (38:30):
EMP has a line of sight of that. Meaning,
you know, it's even within theline of sight of the detonation
200 miles up. But yeah, somestudies have shown the
survivability and shelteredareas, things like that could go
up astronomically. In myfavorite won't get your car
without any problems. If you'rein a if you're on the North
(38:52):
Slope of something, that there'syou don't get the direct hit.
It's an indirect hit. Yourprobability could go up with
that.
Chuck Shute (39:02):
Okay, that's another thing. But again, it's
like you said some of this couldjust be luck. Like, where are
you parked your car, how muchgas you had in there and those
kinds of things. So it isinteresting. Would they have
they? Is there any talk ofmaking your books into a movie?
I feel like that would be a goodmovie, a good disaster movie to?
Dr. William Forstchen (39:21):
Yeah, yeah. I'm talking every week
with my agent and the producerand director. Current problem is
the Writers Guild is going outon strike on May 1, and that's
screwing up everything. Butlet's do that. I don't want to
get into Tourette Syndrome.
Let's just say Hollywood is aninteresting entity to deal with.
(39:44):
And I'll leave it at that. Yeah,I'm
Chuck Shute (39:49):
sure yeah, for Absolutely. Well, that'd be cool
though if they could get thatbut otherwise there is the
fourth book coming out inAugust. Anything else you have
to promote?
Dr. William Forstchen (39:59):
Promote No, no, I had a very close
friend. He's was one of the keynuclear fighting strategists in
the Navy 15 years ago. He didthe for the afterword for the
first book one second after hewas over here. Spent the night,
(40:23):
one of the first things we didwas we turned off, Alexa pulled
the plug, we don't want ourhearing what we're going to say.
And, you know, we talked, now,he's very good with classified,
he doesn't talk about it. But atone point, you know, we looked
at each other. And I was like,we'll go crazy. If we keep
talking about some of this, youknow, all the different
(40:45):
scenarios. And it was like,gotta get on with your life, you
got to enjoy it. You know, you.
If it happens, it happens. Andthen there'll be a terrible day
after that. But on, you know,when I did one second after I
did the foreword, you know, theusual Hi, I want to thank my
agent. I finished that for withthe statement that 30 years from
(41:09):
now, I pray that I'm justremembered as a crank. You know,
didn't have Yeah, at thatfortune guy. I remember his
books. So Right. And then mydaughter grew up safe. And when
we have grandbabies, somedaythey're safe. Let's, let's hope
that's the way it is.
Chuck Shute (41:32):
Yeah, or let's hope that we can all get the
preparation that we need and fixthe grid and get out and be
ready so that if it does happen,that we're ready for it, that
would be better.
Dr. William Forstchen (41:42):
If we upgraded sufficiently, our
opponents might think twice.
Right? Yeah, absolutely. Nowthey're thinking we could really
screw them over good.
Chuck Shute (41:55):
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, then those other things to
the cyber or the financial and Imean, gotta be ready for
everything. I feel like thatshould be a definitely there
should be some doomsday peoplein government, maybe there are
that are that are predictingthese things that are trying to
get us ready for this kind ofstuff? Because you're right. I
mean, it could have went likenobody saw the World Trade
Center thing coming like nobody,not very few people predicted
(42:16):
that.
Dr. William Forstchen (42:17):
Well, you know, that's a great example.
I'm pretty sure he was head ofsecurity for Goldman Sachs. And
they were constantly told,shelter in place. Something bad
had happened sit here, we'll getto. He was preaching for the
several years that he had hissecurity there, he's preaching
the exact opposite, we will getthe hell out as quickly as
(42:39):
possible. He saved upwards of1000 lives by saying immediately
within seconds, go, we'regetting out. He disappeared.
Going back up to get one moreteam of people out, you know,
helping some people. That guy,this will be a statue to him.
(43:00):
Think of all the lives he savedby thinking ahead and say,
react. Don't just hide in thecorner and hope it ain't gonna
happen. Ya know, that
Chuck Shute (43:09):
can make a huge difference. Well, thank you so
much for doing this. I alwaysend each episode promoting a
charity or nonprofit orsomething that's a that you'd
like to promote here at the endfor a charity.
Dr. William Forstchen (43:22):
I give regularly to St. Jude's. They
have one of the highest ratingsout there as nonprofit for the
amount of every dollar that goesdirectly into what they're
doing. Very small administrativecosts. So St. Jude's is tops.
And also of course, the HumaneSociety.
Chuck Shute (43:40):
Yeah, I've promoted both of those charities several
times. So if people have someextra money after they buy all
your books, they should throwsome money into those charities.
Absolutely. All right. Well,thank you so much, Bill. It's
been very informative.
Dr. William Forstchen (43:53):
Hey, thanks. It's been a great
interview. It's a greatquestion. Thank you. Right.
Chuck Shute (43:57):
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks so much. I'll talk to
you. Once again. Dr. Williamforce, Chen, is several books
available now a whole series ona fictional story about an EMP
happening. The first one in thatseries is called one second
after, and the fourth one iscalled Five years after and
that's going to come out thisAugust. So this is the part
where I usually tell you tofollow the guests on social
(44:17):
media. But I don't see that Dr.
forsten has much of a socialmedia presence. I do see a
Twitter but doesn't seem veryactive. So you can still support
him and this interview bysharing it liking and commenting
on social media and YouTube. Andof course, make sure you
subscribe to our show. And ifyou can, please give us a rating
or review wherever you watch orlisten, I appreciate all your
(44:38):
support. Have a great day andshoot for the moon.
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