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The US government has long come up with plans on how to prepare for and face known natural disasters like cyclones, earthquakes, wild forest fires and droughts.
Just recently, however, the White House released documents on how the nation plans to deal with a lesser known but equally threatening natural occurrence: solar storms.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the multiagency plan details how the US will prepare for—and deal with—a massive EMP from space weather. The six-step plan requires government agencies, schools, the media, the insurance industry, nonprofits, and more to work together. In other words: We might be doomed.
“This is a real and present danger,” the White House’s assistant director for space weather tells the Post. Back in 1859, a huge solar storm did impact Earth and caused some sparking telegraph lines.
The National Academy of Sciences says something like that today could mean a $2 trillion economic hit. Something like that almost did happen in 2012, when NASA says we were nearly hit by two large plasma clouds. “If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” one physicist says.
The White House’s new plan calls for the US to get better at predicting space weather, shore up our infrastructure against EMPs, and more, the Chronicle reports. It’s a plan we may truly need: The Post quotes NASA as stating there’s a 12% chance of a giant solar flare in the next 10 years. (Escape doomsday in a luxury missile silo.)
Agencies/Canadajournal
