<!--Rick Pfeiffer--><table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Rick Pfeiffer</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com">rick.pfeiffer@niagara-gazette.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>
For Henry Schwartz it may be the most important event he has ever organized.
“What’s important about this is the timing,” he says. “There’s never been a conference like this anywhere.”
What has become the mission of the chairman of Elma based Steuben Foods and Elmhurst Dairy is educating and moving to action folks in Western New York who have never heard of electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
“What I have learned in the last seven to 10 months is that the most expected terrorist attack, both in the United States and Israel, is an EMP attack,” Schwartz said Sunday night. “So I decided to do something about it.”
On Wednesday and Thursday, Schwartz will gather some 600 people, including scientists, members of Congress, terrorism experts and even former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, to draw attention and bring on action to what he views as the EMP threat.
“Our audience will be the citizens of Western New York,” he said. “I think the citizens (here) will set an example for how the rest of the country should respond.”
EMP is a burst of electromagnetic energy triggered by natural or manmade sources. It originates naturally from the sun in the form of solar flares, but can also be generated through detonation of a nuclear device in the earth's atmosphere.
A Department of Homeland Security disaster guide for the public explains an EMP “acts like a stroke of lightning but is stronger, faster and shorter.”
Schwartz and others believe such an event could knock out America’s electrical, communications, transportation and other infrastructure grids for months or even years.
An Air Force veteran, who worked in a unit that controlled nuclear-tipped missiles, Schwartz says he knows about what an EMP event could mean.
“Once the grid goes down, nothing will function,” he said. “There’ll be no food, no water, no heat. I’ve met with senior military leaders here and not a single one of them felt this was a far out possibility.”
Schwartz said Congressional commissions and committees have tried to call attention to the immediate EMP threat from rogue states or terrorist groups using a missile to detonate a nuclear warhead miles above the United States, but few have heeded those warnings.
Experts have warned an EMP attack, with even a modest nuclear device, could disable or burn out everything from cell phones and personal computers to vehicle ignitions and air traffic control systems without harming people. Some defense experts say the country’s vulnerability to such an attack increases as we grow more dependent on electronic devices in every day life.
Schwartz says American’s need to be prepared to “harden” their electrical infrastructure to meet the threat.
“It’s easy for people to (prepare) to provide their own food, water and electricity,” he said.
Yet, Schwartz has unveiled plans to “harden” his local food-processing plant by making plans to drill gas and water wells that would allow him to continue to supply food in a crisis.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will address the conference in a taped message.
“I’ve believed for a long time that EMP may be the greatest strategic threat we face,” Gingrich says in the message. “Without adequate preparation its impact could be so horrifying that we would, in fact, basically lose our civilization in a matter of seconds.”
