Nuclear EMP attack moves to big screen as author reflects on ‘invisible lifeline’

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Author reveals small town inspiration behind bestselling novel on EMP attack

Inspired by real-life experiences and in-depth research, Dr. William Forstchen’s novel, "One Second After," captures the harrowing struggle of a small town fighting to survive after a devastating EMP attack.

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Author William R. Forstchen’s bestselling novel “One Second After” – which imagines the devastating effects of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) strike on the United States – is being adapted into a feature film. 

The screenplay will be written by renowned sci-fi writer J. Michael Straczynski, with Forstchen himself serving as an executive producer.

Fox News Digital spoke with Forstchen about the real-world inspiration behind his work and why he warns that an EMP attack is a looming threat, not just science fiction.

“I wanted to write an accurate, a very accurate story of what would happen in a small town in North Carolina if the power went off, and it never came back on,” he said.

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Electromagnetic pulse expert William R. Forstchen speaks at the rally against North Korea on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and Yerba Buena Gardens to support the new Homefront video game on March 2, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. (Araya Diaz/WireImage)

Forstchen was wrapping up his Ph.D. at Purdue University when he began pursuing a novel on an EMP attack on the United States.

He said that he struggled to get the novel off the ground and clarify his ideas until he had a “God moment” at his graduation.

“I call it a ‘God moment.’ I was sitting there, sweating in my robes, looking at the students and parents, and it just hit me – write about us, write about my town.”

The moment of inspiration led him back to his hometown – near Asheville, North Carolina – where he began the task of writing an accurate, compelling version of events following the devastation of an EMP attack.

Set in the hills of North Carolina, “One Second After” is about college professor and former military officer John Matherson, who must fight to preserve the lives of his family and neighbors in the wake of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. (MPI Original Films (MPI))

Forstchen began the process of writing and drew inspiration from key figures in his hometown.

“I started interviewing people like crazy – police chief, pharmacist – and I learned how deeply everything depends on that invisible lifeline of electricity,” he said.

He pointed to the interview with the local pharmacist, who he shared had been left crying after considering what would happen following an EMP strike.

“I started interviewing people like crazy. I’ll never forget finishing talking with the police chief. And I said, ‘All right, Jack, what would you do? And he picked up the phone, and he said, wait a minute, the phones don’t work anymore, do they?'” he said.

“I learned that the pharmacist knows the people more than anybody. They’re the ones giving out the heart medication, the anti-psychotic, and she started writing down this long list of people who would be dead in two to three months,” he said.

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From dozens of interviews, Forstchen crafted his novel together. “One Second After” was published in 2009 and remains on the bestseller list. 

J. Michael Straczynski attends the 25th anniversary of “The Interviews: An Oral History of Television” hosted by the Television Academy Foundation at Saban Media Center. (David Livingston/Getty Images)

The novel is now being adapted into an MPI original film in association with Startling Inc.

The feature film is being penned by Straczynski, with Forstchen serving as an executive producer. Scott Rogers is directing the film, which is scheduled to begin shooting in Bulgaria this September.

WATCH: US should prepare for nuclear EMP attack, expert warns

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Fox News Digital previously spoke with Forstchen about an EMP strike, who said that the threat is “very real.”

“EMP is generated when a small nuclear weapon, 40 to 60 kilotons or about three times the size of a Hiroshima bomb, is detonated 200 miles out in space above the United States. It sets up an electrostatic discharge, which cascades to the Earth’s surface, feeds into the millions of miles of wires which become antennas, feeds this into the power grid, overloads the grid and blows it out,” he said.

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Forstchen, citing Congressional reports from 2002 and 2008, said that 80% to 90% of Americans would be dead a year later if an EMP strike were to happen.

“The threat of an EMP was first realized during the 1962 Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test. What happened was that it blew about 500 miles away from Hawaii and 200 miles up,” he said. “They were able to bring the system back within a matter of days, but what would it be like if it took a month, six months, a year, or five years to fix?”

A geomagnetic disturbance is a temporary disturbance of the Earth’s magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave and/or cloud of magnetic field that interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field. (Department of Homeland Security)

The late Peter Pry, a nuclear weapons expert and former staff director at the Congressional EMP Commission, agreed. Before his death in 2022, Pry warned that Kim Jong Un’s launch of a high-altitude ballistic missile was a test of North Korea’s EMP capabilities against the United States.

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“Cars would be paralyzed,” Pry told Fox Business in May 2017. “Airplanes could fall out of the sky. You’d have natural gas pipeline explosions, nuclear reactor overloads. And worst of all, if you had a protracted blackout, it would be a serious threat to the survival of the American people.”

Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a U.S. Writer at Fox News Digital.

Sarah joined FOX in 2021, where she has assisted on coverage of breaking and major news events across the US and around the world, including the fallout following the “Defund the police” movement, the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump’s life and illegal immigration.

She has experience reporting on topics including crime, politics, business, lifestyle, world news and more. You can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.