How to Survive a High Yeild Nuclear Detonation

For those who wish to have some sort of working knowledge of how or what to do in the event of a nuclear detonation, knowledge is key to anticipating what is coming and how to react. there are essentially three zones of consideration after a detonation.

Zone 1. The fire ball or ground zero.

The size of this zone is in direct relation to the yeild of the bomb up to a few hundred feet for A-bombs and up to a few miles for H-bombs if caught in zone 1 survival is but a pipedream, essentially you will be vaporized, the heat and blast will occur simultaneously and "0" reaction time is available. At Hiroshima a brick building survived only 640 feet from ground zero keeping in mind that the Hiroshima bomb had equivalent power to a 15 kiloton bomb, todays weapons are the more accurate MIRV'ed (multiple, independently targetable, re-entry vehicled) nuclear weapons averaging on the order of 500 kiloton or less and for submarines 200 kiloton, but with more war heads per missile (4-10) they are substantially more accurate than at the height of the cold war. the best senerio is not to be in zone one.

Zone 2. Thermal Radiation & Blast.


The size of this zone once again depends on the size of the bomb detonated 2000 to 10000 feet for an A-bomb 5 to 25 miles for an H-bomb.
If you experience, or sense, intense heat, a very bright flash of light, but no noise,( the noise will come many seconds later) CONGRATULATIONS AMIGO ,you are in zone II and you have survived (so far) futher survival can depend on what you do in the next few seconds. with any luck you did not look directly into the flash of the detonation. (DO NOT TURN TO LOOK AT THE FLASH) the flash can burn your retinas and render you blind. All buildings will suffer light damage if caught in a shockwave of even 1 psi peak overpressure (shattered windows, doors blown off, cracked partions) The blast wind from a modern nuke can exceed hurricane velocities above 2 psi. so how much overpressure is too much to survive? it depends on where you are when it hits but the blast from a 500 kiloton bomb 2.2 miles away will be arriving 8 seconds after the detonation( an even larger 1 megaton blast 5 miles away would render you about 20 seconds time to react) in any event once the initial detonation signs are noticed DUCK & COVER are the only thoughts that could save your neck at this point. the faster you get under cover the less burn you will receive. A tree or a culvert could mean the difference between life or death. What ever choice of cover you have made at this point be it a car, brick wall, or simply a ditch, it is essential that you stay put until the shockwave has passed, you will sense the shock from the noise and you will possibly feel three or so pressure pulses (out -in -out) keep in mind, the distance from the blast, the weather conditions at the time of the detonation, smog, or fog, all play a part in determining the ferocity of the thermal shockwave. if you have somehow made it to this point CONGRATULATION! again you can now advance to dealing with zone three.

Zone 3. radioactive fallout ( the mushroom cloud )


Fortunately the time you have to deal with this portion of the bomb has increased once again, the fallout from a detonation could take anywhere from several minutes to several hours depending on your distance from ground zero, and wind direction, or speed, at this time you would want to take the time to look and determine the direction of the mushroom cloud by looking at the anvil top of it. If the anvil is pointing toward you stop and immediately look for the nearest fallout shelter or suitable structure that will protect you from the soon coming metallic or solid spheres made radioactive by neutron irradiation and will fall much like hail in just a few minutes. If the anvil top is not pointing toward you you have more time to assess your next actions.

remember 3 feet of dirt, 1 foot of concrete, will sheild the external radioactive flux by a factor of 10 the more sheilding the better, deep basements, caves, even culverts under a road can serve as fallout shelters. you should plan to stay in an emergency shelter for at least 2 or 3 days and then get to a better shelter for two weeks or more.

some additional info here...........

Text The majority of Americans, even in a full-scale all-out nuclear war, would survive the initial blast and thermal effects of nuclear explosions. Even with a large 1 megaton explosion and being as few as 8-10 miles away from ground zero, you would likely find that you had survived the initial thermal, blast and shock wave. With any kind of prompt protective action your odds of surviving at even half that distance are quite high. It should also be mentioned that with the much smaller yield and resulting blast damage area of a likely terrorist nuclear weapon, your odds of being in the wrong place at the wrong time during the attack are even more remote. In these trying times, that’s something to remember.

I realize that this post is somewhat lacking, given the vast array of variables one might encounter but hopefully this information is a start for some in thinking about what to do in the event of a nuclear exchange or a terrorist act.

www.secretsofsurvival.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">http...://www.secretsofsurvival.com/survival/surviving_nuclear_war.html

www.fas.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">http...://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/effects.htm

[edit on 24-1-2007 by the_sentinal]

[edit on 24-1-2007 by the_sentinal]

Ok, that's the first ten minutes covered.

Now you have to know what to eat, what not to, what sorts of things you really need to have stored, what not to carry out of the area, how to plan your escape route (you really should have done this before, at least in general).

Also, there's some medicines/supplements that will help you with the radiation sickness if you were exposed to ionizing radiation up front or to some from fallout. It goes past potassium iodide (although you should have that too). Mainly you'll be full of free radicals (not the Che Guevara sort) that you should start mopping up in the first few minutes after exposure.

There are some disgusting remedies that will assist, although they're not cure-alls. I'm not sure what the current therapy is since I don't officially care anymore, but at one time you'd likely get DMSO orally for ionizing radiation, along with a lot of other aggressively active anti-oxidants in what was quite inaccurately described as a "palatable citrus flavored base".

edit: 5?

[edit on 24-1-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

...DMSO orally for ionizing radiation...

I did not know about that. I have learned so much since I began preparing for "scenario X". It sounds similar to the benefits of Oregano Oil, and Emu Oil. Kind of like a cure all.

While I use it for that right shoulder bursitis, I don't know if you could say it's good for you as a regular ingredient in a refreshing beverage.

