# Ponder the Unthinkable (pt 38) Rocket Man Tossin' Nukes



## Winston (Jan 15, 2018)

Remember the Good 'ole Days?  Some of you weren't even born when global thermonuclear armageddon was a big deal.  MAD we called it.  Now, it's jerkwater tin-pot dictators threatening to lob nukes, or a nuke, at us.  It's almost laughable... unless you're the one being targeted.  

The only thing worse than fear is irrational needless fear.  Fear is only useful if it drives you to a constructive action.  Irrational fear is never constructive.  Let's make this simple.  There are some things you can survive, and some you can't.  I like the analogy that Jerry Seinfeld used:  "If you jump out of airplane, the helmet you have on offers no safety.  It's wearing you for protection."   

Can you survive a nuclear attack?  The definitive answer is, It Depends.  Below is an excerpt from a previous "Ponder the Unthinkable" installment:

_"For these mega events, it's mostly about location and luck.  I live near the Puget Sound in Washington State, US.  A few miles away are a major naval shipyard and a sub base.  IF WWIII breaks out and IF the Russians decide to nuke the nearby naval assets, I'm dead.  Bomb / fallout shelters are great, if you have some warning.  Russian "boomer" subs could drop SLBM megatons in 15 to 20 minutes.  The surrounding area would be so radioactive that after leaving shelter, I'd die from radiation poisoning long before I could reach a "clean" area.  If I could.  Roads, bridges, all gone.
Now, if the Pakistanis and Indians go at it, it's just a bit of fallout to worry about for me.  A little worse if it's the Chinese and Russians.  All I'd need to do is shelter in place for a few weeks, limit outside exposure.  Use a mask to keep from breathing in radioactive particles, and dust-off before re-entering the house.  For those of you in The Southern Hemisphere, you'd hardly even notice.  Just your shipment of new Toyotas may be delayed.  Sure, they're be a global increase in cancer, but that'd be years down the road."

_As they like to say in real estate, location location location.  

Let's clear-up some potential misconceptions about the threat we're facing.  A nuclear weapon is just a bomb.  The only difference is it's really, really big, and leaves radioactive fallout.  Those are two separate threats. Let's address them individually.  

The blast of a low-yield Norko nuke will kill thousands.  If you are at ground zero, you're dead.  A mile or two out, and you're probably crushed or impaled by flying debris.  Further out, most infrastructure is heavily damaged, but if you're behind something substantial, you'll probably survive the blast.  There will be fires everywhere.  More folks will suffocate rather than evaporate.  

Survivors in the blast zone will deal with injuries, including burns, that will require major medical attention.  Due to infrastructure being obliterated, most injured people will die from their wounds within days.  No running water, sanitation or electricity.  Those lucky enough to receive treatment will get triage level ration care.  This means, you'd better pray your injuries aren't too severe.  

So, that's the Cliff Notes version of the physical damage.  The radiation is the scary stuff, right?

Kind of.  Obviously, within the blast zone, it will be radioactive.  But, as just noted, when you're dying from untreated third degree burns, the radiation is literally the insult to injury.  Radiation poisoning, at it's worst, usually kills within a couple of weeks.  Dehydration kills in days.  

The fallout is what will kill the majority of people.  And, unlike the luck-of-the-draw with the blast, you can actually do something about protecting yourself.  There will still be luck involved, like being upwind instead of downwind from the blast.  The evil of radiation is that it is a silent killer.  Without access to a Geiger counter, you'll have no idea how much exposure you are getting.

Radiation exposure is cumulative.  Some areas may be so "hot", that you must chance exposing yourself to evacuate to a lower rad zone.  In other areas, simply sheltering in place will save your life.  Hopefully, FEMA will broadcast the threat level of your area, and advise appropriately.  Unfortunately, there will be a lot of people that step outside the next day, seeing no danger.  Just a thin layer of ash, perhaps.  They will be dead in weeks, perhaps months.

