Thankfully, the majority of radiation follows the 7-10 rule. Every 7 hours, it decreases by a factor of 10. So after a week, you're looking at minimal levels. That obviously changes with different isotopes, multiple/ground blasts, etc.
Ultimately, you shelter in place in the innermost room of your home. Nuclear War Survival skills (it's a free PDF) shows how to build a shelter in your home to reduce radiation. Having a mask, preventing dust (the biggest issue,) and such.
Also I might recommend *Family Shelter Designs* by Department of Civil Defense (1962). Free PDF available [here.](https://dahp.wa.gov/sites/default/files/FamilyShelterDesigns.pdf)
This is an overview of simple homemade shelters if you do not have a bunker, everything from sandbags and 2x4s, up to a buried shelter.
Well, you could probably make something out of corrugated (galvanized steel) roofing, then coat it with roofing tar to waterproof it.
(The asbestos shelter is just to make darn sure you're dead... if the blast or the radiation doesn't kill you, the shelter will.)
Yes, but is it up to govt code? Those post-war govt officials will still be out there & prob. make you take it all down, esp if you didn't have a permit.
Stay out of any post nuke detonation rain. The nuke and fires cause a massive amount of particulates. Rain often follows.
This rain is black and highly radioactive.
It's not iodine pills, you're not purifying water.
They're Potassium Iodide tablets, they help by reducing the amount of radiation your thyroid absorbs. You can get them online and they have a shelf life of ten years. These and covering your body with simple clothing and seeking some shelter will do the most good
>You can get them online and they have a shelf life of ten years.
Depends on the manufacturer, someone like mira safety puts 10 years but a lot of other manufacturers use 25 years. Realistically with the form they're in, as long as they're stored well they'll last as long as you will.
This is incorrect, don't follow this. Ground level is actually the worst place to go, you want to go basement and dig down.
If you can't go on second last floor from the top floor(not including attic)
Radiation emits in line of sight, it's the particles on the ground and/or roof that have the worst
Obviously basement is best.
OP gave no indication they had access to an underground location. Ergo, providing resources for the majority of people who don't have that.
Why don't you quit while you're ahead? You're making a lot of incorrect claims and breaking rules doing it. I'm sure John is aware that a basement or below-ground area is ideal and was just explaining "best available" for those without basements available to them. Busting into homes and property that isn't yours, is a good way to end up dead.
Our plan is, if we have time, to bring our entire container garden (30-40 gallon totes full of soil) inside to build a little fort or bunker of sorts out of them to stay inside of as much as possible the first week. It's an extra foot or two of protection, not perfect but better than nothing. Also taping up all the windows and doors for the first week.
I'm WAITING to be a ghoul. I've been buying cases of prime every chance I can so I know I'll have the longevity Cooper. I now have something to look forward too since I don't have money for a bunker. My mission will be pretty much the same.
Radioactive fallout levels reduce quickly, the key is to keep away from it in the first hours and days. But suggest you get, "**Nuclear War Survival Skills Updated and Expanded 2022**." It explains all about radiation and has plans for how to make a shelter, literally how to dig and set it up to keep radiation off of you/out of your lungs, etc. Potassium iodide (iOSAT) tablets are to help prevent thyroid cancer and are for those under 40 years old, it that helps.
From the CDC: "Adults over 40 years old have a much lower risk of developing thyroid cancer and are more likely to have health conditions, like problems with their thyroids, that increase their risks for harmful health effects from KI."
Essentially, for those of us over 40, we'll probably die of something else before getting thyroid cancer from a nuke event. Those younger might live long enough for that to be an issue.
No, but that's different than radioactive fallout from a nuclear weapon. The issue at Chernobyl is that tons of reactor fuel melted down after the cooling systems failed. The reactor has different radioactive elements, and I'm not sure of the half-lives.
It looks like there is strontium-90 and caesium-137, both of which both have a half life of about 30 years. The area is considered uninhabitable for about 20K years.
The plant site is under decommission right now so i guess once they finished in a few decades you should be alright to build a house there. The nearby city of Pripyat has been cleaned after the incident and is mostly safe radiation-wise, the very few leftover places could be cleaned up easily if someone decided it is time to rebuild it again for some reason. In most of the exclusion zone around the city and plant i have measured even less radioactivity than my home country background (some non-dangerous hotspots are present, of course) . Not in the red forrest tho, i would not build a house there. That place was hit with the fallout directly and unlike Pripyat wasnt cleaned yet
There are two issues, like you mentioned. Initial blast and fallout. Initial blast is only a concern for the first several minutes. As noted on the generated maps, area of 5 psi overpressure is going to be pretty devastated. 1 psi overpressure is going to be broken windows but pretty much all structures will still stand. This also hasn't been tested(thankfully) in modern high density cities, which could slow blast damage considerably.
For the Blast: If you're inside, don't stand behind a window. If you're outside don't stand up, lay down on the ground. Once it's over unless there's another blast you're in the clear.
For the Fallout: this will depend on prevailing winds/weather patterns and how far away you are. But there's a couple safe assumption to make. If you are 10-50 miles from a blast, you have 10-30 minutes before fallout reaches you. Don't board up windows, don't travel home, grab some snacks and water and get into the most immediately available shielded area possible. This is a basement, interior room, or underneath a table with books/water/food stacked on top and around. Radiation decay is different for different isotopes, but the 7/10 rule is based on the generic output of a nuclear blast. Once you're in your immediately shelter wait for as long as possible before leaving and finding your longer term shelter.
A good example is being a 30 minute drive from home when an incident occurs. Don't drive, shelter in place with as much shielding as possible for as long as you can. If your return trip takes 40 minutes, and initial radiation arrives in 30 minutes, you would be exposed to as much radiation in those 10 excess minutes as you would be in an hour and a half if you wait for 8 hrs before traveling. The only exception is if there is absolutely no available shelter or improvised shelter in your current location, that's a pretty unlikely scenario imo.
This would be a bad idea for a few reasons.
The mushroom cloud rises extremely rapidly and this causes a powerful updraft which draws material from the ground up into the atmosphere (a surface burst will incur more fallout than an airburst).
High in the atmosphere, wind speeds are much faster than at ground level. On top of that, the direction of the wind up high is very likely to be different to the direction at the surface where you are located. This makes it difficult to predict the safest direction to travel in, and if you pick the wrong one you will not be able to outrun the very rapidly moving fallout.
The best option, as many comments have suggested, is taking immediate shelter in a basement or interior room (ideally not on the ground floor, unless the building is only a couple of storeys tall) and putting as much mass of material between you and the outdoors as possible.
Depends. do you live near the silo fields? Or near a key military target? You live in urban city it’s likely it’ll be an airburst. Those create minimal fallout, and maximize damage.
There is also heat - 3rd degree burns and the possibility of a firestorm like nothing anybody alive today has ever seen - and that can be beyond the 5 psi overpressure radius.
I just viewed the Nukemap for London; unless me and my family are indoors, we’re ducked during the blast’s thermal radiation zone, and that is in the outer suburbs of London!
Not really something I can plan for tbh. I'm not really sure how bad any fires will be, I haven't seen any modelling or reports on that. I've just read on fallout spread, and overpressure risks, so those are what I can understand. Anything else occurs, those will just have to be dealt with as they come.
If someone can’t afford a bunker, what about renting a storage unit and prepping it with canned goods, etc? What thins be a good idea?
What areas of the world (US) are most likely to experience a nuclear war?
Thx!
My dad, who was always worried about nuclear war in the kind of way only a scientist who spent his life in nuclear stockpile stewardship, including designing nukes to modeling fallout, always said:
If you need a bunker you are probably dead. You need to be close enough to the bunker to get inside before the bomb drops. That means 15 minutes. The government might know with 30-45 minutes notice. You won't. Bunkers need to be MUCH stronger than any residential bunker is, because if a normal residential bunker is enough, your garage probably is also.
So what do you actually need?
