Survival Thought For The Day...

I went through the elementry school in the 80's and even though they had gotten rid of the fantastic duck and cover films we still were taught that in school. I remember all of us laughing because we knew just how big of a joke it really was.
 
I went to elementary school in the 1970s. Never was exposed to any of this. I guess they figured we would all be instantly incinerated because we were so close to NSA.
 
This is one of my pet peeves. Duck and cover is NOT pointless or silly.

Sure nuclear bombs are huge, but they aren't magic. It's not like everyone close enough to see it disapears in a puff of smoke. It's like any other bomb, the farther away you are the more attenuated the effects will be. If you're far enough away to not get vaporized you might survive...at least as long as you don't get killed by flying glass, or the cealing falling on you.

This is the same basic advice given for ANY bomb, or for that matter an earthquake.
 
Surviving Nuclear War is obviously like real estate, it's all about location, location and location. After that, it is knowledge and the will to live, as it is in any survival situation.

If you are close enough to get flying glass out of the windows, you're pretty much toast, however.
 
Joben, you make a good point. If the nuke isn't going off in the immediate vicinity, and you're far enough away from the detination that the heat and blast overpressure doesn't kill you, secondary frag still can.
 
Don Rearic said:
Aahhh...old Civil Defense Manuals, you gotta love'em!

I cannot remember where I got this JPG, but I think I put the caption in below it. :D

duckandcover1.jpg
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The picture is from the Fallout video game series.
 
That game is fantastic. It's one of my favorites. The game itself is interesting, but the characters, the music and all of the add-ons make the package.

On a more serious note, one of my 'additional duties' in the military (this is going back a few years) was as an NBC shelter manager. I'm guessing that training is what let me to think with a bit more of a preparedness mindset, and one of the things that make ESEE knives appealing.

And now I will play 'I don't want to set the world on fire', and read some more email!

SP
 
The point of my earlier comments was not to say that you/we are doomed if a nuclear weapon were to be detonated but to say that if you can see it as portrayed in that "cartoon," uh, you're probably not going to survive that. Not without being in a concrete reinforced shelter. The overpressure will collapse your lungs and do other horrific things to the human body. If you did survive it, you might regret surviving it a few days/weeks later when you are vomiting to death.

A really excellent book on the subject is Dr. Bruce Clayton's "Life After Doomsday."

A lot of things are survivable, nuclear war is one of them. Some situations, unfortunately, are not survivable and in some cases the victory will be short-term, at best. Surviving the initial event to live with second and third degree burns or having radiation sickness might not be something you would want to survive in a world where modern medicine doesn't exist or is not immediately available to you. Horrible way to die without modern painkillers, antibiotics and tender loving care.
 
Man, I think about the subject a lot...living near to and working on so many TVA projects it can get into the head pretty easy. I haven't thought about those old films and posters for years though. Thanks for the laugh.


Don Rearic said:
The point of my earlier comments was not to say that you/we are doomed if a nuclear weapon were to be detonated but to say that if you can see it as portrayed in that "cartoon," uh, you're probably not going to survive that....
Click to expand...

At that range one might as well stand there and enjoy the view of Pandora's Box. Few get to see it, even fewer get to tell about it.

.
 
Uh-yup...

A lot of guys out in the desert who were wearing the equivalent of welder's goggles got to see a pretty spectacular show. And paid a heavy price of admission years later.
 
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