(February 25, 2022 at 12:30 am)Jehanne Wrote: It's absolutely, unequivocally unthinkable, yet, it might happen. The blast wave, the "kill zone", will be 10 miles. I live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a likely target; my mother lives in Waterloo to my northwest, the home of John Deere. From launch to detonation is about 30 minutes; it will probably take Norad 5 minutes to detect and verify the launch, another 5 minutes to sound the civil defense. We're planning on going straight to our car without even locking our doors, and leaving as fast as we can.
Any other advice, not only for my and my family's survival, but yours, also? Again, unthinkable, but we are going to make a short plan anyways. If the unthinkable happens, I am going to try to survive.
As a few others have already pointed out, fleeing a nuclear strike in a car is probably a bad idea. For a start you can assume that the majority of the population of Cedar Rapids will have similar notions. This will lead to a traffic jam of biblical proportions and will be a very bad place to be during a nuclear attack. Fleeing on foot would almost certainly be faster and safer. Bike or motorbike might also be viable but none are good options. What you really want is a lot of material between you and the blast to absorb the radiation.
A few things that might work:
- Take a vacation in the country until shit settles down. Few things improve your survival like not being at ground zero.
- Build a bomb shelter. I know, so very 1960s. Modern designs include shelters that can be built as reinforced structures within existing basements, though you'll want an exit that doesn't require moving your collapsed house off of the door.
- Stock up on essentials. Hitting the pharmacy after the sirens start sounding is far to late. You'll want bottled water for a couple of days, food (not entirely necessary in the short term), medication, iodine tablets, alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate. An old style radio to pick up civil defence instructions might be handy.
