"...it's more survivable than most people think"

The bipartisan effort to sell you a bunker, too.

...Over the years, Washington has sought to prevent nuclear terrorism and limit its harm, mainly by governmental means. It has spent tens of billions of dollars on everything from intelligence and securing loose nuclear materials to equipping local authorities with radiation detectors.

The new wave is citizen preparedness. For people who survive the initial blast, the main advice is to fight the impulse to run and instead seek shelter to save themselves and their families from lethal radioactivity.

Administration officials argue that the cold war created an unrealistic sense of fatalism about a terrorist nuclear attack. “It’s more survivable than most people think,” said an official deeply involved in the planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The key is avoiding nuclear fallout.”

The government would like you to ignore all that ash and dust all around you and stay in your basement. Can they sell you some duct tape? You use it to tape a plastic bag around your head. The Homeland Security link [.pdf] says: "Breathing in fallout dust is only a minor concern."

I'll say. Current nuclear devices can vaporize cities. Hiroshima and Nagasaki-style explosions were firecrackers compared to the arsenals of the United States, Russia, and China.

The biggest the Russians ever tested, the Tsar Bomba test, had a blast zone 68 miles wide. It generated enough heat to cause third degree burns 62 miles from ground zero. It blew out windowpanes 170 miles away. In 1961.



One supposes the Powers that Be have improved on this since then- but if they told us, I suppose they'd have to kill us.

That should be easier since our armed forces aren't allowed to read the news anymore to realize what they're doing to whom.

Go hide and duck and cover? Just so you don't get in the way of the Right Sort of People, I suppose, tear-assing away from ground zero as fast as their Authority can take them...

It's obviously not Patriotic to get in their way.