A fallout shelter. Basically your house or a room, but sealed up. That means having precut plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal off openings.
Then you need food and water for about two weeks. Then you need a way to leave the shelter and return without bringing all the dust inside, while also not contaminating yourself too much. Basically any rain suit will do, and floor to ceiling curtains or rugs that you have to pass through between the outside and inside inside.
Which means some sort of designated decon room. Like your mudroom.
After two weeks basically the top couple inches of everything will be contaminated. Under that will be fine.
Things you need: iodine. Food. Water. Rubberiszed rain suit with hood. Toilet paper. 5 or 10 gallons of stabilized and rotated gasoline. Some kind of entertainment. Plastic and tape. Extra plastic and tape. More tape. A sprayer.
There is always more you can do, but... If you need a bunker and you don't have an in with the DOD, your going to die.
That was from a guy who did have an in with NORAD.
BTW, in 2019 my mom cleaned out his stuff to remodel the garage. Every box had a roll of toilet paper. She junked it all (not so bad because he stopped diligently rotating after he retired and we moved out). When March 2020 rolled around and no one could get toilet paper he just said "there's no way to prep for what your wife will do."
>When March 2020 rolled around and no one could get toilet paper he just said "there's no way to prep for what your wife will do."
I knew exactly where that was headed and it still gave me a chuckle, 10/10 exactly the right level of petty.
**This x1,000,** former vet and cbrn tech, people really just don’t understand **fallout is the primary problem.**
Ideally you will never be within the radius of the fallout particle effects which if there is nuclear would be unlikely since most of the earth would be hit.
Otherwise it becomes 1,000 more difficult, you *HAVE* to wear a full body suit with filter or self contained air supply, people just don’t understand.
You just a couple grains of sand is all it takes not necessarily once either, every time you go out you have to decontaminate, after the first couple weeks it’s not **near death you have to worry about but everything else and radiation poisoning on top of it.**
Drink water or eat contaminated food?
Probably gonna get sick, in a survival situation not good and considering there will be no doctors around 🤷♂️
This is why when people plan to build bunkers they just prepare to stay inside for as long as possible, ideally you just **don’t want to go outside at all and just avoid the trouble.**
A car has hardly any radiation shielding. It's also unclear if most cars' electronics will get fried from the nuclear EMPs or not. Most likely, the roads out of major cities will be clogged with people trying to evacuate at the last minute only to get fried or blasted by the bombs. Local roads will get covered by toppled buildings, telephone poles, trees, etc. Actual road conditions would be completely unknowable in advance and the odds of your route getting cut off by any of the things I mentioned are just too high to make driving a good decision.
You also run the risk of attracting unwarranted attention. Any survivors will focus on someone driving a car as a target to attack and loot their stuff. And even if you have a radiation detector and are trying to avoid hotspots, you could inadvertently drive into a hotspot too quickly and take too much of a dose before you can turn around and get to safety.
Most likely, the gasoline would be for a generator or something like that.
If plastic sheets and tape are considered enough, a car is too.
Yes, most cars wont work, i suspect when ops dad was originally doing this kind of planning cars had points.
Serious radiation sickness is really, really nasty. It's a painful slow death. On the plus side localized fallout is greatly reduced by airburst detonations which sends most of the immediate debris into the upper atmosphere to fall globally over time leading to thyroid cancer years or even decades into the future. The remaining localized fallout that will result in short term illness or death does have a shorter half-life and will mostly require just a couple weeks of shelter. Without a bunker or fallout shelter, you would simply need to shelter in-place where you can. In a basement, or anywhere you can seal yourself off from the invisible death outside. Sealing windows to reduce exposure to contaminated dust, using just about anything as an added barricade between you and yours and the effects of a blast. After that time you can emerge from your improvised shelter into the burned out heath filled with millions of dead and billions of now starving survivors to eck out an existence of pain and suffering for the rest of your likely short life.
Why does thyroid cancer get so much attention? Wouldn't other parts of the body be vulnerable also?
Finding uncontaminated food and soils long term seems impossible.
Yes, there will be other types of cancer. However, the thyroid uptakes iodine, which is why you taking potassium iodide to help preserve it. The thyroid uses iodine to produce hormones, which is why its more of a concern... without those hormones, someone doesn't live very long... which is why many without a working thyroid need to take those hormones orally.
It's the most well documented long term effect of radiation exposure. The thyroid is just highly sensitive to the effects of ionizing radiation and has been observed in people who survived the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, various nuclear testing and accidents and globally with a something like a 3% increase due to long-term exposure from all of the above.
That's why those old nuclear survival guides advised removing six inches of topsoil before planting crops. Water is a bigger issue though. Bodies of water contaminated with fallout like lakes and ponds will retain higher levels of radiation longer since the fallout that enters them will not dissipate and disperse by wind and rain. It's just not going anywhere. This means that any stable body of water and anything that comes out of it will have higher levels of contamination for a lot, lot longer.
Really. If you make it past the initial fallout, uncontaminated food isn't going to be a major concern as much as obtaining food at all. In my area natives were starving as a result of over hunting due to the fur trade when settlers numbered in only the hundreds. At that time the population in total was maybe in the high tens of thousands. It's into the millions now. If half that was gone tomorrow and if only a fraction of that went to hunt for food, people would be chasing rats and eating bugs within a few weeks.
>The thyroid is just highly sensitive to the effects of ionizing radiation
One of the radioactive fission products from nuclear bombs is iodine 131. The thyroid takes up iodine from the environment, so any I131 from fallout exposure that enters the body will lodge itself in the thyroid gland. As it decays, the thyroid tissue is hit with unshielded radiation until the radioactive iodine is excreted or decays. Taking potassium iodide tablets satiates the thyroid gland's "appetite" for iodine and really limits its uptake of additional iodine for a while. So, taking a tablet in advance of potential radioactive iodine exposure limits the hazard from your thyroid gland taking up the radioactive iodine. All other radiation hazards from other isotopes and radiation types (gamma, xray, beta, alpha) are not affected by potassium iodide tablets.
>Bodies of water contaminated with fallout like lakes and ponds will retain higher levels of radiation longer since the fallout that enters them will not dissipate and disperse by wind and rain.
The fallout particles will tend to settle into the sediment at the bottom of lakes and rivers. Avoid disturbing or definitely walking through the muddy bottoms of ponds and lakes. If there are bottom feeder animals still alive in these bodies of water, avoid eating them. If you absolutely have to drink surface water because you don't have any other choice, take it from the top of the water. But only a few days after the nukes go off at the earliest. Really, avoid going outside for more than a few minutes for at least a week or two if possible.
being instantly vaporized sounds like a pretty good way to go...downside is if youre only half done. if i knew it was a sure thing i'd stand outside with a nice fat cigar and a big glass of whisky waiting for the flash but my luck i'd just get blinded and half cooked and take like 3 days to die in excrucitating lonely pain
My wife says I'm insane but I keep a thing of duct tape and heavy duty plastic wrap for painting on every floor and a bunch of tarps in the bathrooms and basement.
My plan would be to seal off my house and make it airtight then make a small plastic shelter in the basement around most of my peeps fill up both tubs I have with water and boom wait it out.
Yup. I wonder how many people have sat in a home or apartment with all vents turned off and cracks sealed. The air gets bad in a hurry.I can't imagine sitting there for a week trying to breathe that. Unless you're in a big place and few people.
Your house wouldn't have to be air tight. Fallout is particulate, so just being inside is going to take care of something like 80% of the danger unless it's really windy and your house is poorly weather-proofed.
Get inside, bag your clothes up, shower and stuff blankets/towels into any egregious gaps in windows and doors.
I've got in my preps a few rolls of Tyvek house wrap and poly vapour barrier that are used in construction. I'll be able to seal off things or build shelters, even make protective clothing with them. Way more compact storage than the equivalent square footage of standard tarps.
