Updated rules on preparedness for nuclear explosion | Hacker News Reader

Updated rules on preparedness for nuclear explosion

ready.gov

127 pointsta988176 comments

[2021], except for:

    $ diff -u 1.txt 2.txt
    --- 1.txt 2022-02-28 23:02:05.000000000 -0500
    +++ 2.txt 2022-02-28 23:02:41.000000000 -0500
    @@ -98,11 +98,10 @@
         Nuclear Explosion Information Sheet (PDF)
         Download the FEMA app
         Centers for Disease Control
    -    Health and Human Service
         Get inside, Stay inside, Stay Tuned Video (English)
         Get inside, Stay inside, Stay Tuned Video (Spanish)
         U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
         Coronavirus (Federal Government Response)
         Keeping Children Healthy During the COVID-19 Outbreak
     
    -Last Updated: 02/19/2021
    +Last Updated: 02/25/2022

1.txt: http://web.archive.org/web/20220206045759/https://www.ready....

2.txt: http://web.archive.org/web/20220226211632/https://www.ready....

Yes, seems like just a related page was removed, and any page that referenced it was automatically updated. I think the "Updated rules" in the title of this post is unnecessary and probably causing needless concern for people. None of the content in the page seems to have changed in at least the past year.

Given that nothing has actually been updated in the rules, maybe a mod should update the title of this post?

If you have just survived a nuclear explosion and find yourself in need of assistance, call 911 and be sure to let the operator know if you have or believe you may have COVID-19.

Absolute insanity.

"Many people may already feel fear and anxiety about the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The threat of a nuclear explosion can add additional stress"

Ah, yes, a little additional stress from the nuclear explosion over and above covid. It's hard to know if this was written with a straight face or not.

"If possible, please position the nuclear blast between yourself and COVID-19 in order to minimize proximity to COVID."

"In the post-apocalyptic wasteland, breaking in to warehouses to steal and hoard COVID-19 vaccines should be your first priority. Your mind will be at ease knowing these can be stored or long periods by burying them in the glaciers that will rapidly form as the atmosphere will be black with radioactive dust for many years. Social distancing and mask wearing should be your next priority. The global failure of agriculture and radioactive contamination of surface water are the next concerns."

Geez, I shouldn't have clicked on "Threads".

So we are getting the glaciers back?? What a win

Note that this is not a direct quote. That bit about COVID-19 appears in a big paragraph about what to do if you’re sick or injured. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a shared boilerplate across lots of government websites about emergencies. This whole page mentions COVID-19 a few times but really isn’t as ludicrous or reminiscent of satire as people here are making it out to be.

I expect you're right. I think a number of these sections were copied from a similar page on COVID-19, e.g. in the section about preparing early, it refers to the emergency as a pandemic:

> Remember that not everyone can afford to respond by stocking up on necessities. For those who can afford it, making essential purchases and slowly building up supplies in advance will allow for longer time periods between shopping trips. This helps to protect those who are unable to procure essentials in advance of the pandemic and must shop more frequently.

There's also this one talking about a flood under Prepare Now:

> If you are able to, set aside items like soap, hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol, disinfecting wipes, and general household cleaning supplies that you can use to disinfect surfaces you touch regularly. After a flood, you may not have access to these supplies for days or even weeks. Keep in mind each person’s specific needs, including medication.

Most likely this was prepared quickly by pulling content from other preparedness pages. (which is really ok, a lot of preparedness works for most emergencies, although some more editing would be nice)

There's lots of bits about COVID-19, and what I paraphrased came from the part about what to do after you have survived a nuclear explosion.

I think the more likely explanation is simply that it was written by people in disaster management who have a myopic focus on the COVID-19 crisis and a vested interest in keeping COVID under their purview (i.e., to be seen as an ongoing disaster).

Whole new branches of government (and corporate governance) have now been created thanks to Covid—19. These new bureaucracies are getting money and the people getting those funds have a vested interest in continuing to get those funds.

Right. For some reason people get offended and lose their ability for rational thought if you mention this obvious fact though.

They'll rail against government corruption in the military industry, tobacco and alcohol, the healthcare industry (including the pharmaceutical industry pre-vaccines), private prisons, the energy industry. But mention that some government department or agency might have an interest in exaggerating or perpetuating the problem it is tasked with addressing, and suddenly everybody loses their minds.

But there are several places where the majority of the text is about covid-19 precautions. Example:

> Go to the basement or middle of the building. Stay away from the outer walls and roof. Try to maintain a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household. If possible, wear a mask if you’re sheltering with people who are not a part of your household. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and those who are unable to remove masks on their own should not wear them.

If you're suddenly sheltering with a bunch of unknown people, then taking aggressive hygeine precautions is just sensible so you don't all get the same illness within days of a major disaster.

You also need to be constantly cleaning everything (military barracks aren't just doing that for discipline purposes).

I figured that one was for radiation, not covid.

> If you are told by authorities to evacuate to a public shelter, try to bring items that can help protect yourself and your family from COVID-19, such as hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol, cleaning materials, and two masks per person. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and people who cannot remove masks on their own should not wear them.

I beg to differ.

