And they come in patriotic colors now, too!
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
And if you are allergic to iodine?
The basement shelter itself doesn't need much. A cot, a few blankets. Supplies can be located nearby where you don't have to stay out long to get them. You might consider heaping dirt against the outside of the concrete block walls to increase radiation shielding, although this can be done after the attack. If you are below ground level and away from vertical walls that might accumulate radioactive dust, you should be fine. If the building itself is gone, you will want to put some timbers across the top of the concrete block walls and cover them with at least 3 feet of dirt for shielding. And maybe a tarp so it doesn't all turn to mud in case of rain. Your canned goods will be fine outside, but potable water will be a problem if you don't have much stored up. A well would be okay.
Absolutely true.
And, most cool, you can read it right from the link provided above!!
And they come in patriotic colors now, too!
Animal Farm - Orwell
And even more scary, from an article "Shield of Dreams" in Discover magazine this month:
"We know how to hit a bullet with a bullet so that's not really the analogy. It's like when you were a kid and somebody threw a ball at you. You could stop that. But if they threw a handful of rocks [or just one nuclear warhead and a bunch of decoys] you couldn't stop them all. That's the problem. We won't have enough bullets."
or time
or technology
"There are lots and lots of technical questions that are unresolved," Ted Postol, a nuclear physicist at MIT, "My guess is that it {a viable defense sysem] is decades away---if it can be built at all."
We have no choice but to win this war and make sure we do it all the way.
Once the explosion and radiation dangers have passed are these hats edible and if so, have they been approved by the government (the FDA) for consumption by humans, and if so, do they contain red dye # 5? (I hope not for the last question.) Is there a nutritional contents label on them as required by federal regulations?
I say this as a VERY WELL trained USAF Disaster Preparedness NCO who dealt with this for a number of years. Also, I'm a red-zoner, where a terrorist attack by nuclear means is very unlikely. In the even of a nuclear attack, I will house bona-fide FReepers from the Blue zone at no charge. No DEMOCRATS! :->
Won't be any. Everyone will be a Republican, some old, some recently converted.
OK come pick me up...got the potassium iodide, guns and ammo...btw..do you mind if we haul a couple of horses..?
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