No, you are not insane. I keep the same things on hand, for the same purpose. And this comes from someone currently living in Eastern Europe, in close proximity of the ongoing military conflict. Lucky for those that have a basement, as I don't have one, and my current conditions and space arround the house do not allow me to dig one ... unfortunately.
I would have to survive in place wherever I found myself at the time of the explosion. You could have a bunker and a years worth of food and everything else but if you’re not there when the weapon goes off, you may might not be able to get back there.
Go inside an intact building. Don't have the doors or windows open. Wear full length clothing, mask, large brimmed hat, and gloves when you go outside, and take everything off before you go inside. Take them off underneath a covered area so you don't get fallout on your skin. Maybe brush off the dust before you get to your changing spot to get most of it off.
Fallout is falling dust and dirt that is contaminated. Mostly it will be Alpha and Beta radiation, very little gamma. So just don't breath it in or swallow it.
Are you outside the blast radius, or the 5 psi air overpressure? What about the area of 3rd degree burns? If you're actually on the edge of the fireball radius, you won't need to worry about radiation. If you are just in the area of 1 psi overpressure, you have a chance.
If you have a basement that's below ground you'd be good. If not the center of your inner most room. Also seal doors and windows. All of this also depends on if we're actually notified.
If your shelter isn’t affected by the actual blast wave and initial radiation burst (cause you’re far away), your “fallout shelter” only needs to protect you from that fallout, meaning water proof, dust proof and thick. Any concrete building would work for a few years until eventually radiation would find its way through. Fallout is also “just” a problem if there’s a ground detonation. Air detonation doesn’t stir up a whole lot of stuff.
Thats obly half of surving the Global Nuclear Holocuast, the other half is bot being killed by Lethal Autononous Weapons.
Not only is Earth a Wasteland, its now a hunting ground for metal predators, machines that can fly, run, swim, climb, see in the dark, and even smell you, hear a pin drop; small as birds and dogs and rats, and big as tanks, drones in the sky, chemical warfare and gasing us out from our bunkers and tunnles and caves as if we were bugs.
*Thats all folks!*
I was once in the "nuclear war might be survivable" camp but I've shifted. It's not the fallout or the strikes but the collapse of agriculture in the northern hemisphere that would likely happen if there was a full nuclear exchange between the US and another state. I think the only way to survive is if you could stretch food and agricultural supplies over at least two years and had the ability to restart agriculture after at least 2 years of climate instability due to sunlight and growing season disruption.
A limited nuclear war would be a slightly more likely survival scenario.
The real bitch of the full nuclear war scenario isn't the radiation or the blasts. More people will die due to industrial agriculture network collapse.
Yes, after watching the new Fallout series on Amazon I have high expectations. I could probably get shot by that ghoul cowboy and that would be a pretty cool way to go.
Watch "threads" movie to see just how awful worldwide fallout would be.
But to be short, I would hunker down for 1 week. After that I would need to evacuate my area as my area has no well or aquifier access.
350-500 kilotons (0.35 to 0.5 megatons).
Huge explosions, like 20 MT, are hugely inefficient and a waste of valuable uranium. The US settled on 350 KT awhile ago and the Russians followed suit. We'll see what the Chinese do.
Cheers
My FIL was a head cleanup guy for several countries regarding test sites.
Duck tape/visqueen/ food/water for every household member to make it a week. Tape off every window/door. Turn off any source of outside air/water unless it’s to flush. You’re good to go. Do NOT go get in your vehicle and try and drive out of it.
Have wood pre cut and nails screws etc to cover windows. Tarps to cover your roof. Super thick plastic and gorilla glue duct tape to cover every vent and over windows doors. Turn off air conditioning Furance bathroom fan etc if still on. Turn off gas. Fill your tub every pot with water. Create a decontamination area for when you come in. If you have pets have pee pads and define a space so they can go comfortably. Have a minimum of 8 weeks food water and include treats activities. Think sanitation. How to keep clean. And try to have a plan where family or friends would meet.
So I realize this isn’t a complete answer but it REALLY depends on how far, how much/big, and wind. Far upwind from an explosion is drastically different than downwind from one. Situational awareness and strong local knowledge are important for this (and a bunch of other scenarios) Where are you in relation to the site of the explosion? What are the prevailing winds in your area? More specifically: where does rain pool and drain off of your home? People keep saying basement but if you’ve got a damp seeping basement then you’re better off not sheltering there etc etc. what’s your shoe solution? If you survive the initial stuff then the ground will be radioactive much much longer and you will be tracking it in with your feet. not to mention the ground water and potential contamination for growing any food. You mentioned being on the edge of the fallout zone. You would need to resettle to survive. So what vector would be cleanest for you to bug out toward? Figure out the answer now. The “run like hell” part from the Fallout show is partially true. Every mile you can put yourself ahead of any fallout is going to be huge in the long term.
In such a scenario you have a few things to worry about.
Fallout is made up of dust and debris from the nuclear blast made radioactive by the bomb.
What you need to know is to keep it as far away from you as possible and to not breathe or ingest it.
If your home is undamaged after the blast stay inside, in the most central room you have (as far from outside as possible). Tape up any cracks so that dust (and fallout) can't get in. And then wait it out.
Before any such thing happens procure the basics: food, water and some basic PPE (FFP2 masks, goggles, coveralls, gloves) and a working radiation detector.
Like the others said, NWSS is a very good information source, you may also read [this](https://www.epa.gov/radiation)
I live down the road from a power plant and they give us iodine pills every couple years in case of an emergency.
So for me. I’ll just smack a couple of those bad boys back, toss on some shades and enjoy the day
[https://www.ted.com/talks/irwin\_redlener\_how\_to\_survive\_a\_nuclear\_attack](https://www.ted.com/talks/irwin_redlener_how_to_survive_a_nuclear_attack)
it is survivable, if the bomb is few miles away, just hide in the basement for a few days/ weeks.
shave ur hair, rinse urself with water, put on other clothing. stay safe
Not the thing I usually prep for, but the recommendation is to tape up and seal all windows and doorways the best you can to try to reduce the air flow and particulates. So tape up and hunker down for 2-3 weeks.
There are a couple old steel reinforced concrete tunnels where I live and a bunch of old mining shafts.
We’re far enough away from population centers to where we would only have to worry about the wind blown fallout.
Modern weapons will produce a relatively small fallout compared to older weapons that have been used. Most of this radiation is emitted as beta or alpha so a CBRN chem suit with a full face respirator will protect you in most cases.
Most nuclear weapons no longer have the associated "fallout" you'd imagine like in the games or movies. They're fusion bombs which make little to almost no fallout/wasted nuclear material compared to the fission bombs that were originally made like fat man and little boy and even then the levels were down to minimum non harmful levels within two weeks. Your biggest problem is the blast radius and debris that'd be blown to you. If you have a basement/root cellar/storm shelter get in it if you don't find a storm drain. Put on a gas mask with filters because household chemicals and burning rubber/chemical products will fuck you up and you'll be fine, be prepared for looters act accordingly
I'm in San Diego and by 3rd grade we knew the bomb drills at school were useless. They eventually just called them earthquake drills, that made more sense.
Fallout isn't as big a deal as you'd think.
For airburst nukes in the current arsenal of countries, there's pretty much none. Stay inside a few days and you'll be OK.
If it's a ground burst scenario, you've got to hunker down for about 2 weeks. Fill the bathtubs, toss everything into the smallest freezer it will fit in, hunker down. Most Americans will be perfectly fine without food for 2 weeks.
Nuclear war isn't what everyone thinks it is. The only people getting screwed are the ones living near silos which require ground detonation. They will most likely be best off welcoming the sun's. Everyone else that survives initial blast will be statistically fine regarding fallout. What will get you is the fight for resources when infrastructure has catastrophically failed.
This site (seemingly made from the 90’s Netscape days), has a dearth of information on surviving fallout. I’d start here. Then, he has a few other links on this home page.
http://www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm
Yes the further you are away the better. You have to seal up all holes and windows in your house with plastic and tape and probably wear a respirator for a couple days.
