#36

I forget how I stumbled across "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen, but it was a very thought provoking read. It's been recommended as reading material for all of Congress. Electromagnetic Pulse is the reason. "They say" that it could be our country's destruction. We've apparently known about it for a long time and haven't taken precautions to prevent the consequences. In Forstchen's novel, an ex military man turned professor has moved to a small town in the mountains of the Carolinas to takes his dying wife back to her family. He's established himself and his family there when all power stops. He's aware of what has probably happened when he realizes that all cars models after 1980 have stopped dead, cell phones are dead, computers are dead, and our world as we know it is forever changed. Everything that we've put a computer chip into is now gone. Planes have fallen out of the sky. Within days martial law is enforced. No contact with the outside world is taking place to find out what has happened and who's attacked us. Now they have to figure out how to keep surviving. His daughter is a diabetic and has been given just a few vials of insulin. No means to get more. The nursing home is a mess of filth within two days. Elderly dying without help. In weeks they have people starving and fighting each other for food. Strangers are swarming the countryside in search of food so they have to form their own army to protect their residents. A trip to the grocery store while reading this book made me want to stock up on a year's worth of food and water. Definitely an interesting read.