Nukes
You Will Survive Doomsday
By Bruce Beach
Table of Contents
MYTHS
MYTH #01: Almost everyone will suddenly be killed on doomsday.
You will survive doomsday. And here you thought that if it
ever happened the bomb would fall right on you. Probably not.
It will more likely go like this.
One day, the inferior Russian computers may make a mistake and decide
that the US has already launched a pre-emptory attack against Russia.
The US warning system has made that same sort of mistake many times
and a number of times we have gotten just minutes away from launching
our retaliation before the mistake was discovered. Who is to say the
Russians will always be so smart?
Forty minutes after a missile is launched from Russia it will be
landing on its target in North America. Before this occurs the US has
just minutes within which to respond or it will be caught with its
missiles down. The hotline to Russia happens to be not working (this
has also happened a number of times before). That is one of the factors
that entered into the Russians decision to launch.
So, what's his name in the White House reaches for a jellybean and
pushes the button. Interception missiles of course try to stop the
Russian missiles before they reach their first two primary targets,
NORAD (NORthern Air Defense) headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado
and its backup at North Bay, Ontario.
These are hardened underground computer and communication sites that
may require several bombs to wipe them out. Given the number of
missiles that may be intercepted the Russians have sent a handful.
A better way to wipe out the communications of North America is to
just explode four thermonuclear devices at a high altitude over the
continent. These will generate an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) that will
knock out most electric and electronic devices tied into the power
grids. It will also knock out any new devices that contain IC's
(integrated circuits) and that have an antenna over thirty inches long.
That means that your car radio, portable radio, and television will be
inoperable, even if the power ever does come back on.
All over the continent the power and lights will suddenly go off. If
you happen to be listening to a battery operated old tube type radio
(when did you last see one of those?) that is tuned into a "hardened"
transmitter sight (I don't know where you will find one) that transmits
(fat chance) the EBS (Emergency Broadcast Signal) then you will know
that doomsday has begun.
Otherwise you will be standing out there with the rest of us
survivors saying, "Nice day, eh? Strange the power would go off on
a nice day like this." Silence. The sun will continue to shine,
and the birds will sing, and the breezes will blow and you will still
not know that they have a bit of a problem up in North Bay.
They are no longer there. Silence.
Eventually word may drift in. On the chance that there is something
to the rumor you decide to try to call someone. Your spouse, a friend,
a relative. Don't bother. Silence. The telephone isn't working
either. Even if the EMP hadn't done it in, a mere power outage causes
such an overload of demand on the central exchange that you couldn't
even get a dial tone.
You are a survivor. Doomsday has occurred and you are a
survivor. While you are waiting for the spouse and kids to get home
maybe you should do something practical. Like go down to the
supermarket and lay in a bit of an extra stock.
You may notice that the little corner store has closed. If he has
believed the rumor, he wants to save his stock. And besides, your money
may not be worth anything tomorrow. You thought you had seen rapid
inflation before but this is like from zero to a million in sixty
seconds.
At the supermarket, if you are early enough, you will find pandemonium.
If not, you will find practically nothing. Maybe a large bag of dog food
(take it) and some cans of floor wax (forget it). The rest of the stuff
was all in those carts that you met come flying up the walk as you came
running down.
There won't be any girls at the cash registers, (they have done their
shopping and gone). Besides, the cash registers aren't working anyhow,
with no power. It may have taken the hired manager a little longer to
figure out that he should grab what he can and head home to his family,
but he has probably gone now. The only cops you will see are the one's
grabbing stuff themselves.
If on the way back you spot a shopping basket with something in it - think
twice before helping yourself. If there is an altercation there are
probably no doctors at the hospital to sew up the lacerations.
Everyone else is also too busy to bother calling an ambulance,
if they could, and one wouldn't be available if they did.
Of course the trip to the supermarket may have been nothing like that
at all. It may have just been a bit more active than usual but if most
people haven't caught on yet then we are very lucky. You just keep
mumbling under your breath. "Good people, good people - that's the
way, that's the way, just stay calm." This way we can just go about
doing what we have to do as quickly as we can, while trying to not stir
up panic. "Yes. I understand the cash registers aren't working
but please let me just help you add this up by hand. No, that's fine,
just keep the change."
Then, of course, if everything is really this calm we can take that
good old plastic credit card and go out and buy all the good survival
stuff that we are going to need and should have gotten beforehand.
Don't worry about paying for it, no one is ever going to send you a bill.
Getting the stuff home may be a bit of a problem if the car isn't
working (the EMP may have wiped out that fancy electronic ignition).
"No, that's fine. You don't need to deliver it. I'll just put it
here in my little red wagon." But you sure don't want to lug it all
the way up to your thirty-second floor apartment, if there is somewhere
safe that you can stash it. "Can you really believe that people
are staying this calm? How is it that we seem to be so much smarter
than the rest?"