On the other hand, it is a spectacularly aggressive anti-oxidant that mops up various sorts of radicals like a sponge, and it diffuses through your tissues really rapidly, so it gets just about everywhere to do its job.

So when you really need it, it's worth using a few times whilst you remove yourself from ground zero.

I'd strongly recommend you watch the docu-drama Threads which follows the lives of two families from the build-up of war several months previously, to an all-out nuclear strike on the UK and the ensuing aftermath, to life in medieval conditions 15years later.

Should that scenario ever play out, the living would truely envy those who died in a flash of light

I'm just gonna buy an abandoned missile silo and disappear unground for a couple years.

hi there,

it is all well and good saying that you will buy an abandoned missile silo and disappear underground for a couple years....

did you know that most if not all of the old silos that were sold off and now are in private hands are still potential targets ??

a lot of the old style targeting systems simply go to their first assigned target co-ords, esp if there is a cut off malfunction,

so to put it simply if something goes wrong the system will pick its first co-ords it had locked in...and in many case these are now obsolete targets such as old silos but also old military bases that have now been sold off to be used as industrial parks or in the case of the UK new housing estates !!!


something to think about.

snoopyuk

by accident or design - be outside the blast zone , thats the best way - odds are you will get no warning , or too little to make a difference

all that knowing will do is get you upset and angry and if you run - you will die tired

In these underground shelters, what would be the most efficient way to filter/produce oxygen for survival till the fallout dissipates

I am sorry if i seem sarcastic, but that kind of Rads you'll be toast. I remeber my NBC/Nuclear, biological, and chemical training in the army and i even laughed then. The Army had these little tubes called Rad meters and you wore it, and it told you when you have had to much exposure to radation and you needed to take cover and start treatment. After that you were done anyways. It is a way for the Army to keep their troops in the field and not fleeing. I hope that day does not come.

Hi Foxy - oops sorry, Wolfie, (Citizen Smith to everyone else).

I watched Threads 22 years ago when pregnant with my first child and nothing has ever had such a profound impact upon me. I agree that it is essential viewing, even if very disturbing, for anyone who wishing to understand the consequences of nuclear weapons. I thought then, and still do now, that I don't want to survive a nuclear war, in fact, the closer I and those I love to the blast the better.

I'm not defeatist, in fact I have learnt survival techniques and have supplies for situation X, but there are some things I would not wish upon my worst enemy, and nuclear war is one of them.


Cheers, Cara

That was a very interesting post to read the_sentinal.




I'm thankful that the nearest target to me is a long way off. I don't even think I'd see a mushroom cloud if there was a full exchange, and let's hope that never happens.

I have plans in place for emergencies like this, even though I think it's unlikely to happen.
I can get below ground level within a minute, and with 20 minutes warning I can get to a location that is 6 levels underground. I also have a plan to get to higher ground if a situation warrants it.(I live near a large body of water)

I think it's only prudent to have a plan, even if you never need to use it.

Those little tubes are called personal dosimeters. I use one at work.
However, I am sure that the ones issued to troops have a much larger reading on the scales than the ones we normally use.

Our dosimeters are scaled in the Mille Rems. Thousanths of a Rem.

The ones you had out in the field would be calibrated in Rads. Like 5 or 10 rads or more. THat is alot too.

A proper dosimter is also calibrated and has a little calibration sticker with the date calibrated and the date the calibration expires. Also the needles on them are reset after each usage by setting them in a little box with a battery and then reset to zero.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Thanks for the Info.

Originally posted by orangetom1999
Those little tubes are called personal dosimeters. I use one at work.
However, I am sure that the ones issued to troops have a much larger reading on the scales than the ones we normally use.

Our dosimeters are scaled in the Mille Rems. Thousanths of a Rem.

The ones you had out in the field would be calibrated in Rads. Like 5 or 10 rads or more. THat is alot too.

A proper dosimter is also calibrated and has a little calibration sticker with the date calibrated and the date the calibration expires. Also the needles on them are reset after each usage by setting them in a little box with a battery and then reset to zero.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Personally I've always thought the closer I am to the missile when it hits the ground the better off I am for not having to deal with everything else, though it's unlikely I would get near it, a well thought out plan to survive it would be ideal. the_sentinal as much as I agree with what you said, there are still too many variables I can think of that can affect a nuclear blast and change it enough to make all of it redundant. Maybe I should get to work on that shelter I wanted to build out back.

Originally posted by XS
Maybe I should get to work on that shelter I wanted to build out back.

My fatherinlaw has a fallout shelter dug out under his house, very elaborate for a suburb home he's retired military so I guess that explaines it, as for me i'm hoping that my underground basement will work as a makeshift shelter in the event that the MAD senerio is played out.

I found this interesting site that shows US nuclear targets here. These stats may or may not be correct for now but the maps are pretty interesting.

How rubbish would a WW3 nuclear scenario be! The thing is, the people you really need to survive (doctors, polish plumbers etc) will probably get wiped out pretty quickly. All you'll have left are survivalists holed up in their bunkers, who I imagine will be pretty keen on one day emerging from their holes determined to bring "civilisation" to their now stone age brethren who had the misfortune to survive.

The thought of whatever monstrous form of future the "survivors" will bring frankly gives me the willies!

So the future would be pretty awful, since let's face it, pretty much all the people you'd want to survive won't. But perishing in the atomic onslaught would be dreadful, frankly I'm not keen on the idea of watching my hair and teeth fall out as my insides pour out of me like slurry.

Sadly, I'll probably be doomed to the latter fate, I don't have a house and so am unable to seek sanctuary, mole like, beneath the soil. Oh well, there go my dreams of lording it over the rest of humanity, who would bow before my awesome survivaltastic ways and become my obedient (but no doubt hideous) peons.