A nuke is just a bomb, but it's a bomb that keeps killing months and years later.  Mistakes made in the first few days after a blast will mean premature death by various cancers.  Inhaling a tiny particle of fallout will slowly cook the cells inside your chest.  The deaths after a nuke will jump like a bell curve years after an event.  The thousands dead from the blast will equal millions dead from radioactive fallout.  

Let's look at a Honolulu nuclear attack by North Korea.  The limitations of Norko's technology means that a fairly low-yield, inaccurate weapon will be used.  It will almost certainly not hit the center of the city.  There is a good chance that it will hit closer to a lower density area such as Wahiawa (Schofield Barracks), or perhaps detonate in the ocean.  There is also a chance that it will be so wildly inaccurate it could hit Molokai or Kauai.  Let's just assume a 'lucky' hit on Honolulu proper. 

Even with adequate warning, there are no reasonably safe shelters for the average citizen. Most apparently solid structures will simply become tombs, deathtraps after the blast.  The glass from skyscrapers will fly at thousands of miles an hour, shredding everything in it's path.  Palm trees will look like giant caber toss event.  The flying sand will remove the skin from every living thing it impacts. The pressure will rupture lungs and ears.  Vegetation will instantly combust.  Cars will pop like firecrackers.  Your survival in the city will be total luck.

On the rest of the island, anyone looking that direction will be instantly blinded.  Hurricane force winds will kill or maim those outside.  Fires will erupt everywhere.  
On the nearby islands, you'll be just fine... for now.  Unless you were looking at the blast.  

In the first day, approximately 50 to 100 thousand would die.  Twice that number would be seriously injured.  Because of it's logistical position, most of the injured would not receive adequate care in time, and many would die in the following week.   

And now we move from bad to worse.  

The Hawaiian Islands are dependant on constant importation of food.  If the airport and seaport on Oahu are destroyed, the remaining 900,000 residents on the island will face starvation.  Sanitation in the tropics is imperative, that will be knocked out.  No medicine or water.  Hell, some people will die without electricity (diabetics need Insulin).  The topography of the island will make emergency distribution difficult at best.  Remember, the roads will be destroyed or heavily damaged.  

The rescue and recovery efforts will be hampered by fallout.  Emergency workers will need to wear heavy protective suits in a hot, humid wasteland.  Setting up clean zones, and decontamination areas will take vital time and resources away from the rescue of citizens.  Citizens who are blind, hungry, dehydrated, burned, in shock, sick... and showing the first signs of radiation poisoning. Most of the island will eventually need to be evacuated.   

The survivors of the blast on Oahu will deal with the ticking time bomb of cancer for years.  As will the residents on nearby islands.  All the fish locally harvested will be suspect for many years.  The wind patterns may spare the rest of Hawaii from a large amount of fallout, but not the Western United States.  From salmon in The Puget Sound, to rice in the San Joaquin valley, food will be monitored closely.  

It is unknown how many will die in the following years from fallout.  From the Hawaiian Islands to the West Coast, a cancers will spike after the attack.  Possibly for decades. 

So, in retrospect, it seems kind of silly to stock two weeks worth of supplies.  It probably won't matter.  But you do not know.  None of us do.  This scenario could play out in Los Angeles or even New York City, with similar results.  What we do know is that a direct hit on a major city, while possible, may be unlikely.  Even during the Cold War, Soviet and US ICBM's had a CEP (Circular Error Probability) of a mile or so.  Some of the Soviets nukes were as bad as five miles.  We have no reason to believe that Kim Jong-un's ICBMs would be more accurate.   

What this means to you is that there is a much greater chance that you will be on the periphery of a nuclear blast, rather than at ground zero. 
Some will die from the initial blast.  Some will die years later.  It's that in-between area where you can control your fate.      

Two weeks worth of supplies is a rather minimum amount.  Depending on the scope of the devastation, it may take months for help to get to where you are.  But, for God's sake, it just makes sense to have enough food, water and medicine to shelter in place for an extended period of time.  Not everyone will be vaporized instantly.  Sorry, you're not that lucky. 