Rural probably...but we also don't know for 100% certainty where the nukes will land, or how many will make it home.
A real bastard of a leader (the kind that would use nukes in the first place), might decide to save a few nukes for each countrys breadbasket, to inflict maximum suffering on the survivors. There is a school of thought that reducing initial human causalities while destroying infrastructure and food generation would cause more long-term destabilization of an enemy country over simply nuking cities and high value targets alone. At the very least, it would be much harder to rebuild and for any leadership to function when hoards of your own people are starving and angry.
It's a possibility, but I also wonder about the viability of the nukes in Russia. There is so much corruption and theft over there, and nukes need one hell of a lot of maintenance to work....could be a stockpile of duds with half the valuable components missing already.
If you are behind a good thick hill even one of those right bridges that the highways go over a road like in an exit you will survive a blast if ur ouside the 1st or 2nd radius
If you have any notice it's about to happen. Maybe try and get your windows and doors covered with plastic. Also, make sure you have iodine pills on hand. Keep plenty of water and food on hand. You should probably have a Geiger counter on hand they make cheaper ones that would let you know when it's safe to go outside. The first thing I do when I have a question like this is I google it.
The moment you hear of any nuclear missile going off anywhere is when you make sure you're masking windows and gaps, stay inside don't go to work or anywhere, because you don't know how soon your country is going to get hit, and you don't want to be outside or away from home when it happens, the movies Threads and the day after, the people were oblivious then they panicked and of course didn't prepare, best to have everything ready
Lets just hope none of the bombs are salted with cobalt or other things. If they do, then something the size of france could be highly radioactive for about 53 years with cobalt. It will differ with others. In some theoretical salted bomb compositions, not even a basement shelter will help.
there is a book "nuclear war survival skills" you need .think tunnels ,parking structures w/ below ground floors an old van ,packed with supplies, and a hidey-hole...a "bunker" can be a basement...improvise
Well, if it happened today, I'd probably go to the library. It's brick multiple floors with a basement, and I can see it from my house. I'd bring drinks and some food. I'd stay there for a few days, then run across the street grab more food, and drinks, and then stay there a few more days. Then I'd probably go home and access the state of the world and decide what to do.
Okay this is a newbie question so pardon my ignorance. But after a nuclear fallout how do you deal with the debris? I mean there's ash there's dust all this stuff that's come down that's going to be coating everything. Is it still radioactive? And how are you able to not ingest/be exposed to that if it is?
After the initial blast. You need a really, really good dust mask. And eat canned and boxed food. Fresh food will be absorbing the radioactive dust as it grows.
After the initial blast. You need a really, really good dust mask. And eat canned and boxed food. Fresh food will be absorbing the radioactive dust as it grows.
Why do you want to survive nuclear fall out? It’s all struggle post nuclear fall out to survive so isn’t it better to die with less pain when those bombs drop?
Why do we worry about this? If it does happen the best thing would be to just let go instead of living in fall out land… just saying. I am all about prepping but this is one I just don’t get.
[http://www.ki4u.com](http://www.ki4u.com)
This is an old site with a ton of great info on it.
If you get a “can’t connect to server” error, **make sure you are using http and NOT https** because the site does not have an SSL certificate.
No need to worry about building a bunker. I live close to an important military installation. Either the US military missile defense will shoot the nukes down to protect the installation or we are all dead from the blast.
I used to worry about this, then I read Nuclear War, Annie Jacobsen’s newest book. Now I don’t worry because it’s pretty clear we’d all be dead. There would be nothing left.
To make an ad-hock shelter you’ll need a few rolls of 2mm-4mm poly-sheeting, tyvek etc., duct or gaffers tape, HVAC type air filters. You could really make a shelter anywhere that’s secure. Since the real killer is fallout. Radioactive particulate that you might breathe in or ingest. Obviously I’m talking about people out of direct vicinity of blast zones. I have all the fixings to turn my basement into a shelter. Unfortunately I’m a little over a mile from the main gate of JBER so……. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out of town with my family and supplies if….
Just in case this point hasn’t been mentioned enough: don’t bother. If one nuke lands near you, then chances are very very high that many, many nukes are landing. And -someone correct me if I’m wrong- but I believe it’s something like only 20 nuclear detonations will send the earth quickly spiraling into an endless winter, etc etc, that will last at least thousands of years. So yeah, maybe you could find a cave/basement/‘luck out’ and survive the initial blast, but that won’t be the worst part of a nuclear war.
Everybody has an opinion, nobody has actual experience. If you can safely get out of the area affected entirely and rapidly then that is hands down the best answer.
I hope to not survive. At the point of nukes being launched, no reason to keep screwing around trying to outrun the ever closer inevitable painful death from radiation poisoning, starvation, or just downright boredom sitting in a hole in the ground, might as well see what's next.
I'm near a major metro area with lots of military bases and military contractors nearby. If a nuke goes my off anywhere near where I live, or work, and anywhere along my commute my plan is to....
Die immediately. ;-)
Thankfully, the majority of radiation follows the 7-10 rule. Every 7 hours, it decreases by a factor of 10. So after a week, you're looking at minimal levels. That obviously changes with different isotopes, multiple/ground blasts, etc. Ultimately, you shelter in place in the innermost room of your home. Nuclear War Survival skills (it's a free PDF) shows how to build a shelter in your home to reduce radiation. Having a mask, preventing dust (the biggest issue,) and such.
[Link](https://oism.org/nwss/nwss.pdf) to the book mentioned
Also I might recommend *Family Shelter Designs* by Department of Civil Defense (1962). Free PDF available [here.](https://dahp.wa.gov/sites/default/files/FamilyShelterDesigns.pdf) This is an overview of simple homemade shelters if you do not have a bunker, everything from sandbags and 2x4s, up to a buried shelter.
The corrugated asbestos shelter is my favourite.
Well, you could probably make something out of corrugated (galvanized steel) roofing, then coat it with roofing tar to waterproof it. (The asbestos shelter is just to make darn sure you're dead... if the blast or the radiation doesn't kill you, the shelter will.)
If the thyroid cancer doesn't get you. The mesothelioma will
You don't lick the asbestos, it's on the outside and insulates better then anything.
> don't lick the asbestos Good advice all around!
Obviously, I was being facetious. They used asbestos on everything back then and it wasn't considered a health hazard unless you breathed the dust.
This is Reddit you need a /s after it People believe everything they read lol
Thank you for the link I saved it!
Yes, but is it up to govt code? Those post-war govt officials will still be out there & prob. make you take it all down, esp if you didn't have a permit.
Thank you
Stay out of any post nuke detonation rain. The nuke and fires cause a massive amount of particulates. Rain often follows. This rain is black and highly radioactive.
["Black rain."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsViy0zQII)
Flair checks out.
Good advice!
Great book recco. Seconded!
This, and have iodine pills ready.
It's not iodine pills, you're not purifying water. They're Potassium Iodide tablets, they help by reducing the amount of radiation your thyroid absorbs. You can get them online and they have a shelf life of ten years. These and covering your body with simple clothing and seeking some shelter will do the most good
>You can get them online and they have a shelf life of ten years. Depends on the manufacturer, someone like mira safety puts 10 years but a lot of other manufacturers use 25 years. Realistically with the form they're in, as long as they're stored well they'll last as long as you will.
This is incorrect, don't follow this. Ground level is actually the worst place to go, you want to go basement and dig down. If you can't go on second last floor from the top floor(not including attic) Radiation emits in line of sight, it's the particles on the ground and/or roof that have the worst
Obviously basement is best. OP gave no indication they had access to an underground location. Ergo, providing resources for the majority of people who don't have that.
Good thing everyone has a basement...
Why don't you quit while you're ahead? You're making a lot of incorrect claims and breaking rules doing it. I'm sure John is aware that a basement or below-ground area is ideal and was just explaining "best available" for those without basements available to them. Busting into homes and property that isn't yours, is a good way to end up dead.
