Cochlear Implants and Nuclear War

There is this one terrible side effect from a nuclear explosion or electromagnetic bomb and that's called  "EMP" or Electro-magnetic Pulse and how such a pulse can easily destroy cochlear implants.

This pulse of energy, which produces a powerful electromagnetic field, particularly within the vicinity of the weapon burst, is called an electromagnetic pulse. EMP can also be produced from non-nuclear sources, such as electromagnetic bombs, or E-bombs.  

High-altitude nuclear detonations and electromagnetic bombs can generate EMP that has the potential to damage or destroy electronic devices over widespread areas. Electric power systems would also be at risk from surges produced by such weapons. However, the EMP from a kiloton-range surface nuclear explosion would not be expected to produce serious damage outside the radius of severe destruction from blast.

A 1.4 Megaton bomb launched about 250 miles above Kansas would destroy most of the electronics that were not protected in the entire Continental United States. During the brief return to atmospheric testing in 1962, a 1.4 megaton nuclear weapon was detonated over Johnston Island at an altitude of about 250 miles.  The effects of EMP were observed in Hawaii, 800 miles east of the detonation.  Streetlights and fuses failed on Oahu and telephone service was disrupted on the Island of Kauai.

So, basically any electronic components are at risk of failing outright from an EMP burst which includes cochlear implant, hearing aid, laptop, television, cell phone, automobiles, trains, planes, video phone, and many, many more.  What I don't get is why people even feel the need to bring up about cochlear implants (and hearing aids) in an EMP scenario? If this happens everybody is basically dead in the water where there's no communication, no food being made, no water delivered to your faucet, refrigerators no longer work, and so on. Everybody would be effected. Of course, for hearing aid users, they can put their spare hearing aids in a box that is covered and encased in metal and a couple years worth of batteries (that is in this situation hopefully the use of batteries would be judiciously used and stretched out for a period of 3 or 4 years).

There are two basic ways to protect or harden items against EMP effects. The first method is metallic shielding. Shields are made of a continuous piece of metal such as steel or copper. A metal enclosure generally does not fully shield the interior because of the small holes that are likely to exist.  Therefore, this type of shielding often contains additional elements to create the barrier. Commonly, only a fraction of a millimeter of a metal is needed to supply adequate protection.  This shield must completely surround the item to be hardened. 

The second method, tailored hardening, is a more cost-effective way of hardening. In this method, only the most vulnerable elements and circuits are redesigned to be more rugged.  The more rugged elements will be able to withstand much higher currents.  This method has shown unpredictable failures in testing, though it is thought it may be useful to make existing systems less vulnerable.

At least by protecting your hearing aids that way you'd have a fighting chance and your survival would increase because of your additional ability to hear what's going on around you.  Cochlear implant wearers would be out of luck.  Those who cannot use a hearing aid would be at an obvious disadvantage unless, of course, you have hearing guide dogs.  At any rate, it wouldn't really matter because in that situation you'd be fighting for survival every step of the way.  And hearing people would already be at an advantage in this situation no matter how you look at it when it comes to surviving this incident which could last for several years.  But then you might argue about the use of a hearing guide dog. Sure, but so can a hearing person to increase his/her survivability even further. No matter how you cut it and play the Deaf political card the fact of the matter is when that EMP goes off the most disadvantaged people will be the first to go such as those need dialysis or need medication to survive and live and so on. And it goes up the ladder with the next line of disadvantaged group of people. In short, it all comes down to survival of the fittest and being deaf in this situation will certainly prove perhaps almost seemingly impossible to survive in such a manner over a length of time.

So, I wouldn't even bother bringing up the cochlear implant and EMP scenario in the effort to make these scenarios scary for current and future cochlear implant users almost to the point of implying that perhaps they shouldn't get a cochlear implant. It'd be utter nonsense to do that. If an EMP does go off, you, the non-cochlear implant and hearing aid wearers (i.e. deaf/hh people), would also be....up the creek as well.