Posted on 11/06/2001 1:40:41 PM PST by classygreeneyedblonde
While U.S. political leaders are prepared to survive a nuclear attack, protecting the general public from radiation apparently is not part of the equation.
According to civil defense advocates, there's enough room in America's remaining Cold War-era fallout shelters only for members of Congress and other select government officials.
According to Ed York, a pioneer in U.S. nuclear weaponry, "The possibility that some terrorist group will be able to steal or buy or fabricate a weapon on their own is going up all the time," and some say that makes preparedness all the more important
As a member of the top-secret Manhattan Project in the 1940s, York is familiar with the design and potential of nuclear weapons for devastation. York said he was "lucky" to have been present at every nuclear test, including the "first nuclear detonation, the first air drop, the first balloon carry to the first underground."
York says Americans need more than luck when it comes to surviving a nuclear attack.
He notes the federal government has not developed any fallout shelters or equipment to protect the general population from a nuclear attack since the Cold War ended
The only people concerned about protecting American citizens from such attacks, he said, have been a handful of civil defense advocacy groups including Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP
DDP President Dr. Jane Orient said she was concerned by the lack of civilian fallout shelters. There is "no place that they [civilians] know about; no place that's prepared."
Dismantled Under the Clinton Administration
The reason for this lack of preparedness, Orient said, is because fallout shelters in "all 50 states" were stripped of their supplies (water, food, blankets) and equipment (radiation detectors) more than five or six years ago." Most of the contents and materials from the shelters were auctioned off or disposed of, she added.
However, Orient said a number of civil defense advocacy groups managed to acquire several radiation meters from the state of Arizona. Those rescued devices were manufactured in the 1950s, but are still considered state-of-the-art since nothing has come along to replace them.
Although Arizona, for example, has a few radiation meters, Orient said many more are needed to adequately protect the residents of that state. Such instruments would enable those affected to determine the level of radiation outside before leaving the shelter.
Orient offered a hypothetical scenario that shows the need for radiation detection equipment and access to working fallout shelters.
If that soot raining down in Brooklyn [from the World Trade Center] had been radioactive," Orient said, "there would be many thousands, maybe millions of people dying slow, agonizing deaths from radiation sickness that could have been prevented had people had access to shelter."
On Sept. 11, after the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center, a steady stream of people crossed the Brooklyn Bridge by foot to escape Lower Manhattan
John Pike, a defense policy analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org, added that "effective evacuation is very difficult" in an urban environment such as Manhattan. He also stressed the need for readily accessible and functioning fallout shelters, but dismissed the possibility of an impending nuclear attack on the U.S. by terrorists.
Rumors about missing 'suitcase' nuclear bombs have been floating around for over a decade," Pike said. "I cannot detect that the U.S. has taken these reports seriously or regarded as being credible
'There Are Thousands of Nuclear Weapons'
Orient strongly disagrees with Pike. "It's a very credible threat," she remarked. "There are thousands of nuclear weapons in the world. We don't know where all of them are
York, who once headed the NATO nuclear upgrade program, believes the probability of a single nuclear weapon being smuggled into the U.S. by a terrorist organization is "going way up because there are more countries that have stockpiles, especially countries like Pakistan, India and some of the republics of the former Soviet Union."
But York agrees it's unlikely that terrorists would detonate a suitcase bomb in the U.S. He said the bomb that a terrorist group would use is going to be "homemade, massive and either delivered by a ship or a pickup truck or something like that," he said.
According to Orient, it may be just a matter of time before terrorist organizations have the technology and capability to launch nuclear weapons against the U.S. She believes terrorists already are using "our stolen technology, or the technology that they were 'given' or 'bought' from us" to develop a sophisticated delivery system.
Orient wants Americans to realize that although nuclear weapons pose the threat of "awesome" devastation, such devastation is not "apocalyptic
She said she would continue to remind Congress and government officials that "the amount of damage that will be done and the ability to recover from it depends a lot on preparing in advance
It points out that in the former USSR and China, civil defense preparations have been such that about 80% of their population would survive all-out nuclear attack. We don't do so well in the estimates.
The point of the book is that nuke war is a thing which can be survived--it just takes knowledge and preparation. Under present circumstances, you're going to have to take care of yourself. You might want to get this US Govt. publication. It provides instructions for simple shelters, sanitary devices, air circulation pumps, and radiation detectors you can make from soup cans and tinfoil...real McGuyver stuff.
How ironic. That very thought brings a smile to my face.
Dont look into the light
They tried to make it a game, but even then I knew it was BS.
FMCDH
Yeah me too.
A mind is a terrible thing.
If my math is correct, this author is talking about the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION. Check his house in Chappaqua -- lots and lots of boxes were delivered there, the dirty RATS.
I have some knowledge...#1 stay where I am, quasi protected by the rockies...I'll look into that book.
BTW, that was a great sub, dasboot...
FMCDH
The subs were crushed like rotten eggs at a political protest.
The plans for my house (ca. 1961) denote a "bomb shelter" in the basement. I don't think it's very good though. I use it for a plant room in the winter. It doesn't even have a door -- it's just a concrete block room. There's even spiders and mice in it. Ugggh
What should I put in it? Water? A port-a-potty? Dehydrated food?
With a forward by Edward Teller, it is unrivaled.
Take with Potassium Iodide.
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