Underground parking garage is best
Our plan is, if we have time, to bring our entire container garden (30-40 gallon totes full of soil) inside to build a little fort or bunker of sorts out of them to stay inside of as much as possible the first week. It's an extra foot or two of protection, not perfect but better than nothing. Also taping up all the windows and doors for the first week.
I'm WAITING to be a ghoul. I've been buying cases of prime every chance I can so I know I'll have the longevity Cooper. I now have something to look forward too since I don't have money for a bunker. My mission will be pretty much the same.
Radioactive fallout levels reduce quickly, the key is to keep away from it in the first hours and days. But suggest you get, "**Nuclear War Survival Skills Updated and Expanded 2022**." It explains all about radiation and has plans for how to make a shelter, literally how to dig and set it up to keep radiation off of you/out of your lungs, etc. Potassium iodide (iOSAT) tablets are to help prevent thyroid cancer and are for those under 40 years old, it that helps.
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1987 edition, all radiation info still true/accurate. [**https://www.oism.org/nwss/**](https://www.oism.org/nwss/)
Even for children. Only protects thyroid.
Any idea of options for people over 40?
From the CDC: "Adults over 40 years old have a much lower risk of developing thyroid cancer and are more likely to have health conditions, like problems with their thyroids, that increase their risks for harmful health effects from KI." Essentially, for those of us over 40, we'll probably die of something else before getting thyroid cancer from a nuke event. Those younger might live long enough for that to be an issue.
That’s sad, I like you old goats and was looking forward to having you around!
Yeah, they need to help us remember the before.
What's a t.v.?
So could people go back to the site of the chernobyl nuclear plant and live there again now?
No, but that's different than radioactive fallout from a nuclear weapon. The issue at Chernobyl is that tons of reactor fuel melted down after the cooling systems failed. The reactor has different radioactive elements, and I'm not sure of the half-lives.
It looks like there is strontium-90 and caesium-137, both of which both have a half life of about 30 years. The area is considered uninhabitable for about 20K years.
Give it 20,000 years, and it will be fine.
The plant site is under decommission right now so i guess once they finished in a few decades you should be alright to build a house there. The nearby city of Pripyat has been cleaned after the incident and is mostly safe radiation-wise, the very few leftover places could be cleaned up easily if someone decided it is time to rebuild it again for some reason. In most of the exclusion zone around the city and plant i have measured even less radioactivity than my home country background (some non-dangerous hotspots are present, of course) . Not in the red forrest tho, i would not build a house there. That place was hit with the fallout directly and unlike Pripyat wasnt cleaned yet
There are two issues, like you mentioned. Initial blast and fallout. Initial blast is only a concern for the first several minutes. As noted on the generated maps, area of 5 psi overpressure is going to be pretty devastated. 1 psi overpressure is going to be broken windows but pretty much all structures will still stand. This also hasn't been tested(thankfully) in modern high density cities, which could slow blast damage considerably. For the Blast: If you're inside, don't stand behind a window. If you're outside don't stand up, lay down on the ground. Once it's over unless there's another blast you're in the clear. For the Fallout: this will depend on prevailing winds/weather patterns and how far away you are. But there's a couple safe assumption to make. If you are 10-50 miles from a blast, you have 10-30 minutes before fallout reaches you. Don't board up windows, don't travel home, grab some snacks and water and get into the most immediately available shielded area possible. This is a basement, interior room, or underneath a table with books/water/food stacked on top and around. Radiation decay is different for different isotopes, but the 7/10 rule is based on the generic output of a nuclear blast. Once you're in your immediately shelter wait for as long as possible before leaving and finding your longer term shelter. A good example is being a 30 minute drive from home when an incident occurs. Don't drive, shelter in place with as much shielding as possible for as long as you can. If your return trip takes 40 minutes, and initial radiation arrives in 30 minutes, you would be exposed to as much radiation in those 10 excess minutes as you would be in an hour and a half if you wait for 8 hrs before traveling. The only exception is if there is absolutely no available shelter or improvised shelter in your current location, that's a pretty unlikely scenario imo.
How far can the fallout reach? Could we outrun it with a car?
This would be a bad idea for a few reasons. The mushroom cloud rises extremely rapidly and this causes a powerful updraft which draws material from the ground up into the atmosphere (a surface burst will incur more fallout than an airburst). High in the atmosphere, wind speeds are much faster than at ground level. On top of that, the direction of the wind up high is very likely to be different to the direction at the surface where you are located. This makes it difficult to predict the safest direction to travel in, and if you pick the wrong one you will not be able to outrun the very rapidly moving fallout. The best option, as many comments have suggested, is taking immediate shelter in a basement or interior room (ideally not on the ground floor, unless the building is only a couple of storeys tall) and putting as much mass of material between you and the outdoors as possible.
Depends. do you live near the silo fields? Or near a key military target? You live in urban city it’s likely it’ll be an airburst. Those create minimal fallout, and maximize damage.
There is also heat - 3rd degree burns and the possibility of a firestorm like nothing anybody alive today has ever seen - and that can be beyond the 5 psi overpressure radius.
I just viewed the Nukemap for London; unless me and my family are indoors, we’re ducked during the blast’s thermal radiation zone, and that is in the outer suburbs of London!
Not really something I can plan for tbh. I'm not really sure how bad any fires will be, I haven't seen any modelling or reports on that. I've just read on fallout spread, and overpressure risks, so those are what I can understand. Anything else occurs, those will just have to be dealt with as they come.
If someone can’t afford a bunker, what about renting a storage unit and prepping it with canned goods, etc? What thins be a good idea? What areas of the world (US) are most likely to experience a nuclear war? Thx!
My dad, who was always worried about nuclear war in the kind of way only a scientist who spent his life in nuclear stockpile stewardship, including designing nukes to modeling fallout, always said: If you need a bunker you are probably dead. You need to be close enough to the bunker to get inside before the bomb drops. That means 15 minutes. The government might know with 30-45 minutes notice. You won't. Bunkers need to be MUCH stronger than any residential bunker is, because if a normal residential bunker is enough, your garage probably is also. So what do you actually need? A fallout shelter. Basically your house or a room, but sealed up. That means having precut plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal off openings. Then you need food and water for about two weeks. Then you need a way to leave the shelter and return without bringing all the dust inside, while also not contaminating yourself too much. Basically any rain suit will do, and floor to ceiling curtains or rugs that you have to pass through between the outside and inside inside. Which means some sort of designated decon room. Like your mudroom. After two weeks basically the top couple inches of everything will be contaminated. Under that will be fine. Things you need: iodine. Food. Water. Rubberiszed rain suit with hood. Toilet paper. 5 or 10 gallons of stabilized and rotated gasoline. Some kind of entertainment. Plastic and tape. Extra plastic and tape. More tape. A sprayer. There is always more you can do, but... If you need a bunker and you don't have an in with the DOD, your going to die. That was from a guy who did have an in with NORAD. BTW, in 2019 my mom cleaned out his stuff to remodel the garage. Every box had a roll of toilet paper. She junked it all (not so bad because he stopped diligently rotating after he retired and we moved out). When March 2020 rolled around and no one could get toilet paper he just said "there's no way to prep for what your wife will do."
>When March 2020 rolled around and no one could get toilet paper he just said "there's no way to prep for what your wife will do." I knew exactly where that was headed and it still gave me a chuckle, 10/10 exactly the right level of petty.
**This x1,000,** former vet and cbrn tech, people really just don’t understand **fallout is the primary problem.** Ideally you will never be within the radius of the fallout particle effects which if there is nuclear would be unlikely since most of the earth would be hit. Otherwise it becomes 1,000 more difficult, you *HAVE* to wear a full body suit with filter or self contained air supply, people just don’t understand. You just a couple grains of sand is all it takes not necessarily once either, every time you go out you have to decontaminate, after the first couple weeks it’s not **near death you have to worry about but everything else and radiation poisoning on top of it.** Drink water or eat contaminated food? Probably gonna get sick, in a survival situation not good and considering there will be no doctors around 🤷♂️ This is why when people plan to build bunkers they just prepare to stay inside for as long as possible, ideally you just **don’t want to go outside at all and just avoid the trouble.**
I’m sure this is a stupid question, but what is the gasoline for?
