[Serious] Nuclear war survival guide.

[brewer]

What's the point of dropping a nuclear bomb anyway, besides senseless destruction and chaos..? There is no target nuclear bombs can destroy that conventional weapons cannot.

To crush of will of the other side to continue.

And make them pray to god.......................

[Paleophyte]

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.

[Jehanne]

My son works at one of the local grocery stores. Lots of strange behavior going on, such as large purchases of bottle water; the store is using flatbeds to haul the items out to peoples' cars.

[GrandizerII]

There would be no survival if that were to happen.

[Anomalocaris]

There would be no survival if that were to happen.

If the attack is primarily counterforce, the civilian population would still take a big toll, but by no means would it be “no survival”.   

If Cold War and early post-cold war studies remain valid, a limited exchange of 1000 warhead will kill about 1 in 10 american.    A all out exchange of 15000 warheads, three times more than Russia has now, will kill about 1 in 2 Americans.

However,  Cold War studies also say losing 1 in 4 people in one go is the threshold at which deep societal collapse will occur what will take long time to recover from.    If Russia does launch all her nukes at us, then we will be skirting deep societal collapse that will take long time to recover from.

[Rahn127]

Surviving the initial blast takes distance and if you can't get that then you need an underground bunker with a good 3-5 feet of concrete all around you and or 20-60 feet of dirt. A nearby cave would be good for the initial blast.

It's after that blast that there becomes an issue.
Heat wave of very hot and fast moving air will scorch anything on the surface for miles around.

Then you have to contend with the radioactive ash and particles in the air. Your underground bunker may have an air vent and that fresh air vent can also bring in radioactive material.

The cave you duck into may fill with radioactive material or maybe the air in there will provide a buffer zone. Hard to say.

Wild game in the surrounding 30 mile radius will not be able to be eaten. Same thing goes for any outdoor fruits or veggies.

Good luck

[Foxaèr]

All the survivalist preppers are probably thinking, Bet you don't think we're so crazy now, huh?

[arewethereyet]

Jim Bakker is probably selling a bunch of his buckets of survival food.

[Mister Agenda]

In most cases, the ideal use of a nuclear weapon for maximum destruction involves an air burst, which has a lot less fall out, but a wider radius of destruction, depending on the altitude. People who don't live near a military base, missile silo, or major city would likely be in no immediate danger from the burst or fallout (unless the air currents have it out for them). It could be impossible to sustain a nationwide government in the aftermath of 10% or more of the population dying and massive infrastructure damage in a very short timeframe.

[The Grand Nudger]

Just look at what happened when .2% of us died from something over a couple years, eh?