More than likely you are now back home and all you have is the
fifty-pound bag of dog food. Are you really going to be able to carry
it up to your thirty-second floor apartment? You know the elevators
aren't working of course. Then maybe you could hide it in the trunk of
your car in the garage- if no one sees you.
Ah, back home in the apartment. Home sweet home. The kids are home
from school now. Do you have enough guts after that scene at the
supermarket to send them out to do some more scavenging? It isn't
exactly a party going on out there. Did you see Watts, Detroit,
Washington D.C., and Baltimore after some of their similar parties?
I did. I think I would keep the kids home. Not much you can do except
to wait for the spouse to walk home. Shouldn't be more than a few hours.
The spouse finally makes it home. "What do you mean all you got
is fifty pounds of dog food? We don't even have a dog." The
electricity isn't on. We can't cook anything anyway. Best to eat
everything out of the refrigerator before it spoils. Won't be anymore
water as soon as the gravity feed tanks on the roof empty. Hope you
saved a few pot's full. If everyone filled up their bathtubs - it is all
gone. It has gotten cold. Might as well go to bed. There is no light to
see anything by anyway. Certainly not going out in those streets in this
dark with all that noise going on down there. Hopefully, everything will
look brighter in the morning.
Day Two
Morning comes early with the noise of people throwing pots and pans
over the sides of their balconies along with the blankets, pillows and
other things that it saves them carrying down. Apparently some of the
residents are moving out. Perhaps you should too.
Everything looks better in the light, doesn't it? TV still doesn't
come on. Telephone isn't working either. And you know what - the toilet
doesn't flush. Can't cook anything. Got to eat what you've got. See,
that wasn't so bad. Make it sort of a picnic. Eat it right out of the can.
There is not going to be any water to wash dishes.
But see, we survived doomsday. Didn't even see an explosion,
hear a bomb, or anything. Maybe we should sit down together and try to
figure out what we are going to do from here. The bombs may still be
coming. Probably are.
If the attacker's plans have gone according to schedule they have
probably finished with their primary targets. They have hit the three
Titan Wings in Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas (three wings, eighteen
missiles each, for a total or fifty-four) or the things have landed in
Russia by now, so why bother. They have certainly been knocking the
bejammers out of Montana and the Dakotas. Can't hear or see a thing
from here of course. [Author's update note: This is point is a little
dated. The Titan Wings have been decommissioned and both the U.S. and
Russia have now put much greater reliance upon the MUCH greater and
more reliable destructive power of MIRVed warheads aboard nuclear
submarines. The primary targets are now most like submarine bases,
to prevent more subs from leaving port).
Then they will start on the secondary targets. All the SAC
(Strategic Air Command) bases both in the US and around the rest of
the world. Oh, they have lots to keep them busy for a while. Cities
themselves are pretty far down the list. Maybe they won't even go for
them. Any airport with over a ten thousand foot runway is pretty
important however because the SAC could land and refuel their bomber
there. So you know where that puts us. They will probably get around
to us in the next day or two.
There are two strategies of warfare. One is called counterforce and
the other is called countervalue. With counterforce you knockout the
enemy's forces so he can't harm you. This can be very chivalrous like
the fighting codes of the knights of old. You never harm the women and
children.
On the other hand, with countervalue, you go after everything
the enemy holds dear in order to demoralize him. This was the technique
of the Mongolian hordes.
"Take no prisoners." "Eliminate the enemy."
"The only good Indian is a dead Indian." "Eliminate the Jews." "Sock
it to the Japs."
Women, children, babies, everybody goes.
Now the problem with countervalue warfare is if everybody knows they
are either going to win or die, some people can get very tough.
So maybe the best thing is to knockout the military forces and hold
the cities as hostage. "Now, either surrender or we bomb the cities."
Anyway, the cities aren't generally the first targets.
And so here we sit. Unscratched, the day after doomsday.
But we can see some problems on the horizon. Very possibly the city is
going to be bombed in the next day or two. Even if it isn't, how can we
stay here? The electricity is off. The heat is off. The water is off.
And it isn't coming back on. The elevators aren't working. For older
people it is "If we go down (if they can go down), we can't come back up."
There is no more food in the grocery store. And there won't be any
more. (Unless you believe your government, which says they will start
delivering it in about two weeks - want to bet?). Then there is that
horrible stuff called fallout that is going to start showing up in about
twenty-four to forty-eight hours, or sooner.
Now, we have all seen or heard about the book and the movie "On The Beach",
and Beach himself shows up with the solution. A pocket full of
cyanide pills. If you want one he will give you one for each of your kids
or grandkids. There is only one catch. There are only so many and I don't
want them wasted. So you will have to line up each of your children or
grandchildren in a row and pop it down their throats right while I am here.
How many of you will do it? "Here is your vitamin. Open wide..."
