Friend Of The Blog (TM), Tam, over at View From The Porch, has a post up noting that today is the anniversary of the much maligned “Duck And Cover” program from those crazy days of the Atomic/Cold War age.
When I was a kid in grade school we had two kinds of drills – fire drills and shelter drills. Any idiot knows what a fire drill is for, but as a kid it never occurred to me to ask what a shelter drill was for. All I knew is that we pulled the blinds in the classroom, filed into the hallways, and sat along the interior hallways with our backs to the wall. It never occurred to me that this was some sort of program to protect ourselves in case of nuclear attack. Same way it never occurred to me what those pink and blue ‘occupancy certificates’ in each classroom with the CD logo were about.
As the years rolled by, the nattering nabobs of negativism loudly proclaimed that anyone even remotely thinking a nuclear attack was survivable was some sort of stooge or idiot. There will be no survivors, they proclaimed. Never mind that there were quite a few survivors at both cities that were nuked last time someone opened up a can of sunshine. In fact, there were a couple folks who rolled snake eyes twice and got bombed at Hiroshima, transported to Nagasaki for medical treatment, and got nuked again. And lived.
Part of this mindset, I think, comes from the semantic problem of people conflating a fallout shelter and a blast shelter. Would the crowded citydwellers be safe from the devastation of their cities by cowering in the basement of the local fallout shelter? Maybe. Maybe not. But then again, a fallout shelter is for sheltering from…fallout. Whereas a blast or bomb shelter is to protect you from……
If youre sitting at ground zero when someone airbursts a new sun over your head, yeah, its not looking good…although, again, people have survived that. But if you survive the blast, which is likelier the further you are from the center of it, then something like a fallout shelter does make a difference. Which means it in, in fact, survivable.
However, the Soviet-backed and -funded ‘nuclear disarmament’ groups, who interestingly never seemed to bother the Soviets too much about disarming, were quick to hammer home the idea that there simply was no surviving a nuclear exchange and we should pack up those Minuteman silos and trust that the nobler heads will refrain from pushing any buttons.
Dude, I live about three hours from a bed of nuclear missile silos. I have zero interest in being around when an old SS-18 with out-of-date targeting data lands in Great Falls and sends a cloud of debris in my direction. But…I also know its not an ‘On The Beach’ scenario where all you can do is wait for the sunrise and your horrible death.
The ‘Duck And Cover’ drills are laughable in some ways, but in others they were a good idea. They kept people aware of the risks and problems of the Cold War, and certainly lent an air of credibility and purpose to the various local Civil Defense programs and organizations.
Nuclear war is no walk through a meadow…..understatement of the year, there. But it isn’t necessarily the death knell for the entire planet either. No more than Dresden or Hiroshima was.
I remember being in kindergarden in 1954 and being led into the basement for a drill only I didnt quite grasp that it was a drill. I was terrified, at age 4-5, I only understood- bad, I want my mamma.
Plumes typically, but not always, spread out in a ~roughly~ north-easterly direction. This applies to power plant “accidents” as well. There are mapping programs available on the internet to calculate likely plume directions and intensities. The core of the plume will be really bad, but as you go outwards from that core intensity decreases. It’s a smart idea to have some sort of a meter and a book of tables to translate the readings into more usable information.
Our county’s Emergency Services and Disaster Agency has a computer doing real-time modeling of the hypothetical plume from our nuke power plant. Last time I saw it, it was a 486DX. Nuthin’ but the best! I can see the cooling tower “clouds” from my house. Naturally, I’m northeast of ’em.
Kudos for the Spiro Agnew reference!
But, alas, Point Of Order:
Yes, you can survive the fallout, in shelter, if you’re far enough to be out of the blast zone.
For one nuke.
Maybe even two.
Trouble is, hundreds of Pentagon games of Global Thermonuclear War, from 1946-present, played by not only our top experts, but with the best ones playing the role of OPFOR, indicate that once one nuke flies, anywhere…pretty much all of them fly, EVERYWHERE (including amongst and betwixt theoretically uninvolved and uninterested third parties), because everyone knows who has them, and them what has them, knows all the spots to target amongst their fellow Nuclear Club members, and since in short order pre-emptive nukes will therefore be launched at anyone who’s holding, On The Day, everyone what’s got them must Use Them, Or Lose Them (and, what the hell, one might as well settle some long-term grudges with their dying breath anyways, amirite?)
