Hurricane Sandy ravaged large parts of New York City and NewJersey, flooding streets and homes, washing away piers, cuttingdown trees and power lines, forcing people to flee their homes,scrounge for food, line up for gas and search for power to chargetheir cell phones.

While metro New York residents are looking forward to a returnto normalcy, some national security analysts are warning that whatAmericans in the Northeast experienced temporarily could be themerest foretaste of what all Americans can expect if action is nottaken to prevent a full-blown assault on vital U.S.infrastructures.

Indeed, while surveys show most Americans thought this week'sU.S. presidential election was all about the economy, these voicesare saying the threat from countries like Iran or North Korea mayrestore foreign and defense policy to voters' top concerns.

At issue is the danger of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack,a plausible nuclear threat that has gotten no attention in therecent campaign.

Whereas military planners used to focus on nuclear weaponsdeployed against a major U.S. population center, which would take afair amount of sophistication to target precisely, the new worryconcerns a nuclear explosion detonated at high altitude.

A rogue band of terrorists or nuclear rogue state like Iran maybe in a position to launch a single nuclear payload into theatmosphere above the United States, and thereby incapacitate everyelectric system in the U.S. Hospitals would be without power, bankscould not transfer funds electronically, people could not usecredit cards or cell phones.

The Obama Administration is currently developing an executive order on the issue ofcybersecurity.

Concern over an EMP attack prompted the U.S. to set up in 2001 acommission to study the nature of the threat, the vulnerabilitiesof U.S. military and civilian systems and the capacity of the U.S.to recover from an attack.

Its 2008 official report warned: “An EMP attackpotentially could disrupt or collapse the food infrastructure overa large region encompassing many cities for a protracted period ofweeks, months or even longer. Widespread damage of theinfrastructures would impede the ability of undamaged fringe areasto aid in recovery. Therefore, it is highly possible that therecovery time would be very slow and the amount of human sufferinggreat, including loss of life.”

The commission's 2004 official report stated that “…some potentialsources of EMP threats are difficult to deter—they can be terroristgroups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons,and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their ownsafety. Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also bedeveloping the capability to pose an EMP threat to the UnitedStates, and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter.”

Indeed, Iran recently announced its intention to project its navalpower off the U.S. coastline in the next few years, making vividthe possibility of ship-based EMP assault. A fresh Congressional Research Service report issued lastmonth by a naval analyst warns of a lower-level worry – that theChinese military is working on electromagnetic systems to disruptU.S. warfighting capabilities. The purpose of these “low-yield EMPwarheads” would be to disable U.S. aircraft carriers in a futureconflict over Taiwan.

But the bigger danger that has EMP activists concerned, is of asingle, crude nuclear device with a primitive missile device of thekind Iran or Iranian-sponsored terrorists could deliver.

A bipartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to forestallingthe danger of the EMP threat called EMPACTAmerica has organized around this issue.

Also, Congress is considering the Shield Act (H.R. 668), whichwould empower the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to protectthe national electric grid by ensuring there are enoughextra-high-voltage transformers to survive and recover from an EMPattack. That bill was referred to a subcommittee last year and has yet to receive a fullhearing.

This article was originally posted at AdvisorOne.com, a sister siteof Credit Union Times.