No? Then you really are a survivor. Here you always said you hoped
the bomb would fall right on you and then when I offered you an easy out...
Oh well, it won't be that bad. A world without electricity, automobiles,
radio, television, telephones, and supermarkets. And maybe eventually with
only twenty million people in North America. (They won't all be Canadians).
But then, that is the kind of world that was here in 1800.
The people then didn't have cars, supermarkets, movies, TV, radio,
telephones, modern medicine, airplanes, rockets, and computers.
And they survived. They may have even enjoyed life. Maybe even more than
many people do today with all their drugs, tranquilizers, and what have you.
People generally are survivors. Put them out on an ice floe in the middle
of the arctic with no expectation of rescue, no supplies - nothing - and they
will hold on. Some will even survive until they happen to be rescued.
So you are a survivor and you survived doomsday. But you will eventually die.
We will all eventually die. That is the nature of this world. The question
is not whether or not you will possibly die, but how long you will live,
and what life will be like during that time.
So you have survived. And if you and your kids are going to continue
to survive you had better get the heck out of the city. Not only is
there the possibility that there will be bombs but those little scenes
down at the supermarket, or anywhere else a little bit of food happens
to show up, are going to become more and more unpleasant as anarchy
prevails.
Moreover, without the toilets flushing and with no one removing the
dead bodies, health conditions are really going to reach a state you
just wouldn't want me to describe. So, off to the country. But, how?
And, where?
Before actually departing for the country let us further consider the
alternative of staying in the city. Perhaps you are convinced that the
Russians would never really get around to bombing your city. Or you
feel you have sufficient underground shelter if they do. Nothing,
of course, would protect you if there were a direct hit on your shelter,
but a good bomb shelter could certainly give you very good protection as
little as five miles from ground zero.
The trouble is that subways and underground garages are not designed
as blast shelters. They do not have blast vents and doors. Anyone in
such a place, at the time of blast, within a couple of miles of ground
zero will be subjected to a phenomenon called popcorning. Minute
particles of greatly accelerated sand will cause blisters to pop out all
over exposed parts of the body. This, combined with several other
pathological mechanisms, will probably result in a rather painful death
within a few days.
Although the blast protection in an underground shelter is much
superior to being above ground there are reasons that one is better off
staying in their high-rise apartment rather than going to a large public
shelter if they feel there is little or no danger of blast.
The public shelters have no supplies and no equipment. The average
designated public shelter is supposed to shelter over three thousand
people. Can you imagine the anarchy and conditions there? Without
food, the first to die will be infants who are not being breast fed.
Other early candidates will be persons who require special medications
(especially the elderly) and anyone who happens to be injured.
Not only will deaths have negative psychological effects on the
survivors, they will create severe sanitation problems. There will be
enough sanitation problems anyway if the water and sewage systems are
not working. Most of the designated shelter locations do not have
sanitary provision for three thousand people in the first place.
One of the greatest hazards in an underground shelter is carbon
dioxide poisoning. The designated public shelters, almost without
exception, do not have adequate ventilation for large numbers of people
over a considerable period of time. And the existing ventilation
systems generally depend upon electricity being available.
There are ventilation defense and survival techniques available.
However, if you were to try to implement them in a large public shelter
situation you would probably be one of the first persons killed by the
other survivors. The reason is that most people have misconceptions
about either the air becoming radioactive, or containing radioactive
particles that they feel would be more dangerous than the carbon
dioxide.
Add to these problems the fact that you might not have any light in
the shelter, that anarchy may become rampant, and that there will almost
certainly be no food, and perhaps, more importantly, no water and you
will see why no trained survivalist would want to be caught dead in the
place.
Returning to one's own high rise apartment, after the danger of blast
is past, gives much more favorable opportunities for continued survival
than given by remaining in a public shelter. If you are ten or fifteen
stories above the ground the distance will probably adequately protect
you from any radiation from the fallout on the ground. If there are ten
or more stories above your head then that distance will also protect you
from fallout on the roof.
The apartment dweller should try to secure an inner room without any
windows. A blast fifteen or more miles away will knock out the windows
and it is the glass shards that will kill most people. Pulling drapes
and blinds are all helpful defenses. A blast wave will be preceded by a
brilliant flash of light. The survivor will have from several seconds
to three or four minutes, depending upon the distance from the blast, to
duck behind a sofa or to take other shelter.
Training oneself to take similar immediate defensive action can also
help give protection from the intense thermal radiation that accompanies
a nuclear blast, and that can start fires fifteen to twenty miles
from ground zero. Fires, in themselves, can be a problem and if you are
downwind from a large fire or firestorm you have to watch out for carbon
monoxide poisoning.
