[Can one prepare?]
Not much, I’d think. Especially if you’re within a few miles under the detonation.
I tried to add “news” but that’s not the right keyword.
I vote for D.C.
Not much, I’d think. Especially if you’re within a few miles under the detonation.
Sure. It's not like the old days when the USSR would have hit us with hundreds of nukes - so many they'd be no place to hide from radiation.
If a few cities were hit by North Korea or Iran, people in those cities who survived in initial blast could 'shelter in place' until it was safe to evacuate to a city 50 or a hundred miles away.
It would take some thought... but MIT engineers could probably come up with some ideas to block radiation for 6 or 7 few days. And outfits to wear to drive to a safer city. Some of the worst stuff is slow moving particles that can be stopped with plastic...or maybe blocked with paints. There are answers.
[Can one prepare?]
Not much, I’d think. Especially if you’re within a few miles under the detonation.
I tried to add “news” but that’s not the right keyword.
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Yes, one can prepare. And your government officials have prepared places for them selves that are well stocked and underground. Citizens/Civil defense—went by the way side.
Russia has civil defense and had a big practice with millions of people right around the 2016 election IIRC.
During the 1960s my hubby was a teacher in the Government Civil Defense program. If you are at least 25 miles from the epicenter, you might be able to survive-if you have shelter.
Within 24 hrs. the estimate was that the entire USA would be covered with radiation. Sheltering inside a basement fallout shelter, would need to be for at least 2 weeks. Then you could make a quick trip to dump waste or get additional supplies—still would need to stay in shelter and would have to decontaminate before going back in.
So the shelter should have a decontamination area prior to the entry area. Canned goods will be good—just have to wash the residue off. Of course if the shelter is big enough and stocked enough, you could just stay there till the radiation subsides enough.
Even a banana will be good to eat—just have to wash it off and peel it—that’s what my 8th grade history teacher showed us—he was moonlighting for government civil defense prep.
You’ll need some potassium iodide tabs to take to protect glandular tissues in the body. Good to have water filters that can filter out radiation and so forth.
There are some old civil defense documents from the government dated back about 40-60 years ago that have some interesting shelter designs as well as last-minute methods. Also current books from various authors are available for any one who wants to prepare.
Some years back, I was in Switzerland on business. The factory I was in, set in an out of the way valley, didn't have a fallout shelter in the basement.
It had a fully-stocked BLAST and fallout shelter. People on it would survive a Hiroshima-sized bomb 500 m from ground zero.
If a city had something like this on every block, The death toll would be far lower, without them everyone within, say 10 miles of ground zero would die, with them, the people living further than two miles from ground zero could survive.
That's roughly a 300 square mile area where preparation would save lives.