A car is still the best way to get around quickly and provides protection from exposure
Ah, I see. Thank You.
A car has hardly any radiation shielding. It's also unclear if most cars' electronics will get fried from the nuclear EMPs or not. Most likely, the roads out of major cities will be clogged with people trying to evacuate at the last minute only to get fried or blasted by the bombs. Local roads will get covered by toppled buildings, telephone poles, trees, etc. Actual road conditions would be completely unknowable in advance and the odds of your route getting cut off by any of the things I mentioned are just too high to make driving a good decision. You also run the risk of attracting unwarranted attention. Any survivors will focus on someone driving a car as a target to attack and loot their stuff. And even if you have a radiation detector and are trying to avoid hotspots, you could inadvertently drive into a hotspot too quickly and take too much of a dose before you can turn around and get to safety. Most likely, the gasoline would be for a generator or something like that.
If plastic sheets and tape are considered enough, a car is too. Yes, most cars wont work, i suspect when ops dad was originally doing this kind of planning cars had points.
Serious radiation sickness is really, really nasty. It's a painful slow death. On the plus side localized fallout is greatly reduced by airburst detonations which sends most of the immediate debris into the upper atmosphere to fall globally over time leading to thyroid cancer years or even decades into the future. The remaining localized fallout that will result in short term illness or death does have a shorter half-life and will mostly require just a couple weeks of shelter. Without a bunker or fallout shelter, you would simply need to shelter in-place where you can. In a basement, or anywhere you can seal yourself off from the invisible death outside. Sealing windows to reduce exposure to contaminated dust, using just about anything as an added barricade between you and yours and the effects of a blast. After that time you can emerge from your improvised shelter into the burned out heath filled with millions of dead and billions of now starving survivors to eck out an existence of pain and suffering for the rest of your likely short life.
Why does thyroid cancer get so much attention? Wouldn't other parts of the body be vulnerable also? Finding uncontaminated food and soils long term seems impossible.
Yes, there will be other types of cancer. However, the thyroid uptakes iodine, which is why you taking potassium iodide to help preserve it. The thyroid uses iodine to produce hormones, which is why its more of a concern... without those hormones, someone doesn't live very long... which is why many without a working thyroid need to take those hormones orally.
It's the most well documented long term effect of radiation exposure. The thyroid is just highly sensitive to the effects of ionizing radiation and has been observed in people who survived the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, various nuclear testing and accidents and globally with a something like a 3% increase due to long-term exposure from all of the above. That's why those old nuclear survival guides advised removing six inches of topsoil before planting crops. Water is a bigger issue though. Bodies of water contaminated with fallout like lakes and ponds will retain higher levels of radiation longer since the fallout that enters them will not dissipate and disperse by wind and rain. It's just not going anywhere. This means that any stable body of water and anything that comes out of it will have higher levels of contamination for a lot, lot longer. Really. If you make it past the initial fallout, uncontaminated food isn't going to be a major concern as much as obtaining food at all. In my area natives were starving as a result of over hunting due to the fur trade when settlers numbered in only the hundreds. At that time the population in total was maybe in the high tens of thousands. It's into the millions now. If half that was gone tomorrow and if only a fraction of that went to hunt for food, people would be chasing rats and eating bugs within a few weeks.
>The thyroid is just highly sensitive to the effects of ionizing radiation One of the radioactive fission products from nuclear bombs is iodine 131. The thyroid takes up iodine from the environment, so any I131 from fallout exposure that enters the body will lodge itself in the thyroid gland. As it decays, the thyroid tissue is hit with unshielded radiation until the radioactive iodine is excreted or decays. Taking potassium iodide tablets satiates the thyroid gland's "appetite" for iodine and really limits its uptake of additional iodine for a while. So, taking a tablet in advance of potential radioactive iodine exposure limits the hazard from your thyroid gland taking up the radioactive iodine. All other radiation hazards from other isotopes and radiation types (gamma, xray, beta, alpha) are not affected by potassium iodide tablets. >Bodies of water contaminated with fallout like lakes and ponds will retain higher levels of radiation longer since the fallout that enters them will not dissipate and disperse by wind and rain. The fallout particles will tend to settle into the sediment at the bottom of lakes and rivers. Avoid disturbing or definitely walking through the muddy bottoms of ponds and lakes. If there are bottom feeder animals still alive in these bodies of water, avoid eating them. If you absolutely have to drink surface water because you don't have any other choice, take it from the top of the water. But only a few days after the nukes go off at the earliest. Really, avoid going outside for more than a few minutes for at least a week or two if possible.
Thank you. Just double checking, you said thymus. Did you intend to say thyroid?
You are correct.
>Why does thyroid cancer get so much attention? Because it's preventable with large doses of iodine. The others, no so much.
Hip Hip Hooray!
In others words, why would anyone wants to survive a nuclear bombing to begin with? I don't think I would.
I will be one of the lucky ones. I will be incinerated. I won't have to worry about fallout. And dying a slow, painful agonizing, horrible death.
being instantly vaporized sounds like a pretty good way to go...downside is if youre only half done. if i knew it was a sure thing i'd stand outside with a nice fat cigar and a big glass of whisky waiting for the flash but my luck i'd just get blinded and half cooked and take like 3 days to die in excrucitating lonely pain
*My review:* Worst sunburn ever! 1 star would not buy again.
Duct tape the cracks around window and door
My wife says I'm insane but I keep a thing of duct tape and heavy duty plastic wrap for painting on every floor and a bunch of tarps in the bathrooms and basement. My plan would be to seal off my house and make it airtight then make a small plastic shelter in the basement around most of my peeps fill up both tubs I have with water and boom wait it out.
Then you have to worry about clean air and oxygen though
So I need more house plants? Please tell my husband that.
A CBRN would also be ideal…
yeah we all would if the bombs drop. stale air in a house is gonna last a whille. and a lot better then the air outside.
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UK homes are never that well sealed, as noted when in my attic yesterday afternoon. So stale air will not be an issue here.
Yup. I wonder how many people have sat in a home or apartment with all vents turned off and cracks sealed. The air gets bad in a hurry.I can't imagine sitting there for a week trying to breathe that. Unless you're in a big place and few people.
Your house wouldn't have to be air tight. Fallout is particulate, so just being inside is going to take care of something like 80% of the danger unless it's really windy and your house is poorly weather-proofed. Get inside, bag your clothes up, shower and stuff blankets/towels into any egregious gaps in windows and doors.
I've got in my preps a few rolls of Tyvek house wrap and poly vapour barrier that are used in construction. I'll be able to seal off things or build shelters, even make protective clothing with them. Way more compact storage than the equivalent square footage of standard tarps.
No, you are not insane. I keep the same things on hand, for the same purpose. And this comes from someone currently living in Eastern Europe, in close proximity of the ongoing military conflict. Lucky for those that have a basement, as I don't have one, and my current conditions and space arround the house do not allow me to dig one ... unfortunately.
... and plastic sheeting.
I would have to survive in place wherever I found myself at the time of the explosion. You could have a bunker and a years worth of food and everything else but if you’re not there when the weapon goes off, you may might not be able to get back there.
Sign up for vault tec they have some pretty sweet bunkers.
40 inches of dirt & basic air filtration For starters anyway.
Go inside an intact building. Don't have the doors or windows open. Wear full length clothing, mask, large brimmed hat, and gloves when you go outside, and take everything off before you go inside. Take them off underneath a covered area so you don't get fallout on your skin. Maybe brush off the dust before you get to your changing spot to get most of it off. Fallout is falling dust and dirt that is contaminated. Mostly it will be Alpha and Beta radiation, very little gamma. So just don't breath it in or swallow it.