There really is nothing to fear.  What will happen, will happen.  But choosing to do nothing to prepare is ignorant masochism.  It's hard to imagine now, but think about being so thirsty that you are willing to drink water that has fallout AND cholera.  And think about how simple it would be to buy a few cases of water, and some chlorine tabs.  And maybe some potassium iodine.  

Yeah.  This stuff is scary.  But don't let fear paralyze you.


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## velo (Jan 15, 2018)

I live well within the blast radius of that same Naval base on Puget Sound.  I have no stockpiles, no shelter, and I am not worrying about it.  I don't watch the news and I'll hopefully never know it's coming.  If there is a nuclear attack I hope I'll maybe hear a massive boom, feel confused for perhaps as much as 1s, and then be vapourised.


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## Winston (Jan 15, 2018)

Hey!  Thanks a bunch for the quick comment.  Usually my work sits here in the Non-Fiction pile for weeks before I get a "mercy" comment.

That said, I think you might have missed my point.  If the Russians or Chinese decide to go full nuclear, of course we're toast.  Hell, Bangor and Bremerton both probably get their own dedicated MIRV ICBM with 8 warheads a piece.  That is the one far end of the spectrum.

Not every nuclear exchange may be full-blown.  There are many scenarios where a limited nuclear exchange would be survivable.  And, despite what you "wish", you don't have a say in how lethal it is.    You don't get to choose whether you're insta-fried, or slow cooked with fallout.  "Hoping" will not prevent misery from needlessly being heaped upon you.

For example, Kim Jon-un just may decide to nuke Seattle.  On the Kitsap peninsula, we are firmly outside the blast zone.  And, the fallout would most likely travel east to Spokane.  Hopefully, you do realize the regional impact and disruption such an attack would cause.  No, you wouldn't die.  But food and fuel would be diverted and unavailable for an extended period.  You don't get the option to die quickly.  Maybe you get malnourished, and eventually succumb to a common ailment.  None of which would happen if you stocked some basic supplies.  

I get this a lot, and I don't know how to dispel this Cold War legacy thinking.  It's not 1980 anymore. 
Thanks for the read, neighbor.


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## H.Brown (Jan 16, 2018)

While i am one of those that did not grow up under these threats, your writing conveys fear to me, in your detailed explanations about what would happen in such a situation. Your writing is snappy and kept me reading from sentence to sentence. You offer clear advice throughout the piece. To me it read like a magazine or newspaper article, which from the title I think you were aiming for. Overall Winston a great piece of writing.


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## velo (Jan 16, 2018)

Winston said:


> Hopefully, you do realize the regional impact and disruption such an attack would cause.



Oh, absolutely.  I've a fair bit of knowledge (compared to the typical city sweller) about wilderness survival but the reality is that if I didn't turn into pink mist immediately I absolutely would have a tough time and probably waste away from malnourishment.  

Water is no problem in this part of the world, of course.  Even if there is no running water the water in the moss that is everywhere can keep you alive.  But since this ecosystem primarily conifer-based it is very calorie poor.  The only hope would be fishing.  I'm also far too out of shape to be super useful.  

There is also the fact that our society is destined for collapse anyway.  The Western economic model is still using the same basic premise of the Dutch East India company and the subsequent centuries of European colonialism- that unlimited growth is possible.  It's not and we are preaching the point where reality is going to start pushing back.  I'm almost 50 and I fully expect that by the time my grandson is my age it will be a very different world.  We are too many and use too much for there not to be a correction coming.


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## Winston (Jan 16, 2018)

velo said:


> ...There is also the fact that our society is destined for collapse anyway.  The Western economic model is still using the same basic premise of the Dutch East India company and the subsequent centuries of European colonialism- that unlimited growth is possible.  It's not and we are preaching the point where reality is going to start pushing back.  I'm almost 50 and I fully expect that by the time my grandson is my age it will be a very different world.  We are too many and use too much for there not to be a correction coming.



_Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; *Rage*, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they. Do not go gentle into that good night._
Dylan Thomas


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