Fire defense techniques are generally well known so I will not dwell
upon them here. One thing you need not do is call the fire department,
if you could. There is little they could do, if they were still around,
without central water supplies. But the thing you can do is improvise
closings to seal off all the apartments above you, and those immediately
below you, so that fallout will not blow in and settle on the floors
over your head, or otherwise near you.
Now, it may be possible to organize your activities with other survivors
to become a cliff dweller like those of old. A bucket on a rope might be
used to haul up water gotten from a nearby stream or pond, and waste could
be let down in the same way.
Some ingenuity may be required in providing heat and light, but if
you really have sufficient supplies of food for yourself and your fellow
survivors to hold out until another crop can be planted and harvested
(most survivalists recommend at least two years supply), and you
seriously face up to the sanitation problems created by morbidity, and
you and your co-survivors are sufficiently organized against anarchy,
and there are no more nearer bomb blasts - then you are probably well on
your way towards continued survival. At least you are many times better
off than being in a public shelter.
There may be all sorts of reasons why you elect to remain in the city
rather than head for the country. If the attack comes in the winter and
you do not have a planned escape route, adequate clothing and supplies
to make the trip, are not physically able to make the trip, and do not
have a known destination of refuge, well then...
Those who have most prepared themselves and have made the best plans
should pray that their flight does not come in the winter. During a
storm, or severely cold weather, it is very likely that many more
persons may be killed by exposure than by any other single cause. The
roads and highways will most likely be jammed. If there has been an
explosion in the vicinity then overpasses and utility lines may have
been dropped onto the roadways making them unusable.
Even without a blast having occurred, traffic jams, accidents, or
vehicles just running out of gas will probably create bottlenecks that
completely clog the roads. Once people find themselves just sitting
there, not moving, they will abandon their vehicles. My guess is you
can forget using an automobile for escape unless you had a plan and
immediately implemented it before the general panic set in.
A motorcycle, scooter, or even a bicycle might offer certain
advantages over an automobile. One might carry a smaller form of
conveyance on a larger one and then implement the smaller means of
conveyance, such as a bicycle, when that became the necessity.
The most dependable means of escape would probably remain walking.
If one had to walk all the way out, and they were in any physical shape
at all, they could surely do it in two or three days. Once again,
proper preparation can make all the difference. Proper walking gear,
proper survival clothing, a planned escape route, proper selection of
material to be packed, and proper allocation of loads.
And, as before, there are better alternatives. One could have
pre-arranged pickup points and times with co-survivors coming from the
refuge destination, or in a worsening pre-crisis situation you may have
made an early dispersal. But the greater likelihood is that anyone with
a practical survival plan who reacts immediately can get out well before
the rush sets in.
Just getting out into the country, or to the other side of the
mountain, will increase the survivability factors for many people. The
threats of blast and thermal radiation will have been greatly reduced.
But blast and thermal radiation while very nasty in their effects are
not going to kill that many people anyway. Oh, they will kill millions,
but as a percentage of the people living the day before doomsday they
will, combined, kill only ten to fifteen percent. And most of these
will be a considerable distance from the blast and will eventually die
as a result of injuries caused by the broken glass shards.
As stated before, depending upon the time of year and the weather,
many more may be killed by exposure. But there is still another big
killer coming. That is of course the fallout from the weapon explosions
that took place many hundreds of miles away. This fallout may require
from a few hours to a day or two to arrive. If the weather permits, and
the survivors know what they are doing, they may still have time to
build an expedient shelter against the fallout.
Techniques for defense against fallout have been developed and tested
at great expense by almost every nuclear nation. While information on
these techniques has been made readily available, most people have not
availed themselves of it.
Two basic techniques are available. One is to leave the contaminated area.
But the extent of the contaminated area may be far too wide to escape,
or one may not have accurate information as to the delineation of the
contaminated area, or they may not have the means of transportation,
nor the means of survival should they reach a radiation free area.
The other basic means is to provide shelter within the contaminated area.
Weather, ground, and time conditions permitting it is possible to dig a
trench and cover it with dirt supported by poles, wooden doors, or a vehicle.
Properly designed, such an expedient shelter can make all the difference
between avoiding the effects of fallout radiation, and not avoiding
those effects.
The details of how to build an expedient shelter are to be found in
books listed in the bibliography.
One of the most important and often overlooked factors in designing
a shelter is the matter of providing an airpump so as to eliminate the
problem of carbon dioxide poisoning. The technique for building such
an expedient pump from materials readily available in time of crisis
is also found there.
The effect of fallout radiation is not always death, although many
times it is. Even if it is death it is not immediate death. Intense
radiation causes a very painful, and horrible death (what the literature
calls a hard death) over several days. More likely the effects are
drawn out over a period of weeks, months, or even years. As the title
of this document points out, all these people will have survived
doomsday. It is not a question of survival but the condition of
survival with which we must concern ourselves. Everyone will die
eventually but it is the quality of life in the interim that is of
importance.
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