It's business as usual you've gone some where and just turned off your vehicle and

All the power goes out, and just for the heck of it you try and start your car and it doesn't respond not only that all other vehicles are stalling and people are leaving the buildings and wandering out side .
You dig into your emergency radio packaged in a faraday bag and there are no stations active .
It is pretty clear that the event is wide spread, so what are you priorities ?

This is not an opinion pole but a personal prep for what "you" expect to do in the event your caught out away from home and need to return ASAP .

For me,
1. Seek water to fill my collapsable containers in my EDC bag .nothing is more important at this moment.
2. Review and test electronic gear in my bag and discard what's dead .
3. Gather materials and gear from the vehicle , and prepare to hike home.
4. Avoid contact and conversation. silent observer.
It would be particularly difficult if I've been shopping and had load of food that will spoil if not refrigerated. However it likely will spoil on the trip walking home if I could carry it .
Barter might be practical, if people could at that point appreciate it.
I keep a fold up cart handy in the car, in the event I do have to walk it home even if all I end up carrying is my EDC back pack .
I sometimes travel some distance from home 40 -60 miles or so , and have maps of both southern California and a few of the surrounding towns. Not afraid to go cross country if necessary, being skilled in map and compass .
If it occurs during the summer months, then travel at night is the only way to go, due to the heat.
It may take days to get home depending on obstacles along the way and society will be on the constant melt down as each day deteriorates in social break down. there are a lot of cities her very crowded and close together.
I can only assume that things at home will be some what tense ,so getting home might require stealth .


Weather will alter any one's plans, and certainly other extenuating circumstances of health and injury will have a detrimental effect too . All the more important to have a plan , then to have no plan and no courage to fallow it.

 

Besides being 1800 plus miles from home, i do have my non electronic diesel pickup here with me, and it's loaded up desert style with extras of every thing needes for a long range hot and heavy ride home! Water i have, and food enough for two, for two weeks out. We both have our BOBs and have suplementals in tbe truck which further our capabilities. The real trick is the actual movement! Doi n it at night is going to be about the only way to sneak around towns, but once up on the passes and then the plateau, things should go well, and once out of this big damn valley, i see little reason/need for road blocks/check points to contend with! Intresting questions though! Coms would be iffie, out side the truck, nothing is protected, and in the truck, its only good for low freq, low intensity disruption! Dont know how good that will hold up, but its what i got!

 

Any emp disabling a vehicle that is turned off is very unlikely.
Disabling my vehicles, even less likely.

 

EMP, super EMP, Faraday bag, Faraday bag in a garbage can, sealed Faraday room without the tiniest crack, room with "Faraday" windows for the gen set, trash can alone, cars turned off will be fine, all cars with computers will be toast and on and on. I guess we'll find out the the little fat boy sings. Until someone does tests that are published it's all guess and by golly. When it is published, the enemy will know what to improve on. No one says we don't live in interesting times.

 

A few years back one of our navy ships was hit with an EMP and disabled the whole thing .
All hands lost confidence traumatized, and the moment it was towed home, abandoned ship .
Proximity to an EMP and it's value will have every thing to do with what survives it, no matter what protections have been made.
I believe that even if the car is off, it will be effected.
The car body it's self is an attractant being metal. Insulated from the ground by the tires the charge will take a while to dissipate off the metal as a capacitive charge.
The remote for the security system is a receiver, leading to the internals of the cars wiring ,
The car's radio obviously is a receiver .
Besides that, all the lights are not shielded ,and many being LED are particularly susceptible to voltage spikes.
All these are a part of the electrical circuit into the finer electronics the car itself, is part of the ground connected to the battery.
Boats also will be vulnerable, seeing they have no shielding at all .
Light radio EMP testing may not produce an arc in switches on open circuits, but a real one is likely to have a thousand times the energy, just the same as a magnet swing past a coil on an engine produces and arc to the spark plugs . up to 70K volts . That's enough to fry every thing running or not .

EMP strength is manageable ,in that the strength can be localized (focused) like a shaped charge or general broad beam like an atom bomb in the upper atmosphere reaching as far as possible with in line of sight .
A while back a single drone demonstrated succesful delivery of several EMPs in different locations, proving how localized and focused they can perform.

 

The EMP Commission spent your tax dollars a few years ago. Conclusion is that outside of things like radios that have antennas virtually nothing will be affected. During tests few running cars stopped, and those that did started right up again. I keep my handheld comms in an old microwave and will disconnect antennas when not in use when I get my mobile and base radios.

The old EMP Commission site is down, but here is a copy of the report: Dropbox - A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf

 

The reports seem to be based on information out of Russia. The short version is that the Chinese tested an EMP weapon fired from a submarine was used to disable a Cruise ship as an operation test of the weapon and then gauge the US response time. It has to be true because the Russians would never lie or spread disinformation.

EMP Attack Disables Cruise Ship? | The Micro Effect

 

Wow! Interesting! How do you download this damn thing as I want to save a copy for reference.

 

Yeah, but that only allows me to save it as an .mht or .html and what I really want is the .pdf file. I will snoop around the internet now I know the name of it, someone will have it hanging on some server someplace. Thanks ghrit !

 

The carnival ship had an engine room fire. Much less glamorous but all kinds of destructive.

 

I had the same experience as @ghrit , but just added the document to the Resources section where you can also download it: General Survival - Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack | Survival Monkey Forums

 

skip head to the 3:40 mark. The auto is hit by 800KV AC - bathed in it actually. The car starts and drives away.

The 'other' video (Future Weapons) of a EMP 'test' at White Sand is complete BS - the range said they "NEVER" allow a person to be in a vehicle being tested. BTW - the .mil tests stop at 50KV. The cable channel later admitted the scene was 'staged'

 

Was it CHAMP? Boeing Unveils Amazing, Slightly Terrifying New Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon

A localized pulse is something to fear, but can't cover wide areas as a high altitude nuclear EMP. I'd suspect a personal vehicle wouldn't be important enough to rate a localized EMP when far less expensive ordinance could achieve the same result.