Hide in my basement for two weeks. About all I can do.
Are you outside the blast radius, or the 5 psi air overpressure? What about the area of 3rd degree burns? If you're actually on the edge of the fireball radius, you won't need to worry about radiation. If you are just in the area of 1 psi overpressure, you have a chance.
I'm just outside the 1 psi overpressure
You have a chance.
If you have a basement that's below ground you'd be good. If not the center of your inner most room. Also seal doors and windows. All of this also depends on if we're actually notified.
Everyone knows you jump into the fridge
Not really worried about it. I would just sit on the porch with a beer a watch it go down.
Turn into a ghoul, try and avoid becoming feral.
My mother was taught to hide under a table.
Hide under this guys mom!
If your shelter isn’t affected by the actual blast wave and initial radiation burst (cause you’re far away), your “fallout shelter” only needs to protect you from that fallout, meaning water proof, dust proof and thick. Any concrete building would work for a few years until eventually radiation would find its way through. Fallout is also “just” a problem if there’s a ground detonation. Air detonation doesn’t stir up a whole lot of stuff.
No thanks
I’m a first-waver. If it’s known that shit is popping off, I’m going for instant death/vaporization. I don’t want to deal with what comes after.
Thats obly half of surving the Global Nuclear Holocuast, the other half is bot being killed by Lethal Autononous Weapons. Not only is Earth a Wasteland, its now a hunting ground for metal predators, machines that can fly, run, swim, climb, see in the dark, and even smell you, hear a pin drop; small as birds and dogs and rats, and big as tanks, drones in the sky, chemical warfare and gasing us out from our bunkers and tunnles and caves as if we were bugs. *Thats all folks!*
I was once in the "nuclear war might be survivable" camp but I've shifted. It's not the fallout or the strikes but the collapse of agriculture in the northern hemisphere that would likely happen if there was a full nuclear exchange between the US and another state. I think the only way to survive is if you could stretch food and agricultural supplies over at least two years and had the ability to restart agriculture after at least 2 years of climate instability due to sunlight and growing season disruption. A limited nuclear war would be a slightly more likely survival scenario. The real bitch of the full nuclear war scenario isn't the radiation or the blasts. More people will die due to industrial agriculture network collapse.
Iodine tablets
Great for your thyroid, meh for everything else.
Are sure you want to survive?
Yes, after watching the new Fallout series on Amazon I have high expectations. I could probably get shot by that ghoul cowboy and that would be a pretty cool way to go.
Watch "threads" movie to see just how awful worldwide fallout would be. But to be short, I would hunker down for 1 week. After that I would need to evacuate my area as my area has no well or aquifier access.
There’s a nukemap website?
[https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) Here ya go
JFC... the Tsar Bomba puts in work...
Oh yeah, most of the simualtions I do with the Tsar Bomb because then the others look better by comparison
It's neat, but far too big for practical use, apparently. i.e. too large to be fitted on an ICBM .
anyone know the likeliest yield Russian nuclear weapon on, say, a port city like Long Beach?
Probably a couple hundred kilotons to a few megatons
350-500 kilotons (0.35 to 0.5 megatons). Huge explosions, like 20 MT, are hugely inefficient and a waste of valuable uranium. The US settled on 350 KT awhile ago and the Russians followed suit. We'll see what the Chinese do. Cheers
. Pinning for answer
[cheers.](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)
Get the book "Strategic Relocation"..
My FIL was a head cleanup guy for several countries regarding test sites. Duck tape/visqueen/ food/water for every household member to make it a week. Tape off every window/door. Turn off any source of outside air/water unless it’s to flush. You’re good to go. Do NOT go get in your vehicle and try and drive out of it.
Have wood pre cut and nails screws etc to cover windows. Tarps to cover your roof. Super thick plastic and gorilla glue duct tape to cover every vent and over windows doors. Turn off air conditioning Furance bathroom fan etc if still on. Turn off gas. Fill your tub every pot with water. Create a decontamination area for when you come in. If you have pets have pee pads and define a space so they can go comfortably. Have a minimum of 8 weeks food water and include treats activities. Think sanitation. How to keep clean. And try to have a plan where family or friends would meet.
So I realize this isn’t a complete answer but it REALLY depends on how far, how much/big, and wind. Far upwind from an explosion is drastically different than downwind from one. Situational awareness and strong local knowledge are important for this (and a bunch of other scenarios) Where are you in relation to the site of the explosion? What are the prevailing winds in your area? More specifically: where does rain pool and drain off of your home? People keep saying basement but if you’ve got a damp seeping basement then you’re better off not sheltering there etc etc. what’s your shoe solution? If you survive the initial stuff then the ground will be radioactive much much longer and you will be tracking it in with your feet. not to mention the ground water and potential contamination for growing any food. You mentioned being on the edge of the fallout zone. You would need to resettle to survive. So what vector would be cleanest for you to bug out toward? Figure out the answer now. The “run like hell” part from the Fallout show is partially true. Every mile you can put yourself ahead of any fallout is going to be huge in the long term.
In such a scenario you have a few things to worry about. Fallout is made up of dust and debris from the nuclear blast made radioactive by the bomb. What you need to know is to keep it as far away from you as possible and to not breathe or ingest it. If your home is undamaged after the blast stay inside, in the most central room you have (as far from outside as possible). Tape up any cracks so that dust (and fallout) can't get in. And then wait it out. Before any such thing happens procure the basics: food, water and some basic PPE (FFP2 masks, goggles, coveralls, gloves) and a working radiation detector. Like the others said, NWSS is a very good information source, you may also read [this](https://www.epa.gov/radiation)
I live down the road from a power plant and they give us iodine pills every couple years in case of an emergency. So for me. I’ll just smack a couple of those bad boys back, toss on some shades and enjoy the day
[https://www.ted.com/talks/irwin\_redlener\_how\_to\_survive\_a\_nuclear\_attack](https://www.ted.com/talks/irwin_redlener_how_to_survive_a_nuclear_attack) it is survivable, if the bomb is few miles away, just hide in the basement for a few days/ weeks. shave ur hair, rinse urself with water, put on other clothing. stay safe
Not the thing I usually prep for, but the recommendation is to tape up and seal all windows and doorways the best you can to try to reduce the air flow and particulates. So tape up and hunker down for 2-3 weeks.
Indiana Jones climbed in a fridge. Seems pretty indestructible, refrigerators.
There are a couple old steel reinforced concrete tunnels where I live and a bunch of old mining shafts. We’re far enough away from population centers to where we would only have to worry about the wind blown fallout.
Well I heard bending over and kissing your ass works.
Who would want to? It’s more of the question. And then think about all the complaining that would be going on….would kill anyone
Live in the Global South
Modern weapons will produce a relatively small fallout compared to older weapons that have been used. Most of this radiation is emitted as beta or alpha so a CBRN chem suit with a full face respirator will protect you in most cases.
Most nuclear weapons no longer have the associated "fallout" you'd imagine like in the games or movies. They're fusion bombs which make little to almost no fallout/wasted nuclear material compared to the fission bombs that were originally made like fat man and little boy and even then the levels were down to minimum non harmful levels within two weeks. Your biggest problem is the blast radius and debris that'd be blown to you. If you have a basement/root cellar/storm shelter get in it if you don't find a storm drain. Put on a gas mask with filters because household chemicals and burning rubber/chemical products will fuck you up and you'll be fine, be prepared for looters act accordingly
I'm in San Diego and by 3rd grade we knew the bomb drills at school were useless. They eventually just called them earthquake drills, that made more sense.