So your Survival Problem isn’t the one errant pride of Soviet engineering prowess landing contiguous to Greater Great Falls Impact Area, it’s that there are going to 200-400 Soviet warheads, and another 50 Chinese ones, and God Alone knows who else’s, all flying towards Zero’s General AO. Over about a 72- to 168-hour period.
Inside a week (not counting the SSBN strikes that will keep popping off to bounce the rubble over the subsequent weeks/months), the Survival Problem is that there’s not a lot of habitable space north of the equator on any one of three continents that’s going to be described as “arable” this side of long after your grandchildren are dead once that happens.
There may be the odd postage-stamp microparcel where that isn’t so, but overall, once the radiation gets down to less than glowing levels, that only leaves chemical and biological sequelae (the latter being both natural, and artificial) to contend with.
By all means, do what you can, and hope for a lesser exchange, but that’s not the spot on the table to put your chips if you know statistics and math.
One therefore must needs stock deep, and think extremely long-term, just to hang around long enough to enter the quarter-finals of the Zombie Olympics, where famine, pestilence, war and death all compete in the Preakness section of the Apocalypse when it enters the 17th Century Tribal Warlord era, i.e. guns, but medieval medicine.
OTOH, imagine the simple farmer in Alsace or Lorraine who’d had the wit to do a personal Maginot Plan, gone underground in the early fall of 1939 when Herr Shickelgruber got frisky, and didn’t pop the hatch and come up for air until 6-7 years later. He’d have caught up on his reading, and been none the worse for wear, other than the occasional rooftop rumbles.
It may not avail for a general nuclear exchange, but the possibility of success (for some values of that word) for isolated persons bears considering.
I think we need to recognize that just as “conventional” warfare has evolved into fifth generation hybrid warfare, we can probably safely assume that nuclear strategy has evolved also. The U.S. has been conducting “prominent hunt” exercises for about a decade now. The concept of the exercise is to determine the origin of a nuclear weapon that goes off in the United States but is not delivered by missile or bomber. Who do you attack if you don’t know who set the bomb off?
Given the performance of the Russian military in Ukraine, one has to wonder what the true status of their strategic rocket forces is. Having grown up reading about the all powerful Soviet military with great weapons system I was shocked at the poor performance and lack of survivability of Soviet armor in the gulf war. I therefore seriously doubt that the SS18 and other missiles can live up to the hype (probably perpetrated by the military industrial complex). We know their missiles were/are not very accurate, I wonder how many make it off the launch pad or even detonate based on poor design, shoddy Craftsmanship and lack of maintenance over the years? The graft in their military definitely showed itself in their poor performance in Ukraine. Why do we think it wouldn’t show itself in their strategic rocket force. Just some of my rambling thoughts before my first full cup of coffee
I agree and most Russian missiles would probably fail during launch or in flight due to lack of upkeep since 1991. Not too worried about China since the discovery that troops were draining the fuel from the missiles and replacing it with water and selling the fuel for food.
Poor performance in Ukraine. .. you mean the rusting Abrams, Leopard, AMX 20 & Challenger tank wrecks on display in Red Square?
The second most powerful military could not overrun little Ukraine. How long did it take the US military to overwhelm the Iraqi army who was fully equip with Russian military equipment? The answer is 3 weeks, yet Russia is in its third year. The Russian military is now resorting to using tanks from the 1950s and North Korean equipment. The Abrams given to Ukraine were export versions and they were still superior to the crap the Russian’s deployed.
Say what you will but being an actual participant in the largest U.S. tank battle since WWIIi, I saw a lot of Soviet junk with catastrophic hits. So the Russians got a few early renditions of NATO armor. What does that prove?
Commander:
If it happens it is more likely a present from China. I suppose they won’t even put a tariff on it!
Now that Trump has taught the Tyrants of the world they have nothing to fear, China is going to try for Taiwan and South Korea.
Should donny-boy have a rush of blood to the head and decide to protect someone, nastiness would follow.