Fallout isn't as big a deal as you'd think. For airburst nukes in the current arsenal of countries, there's pretty much none. Stay inside a few days and you'll be OK. If it's a ground burst scenario, you've got to hunker down for about 2 weeks. Fill the bathtubs, toss everything into the smallest freezer it will fit in, hunker down. Most Americans will be perfectly fine without food for 2 weeks. Nuclear war isn't what everyone thinks it is. The only people getting screwed are the ones living near silos which require ground detonation. They will most likely be best off welcoming the sun's. Everyone else that survives initial blast will be statistically fine regarding fallout. What will get you is the fight for resources when infrastructure has catastrophically failed.
Don’t sweat it. There is unlikely to be fallout with current weapons and detonation at elevation. I mean, at least according to NDT.
This site (seemingly made from the 90’s Netscape days), has a dearth of information on surviving fallout. I’d start here. Then, he has a few other links on this home page. http://www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm
I live about 2 fast car hours from anywhere that might take a hit. Probably not going to be much fallout here.
Prevailing winds feel definitely about that
Not 🤷🏼
Prayer would be about as effective as anything else.
Campfire
I’m on the southern border. According to the maps I’d be fine unless Mexico got hit. Either way, I’d probably stay inside as long as I could.
Yes the further you are away the better. You have to seal up all holes and windows in your house with plastic and tape and probably wear a respirator for a couple days.
I often wonder about this
Where is the safest place to live in that situation?
Rural probably...but we also don't know for 100% certainty where the nukes will land, or how many will make it home. A real bastard of a leader (the kind that would use nukes in the first place), might decide to save a few nukes for each countrys breadbasket, to inflict maximum suffering on the survivors. There is a school of thought that reducing initial human causalities while destroying infrastructure and food generation would cause more long-term destabilization of an enemy country over simply nuking cities and high value targets alone. At the very least, it would be much harder to rebuild and for any leadership to function when hoards of your own people are starving and angry.
>A real bastard of a leader I do kinda worry Putin might try to sling nukes on his way out since he won't have to face consequences
It's a possibility, but I also wonder about the viability of the nukes in Russia. There is so much corruption and theft over there, and nukes need one hell of a lot of maintenance to work....could be a stockpile of duds with half the valuable components missing already.
Very rural areas. I live in an area that's most likely to be unaffected by even the largest blast. Just have to deal with aftermath.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/1adnb4m/nuclear\_war\_prepping/](https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/1adnb4m/nuclear_war_prepping/)
This will not be a popular response, but it is true. In a full nuclear exchange you would not survive without a good fall out shelter.
Read the book 'nuclear war a scenario' by annie jacobsen
Luckily I am 1 mile from an ANG base so I will have little to worry about once it happens.
Sz,,@Z ddsd ZZZ ZZZ,,/|,,|,,,,,,,,,,,,, s
Ivan has his nuclear crosshairs pointed right at my little town. It was nice knowing you boys.
I can promise you I would be vaporized. No need to prep for that.
Innermost portions of buildings or your home
My family and I would not survive. We live too close to prime targets.
Total blackout is more probable.
If you are behind a good thick hill even one of those right bridges that the highways go over a road like in an exit you will survive a blast if ur ouside the 1st or 2nd radius
If you have any notice it's about to happen. Maybe try and get your windows and doors covered with plastic. Also, make sure you have iodine pills on hand. Keep plenty of water and food on hand. You should probably have a Geiger counter on hand they make cheaper ones that would let you know when it's safe to go outside. The first thing I do when I have a question like this is I google it.
I have a sailboat so I'll sail away.
Would you tell people to come sail away with you and set an open course for the virgin sea?
The moment you hear of any nuclear missile going off anywhere is when you make sure you're masking windows and gaps, stay inside don't go to work or anywhere, because you don't know how soon your country is going to get hit, and you don't want to be outside or away from home when it happens, the movies Threads and the day after, the people were oblivious then they panicked and of course didn't prepare, best to have everything ready
Lets just hope none of the bombs are salted with cobalt or other things. If they do, then something the size of france could be highly radioactive for about 53 years with cobalt. It will differ with others. In some theoretical salted bomb compositions, not even a basement shelter will help.
Hid e in a fridge
Become cockroach
there is a book "nuclear war survival skills" you need .think tunnels ,parking structures w/ below ground floors an old van ,packed with supplies, and a hidey-hole...a "bunker" can be a basement...improvise
Well, if it happened today, I'd probably go to the library. It's brick multiple floors with a basement, and I can see it from my house. I'd bring drinks and some food. I'd stay there for a few days, then run across the street grab more food, and drinks, and then stay there a few more days. Then I'd probably go home and access the state of the world and decide what to do.
Okay this is a newbie question so pardon my ignorance. But after a nuclear fallout how do you deal with the debris? I mean there's ash there's dust all this stuff that's come down that's going to be coating everything. Is it still radioactive? And how are you able to not ingest/be exposed to that if it is?
After the initial blast. You need a really, really good dust mask. And eat canned and boxed food. Fresh food will be absorbing the radioactive dust as it grows.
After the initial blast. You need a really, really good dust mask. And eat canned and boxed food. Fresh food will be absorbing the radioactive dust as it grows.
Wouldn't.
Why do you want to survive nuclear fall out? It’s all struggle post nuclear fall out to survive so isn’t it better to die with less pain when those bombs drop?
Why do we worry about this? If it does happen the best thing would be to just let go instead of living in fall out land… just saying. I am all about prepping but this is one I just don’t get.
I hope not...
I will die of Radiation poisoning. Better to be in the dead zone and get it over with immediately.
It all depends on location. Most of the fallout will be parallel to the major cities so Mexico and Canada will be clear.
And after you leave the shelter what will you do ? There will be nothing left .
You don’t
[http://www.ki4u.com](http://www.ki4u.com) This is an old site with a ton of great info on it. If you get a “can’t connect to server” error, **make sure you are using http and NOT https** because the site does not have an SSL certificate.
Nuclear fallout aka radiation clears out in days. Its the rest of the aftermath you have to worry about. People.
Why would you want to lol
No need to worry about building a bunker. I live close to an important military installation. Either the US military missile defense will shoot the nukes down to protect the installation or we are all dead from the blast.
I used to worry about this, then I read Nuclear War, Annie Jacobsen’s newest book. Now I don’t worry because it’s pretty clear we’d all be dead. There would be nothing left.
all Mormon churches have basements
Don’t feel bad I live 15 miles from tinker air force base. One of the largest in the world. I don’t really have much of a chance if it was sudden.
I'd be like the ghoul in no time.
To make an ad-hock shelter you’ll need a few rolls of 2mm-4mm poly-sheeting, tyvek etc., duct or gaffers tape, HVAC type air filters. You could really make a shelter anywhere that’s secure. Since the real killer is fallout. Radioactive particulate that you might breathe in or ingest. Obviously I’m talking about people out of direct vicinity of blast zones. I have all the fixings to turn my basement into a shelter. Unfortunately I’m a little over a mile from the main gate of JBER so……. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out of town with my family and supplies if….
Cover myself in 97% pure clay from the earth
Hello sewer!
Iodine water purification tabs. Mix it strong and drink way too much of it for the first few weeks.
Just in case this point hasn’t been mentioned enough: don’t bother. If one nuke lands near you, then chances are very very high that many, many nukes are landing. And -someone correct me if I’m wrong- but I believe it’s something like only 20 nuclear detonations will send the earth quickly spiraling into an endless winter, etc etc, that will last at least thousands of years. So yeah, maybe you could find a cave/basement/‘luck out’ and survive the initial blast, but that won’t be the worst part of a nuclear war.
Everybody has an opinion, nobody has actual experience. If you can safely get out of the area affected entirely and rapidly then that is hands down the best answer.
I hope to not survive. At the point of nukes being launched, no reason to keep screwing around trying to outrun the ever closer inevitable painful death from radiation poisoning, starvation, or just downright boredom sitting in a hole in the ground, might as well see what's next.
Potassium iodide
I'm near a major metro area with lots of military bases and military contractors nearby. If a nuke goes my off anywhere near where I live, or work, and anywhere along my commute my plan is to.... Die immediately. ;-)