Keep your head down and supplies up…
Ceejay
Only one person Krasnov would protect and that’s Krasnov.
Lib, I can only hope that China makes you its first target.
As Aesop points out, it probably isn’t going to be surgical strikes more like a carpet bombing. Not sure what the over/under is going to be with antique nukes failing on their way to target what with a drunken Ivan and a jaded communist Chinglee putting them together but call it 50%.
We can’t keep the roads open after a hurricane, so we aren’t going to be driving somewhere less toxic after a nuke strike. Staying put may mean soaking up radiation while eating the rest of our Mt. House meals, hopefully under some sort of earthen bunker, until our water or air runs out.
Are we just delaying the inevitable?
Since the death rate among humans is 100%, technically EVERYTHING we do is delaying the inevitable since we all inevitably die anyway.
Here is my doomsday prediction: On March 7, 2175, every human currently living today on the planet will be dead.
Pessimist!
Science can sometimes make a positive difference…
Haha!
But how many of them will be getting a social security payment?
We had three different drills when I was in grade school a decade or two before you. We had, Fire Drills, Tornado Drills and Shelter Drills. Each had a different alarm, continuous bell – FIRE; long intermittent rings – Tornado; Short intermittent rings – Shelter.
One afternoon, when I was in 4th Grade, the Alarm sounded and our teacher herded us to the boiler room which was our tornado shelter. No one else showed up for 20 minutes until a fireman showed up and said, “Oh, here you are.”
My parents back in the ’60s would drive to Las Vegas and book a hotel room when Nellis Test Range was detonating nukes above ground. I have many pictures of the mushroom clouds that were seen from the roof tops of the hotels in downtown Vegas. Glad I don’t live downwind from that area now.
I Dig Au:
Has there been recent, INDEPENDENT tests to check?
Might be interesting…
Ceejay
The downwinders from Nellis have an above average occurrance of cancer and other abnormalities, especially around southern Utah. Many western actors have died from cancer thought to be from their exposure in southern Utah while filming movies in the dusty desert. Most of them also smoked.
The entire cast of The Conqueror, including the star, being the foremost example.
Entire movie shot in the downwind leg, in swirling dust laden with radioactive fallout.
Because if the military says it’s safe, that’s got to be the gospel truth, right? 😛
Per Brian Dunning’s research https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4238
the cancer rate of our Hollywood Icons was no more than normal. Exposure was estimated to be 1 to 4 millirems, essentially normal background level. The Duke didn’t help himself by smoking five packs per day.
Aesop, science says that radiation deteriorates at a predictable rate. Tests performed in the area where John Wayne’s “The Conqueror” was filmed showed no radiation danger existed at that time. Therefore, the fact that many people in the cast died from cancer cannot fairly be attributed to fallout.
Back in the 90’s it was possible for an ordinary citizen to visit the Nevada Test Site, so I did. You submitted your info to DoE and picked a date for your tour. Usually these were orientation tours for new DoE employees. Visited Frenchman Flats, Yucca Flats, saw a few of those old wooden houses still standing, bridges bent in half, bank vaults shredded. The highlight of the tour was the “Sedan Crater” which answers the scientific question “can you dig a really big hole with an atomic bomb?”. Yes you can! One of the tourists asked “is it still radioactive?” The tour guide said “why, yes! and you are receiving # rads right now!”. Everybody filed back onto the bus after that. It was a great day.
Still remember that poster , “In case of atomic attack , put your head between your legs and kiss your a$$ goodbye.”
Right around my birth in 1952, my dad hired on with “the bomb plant” when the government built a uranium enrichment plant maybe 8-10 miles west of our home. I don’t know how many years it took for the general public to realize that that plant made our town, Paducah, a high value target for a Soviet nuke. I don’t remember doing duck-and-cover drills until maybe 1959 or 60. A few years later, I realized that if by some luck the blast didn’t vaporize us instantly, we lived due east of the plant, so the fallout and radiation levels would not be survivable. Few in our community could afford their own fallout shelter, maybe no one. I remember everyone’s pucker factor going waaaaaay up during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but other than that, we pretty much ignored the risk.