During the Cold War, I believe the official British advice to be broadcast to the populace in the event of nuclear attack was "First, go make tea," because it was the most ingrained and instinctive thing every Briton knew how to do, and would best maintain calm. Whatever this advice says about Americans, I would like to fix it and elect the opposite of the thing perpetuating it, please.

It's the news. Fear is their business model and they're all hurting, so they gotta ratchet it up to keep the dollars coming. The whole Appleby's advert in the middle of the Ukraine raid siren is the epitome of what they do. They also have a lot of sway in getting pols elected. It only works when people get fooled by it. The spell will break soon I hope.

"survived a nuclear explosion" and arent blind, deaf, or dying, use a magical telephone that also survived a massive EMP rendering most telco switching equipment useless, and inform the nonexistent person at the other end of the line you would like to experience mass-casualty triage at an already entirely overloaded US hospital, presuming you have insurance.

Would hate to see the copay for radiation burns

I have bad news: your health insurance policy may not cover acts of war.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/aetna-sued-for-acts-w...

Not too surprising, they barely cover anything else.

Personally, a government that takes 50%+ of my income producing this kind of garbage-level content scares me more than COVID ever did.

What the fuck am I/are we paying for?

It seems like we were meant to be in a constant state of fear. The war on terror seems to have abated and now we get to worry about covid and nuclear explosions?

I believe it was steve pinker who showed that we live in the most peaceful time in human history. And yet, we are the most fearful people in history. It never lets up.

What's your BATNA? Hmm?

Edit: I just skimmed the document. It's really not that bad.

Hey, they're also producing the nuclear weapons. :)

Are they though? I’m not exactly confident those work anymore. Our subs keep crashing in to underwater mountains.

That's not the fault of the subs, it's the sleep deprived and overworked crews, and inexperienced and also sleep deprived officers manning them. Our ICBMs will work perfectly when they are accidentally launched.

Or it may be because the military has shrewdly shifted their priority from operational capability to ensuring peoples' feelings don't get hurt.

Maybe the technology will work a little too perfectly so the generals will helpfully circumvent the civilian government and phone their friends in the CCP to warn them ahead of time so they won't feel offended.

The case you’re slyly referring to was pretty much treason.

Imagine if today a US general called Russia to let them know we wouldn’t launch nukes if the president asked.

It would be all you hear about on CNN.

The maximum tax bracket is 37%

It can get worse if you add in local taxes.

(Another comment already said this but they used the word "midwit.")

An entirely relevant observation. The kinds of people that pretend the top tax bracket is 37.5% are the kinds of people that don’t understand payroll tax or sales tax.

For example for experimental vaccines with uknown contracts.

Seems pretty reasonable though. Wearing masks and some amount of social distancing isn’t that hard, and reducing other strains on the medical system during nuclear war seems prudent.

Oh I totally agree with you, my problem with it is that they missed out some pretty basic fundamental advice. Like if there's a nuclear winter and subsequent collapse of society it's very important to huddle together for warmth in groups of no more than 3 while your nomadic tribe follows the migrating buffalo herds. See it sounds obvious now but it's easy to miss these trifling details.

Right. What little is left of the medical system now is only a million and twenty three times overburdened instead of a million and twenty four. I guess it's good to inject some humor into dark situations.

Actually LOL’d!

I think they just mixed up a page on pandemics in general:

> This helps to protect those who are unable to procure essentials in advance of the pandemic and must shop more frequently. In addition, consider avoiding WIC-labeled products so that those who rely on these products can access them.

At first I thought this was a parody, it's so ridiculous the way they added random COVID preparedness bits into it.

“Also, ensure your most recent tax information is up to date using e-file on IRS.gov”

It really seems like we're approaching peak clown world. We are not being led by serious people.

At least the mask is dropping!

(Haha.)

Yes. If there's a nuclear explosion close enough that you need to take shelter, 911 isn't coming whether you tell them you have COVID or not, assuming you can even reach them, which is dubious.

> If there's a nuclear explosion close enough that you need to take shelter, 911 isn't coming

Not necessarily true. Even if you are quite far away, going inside to avoid the fallout is a very strategy and 911 will (most likely) at least be available.

The comments here are silly.

You can absolutely prioritize your risks, which means you’re not precluded from taking sensible precautions if you’re able to. This isn’t rock/paper/scissors. If you’re far enough away from the point of impact and the winds are right, Covid might be more of a threat than a nuclear bomb.

If you’re two states away from where a bomb goes off, and insist on open-mouth kissing strangers as they cough on you, that’s up to you. But also you can just throw on a mask and step a few feet back from folks and be a little safer.

Also, really bad scenarios can often stem from a couple of things going wrong all at once. So just be safe and use as much good judgment as the situation allows. And lean on easy, automatic, strategies to help you not compound issues.

No, what's silly is filling people's heads with rubbish about COVID in case of a nuclear disaster or other acute emergency.

Hand sanitizer is absolutely not the right thing to be concerned with. Masks perhaps, but not for COVID.

Storing clean water, minimizing your perishable food waste, securing your house/shelter and making makeshift repairs to damage, using a radio (e.g., from your car) to listen for information, etc., keeping a basic first aid kit around and understand basic wound management, are all far more important.

Social distancing because of covid comes in at around number 32,238 of things to worry about.

Remember kids, the best time to needlessly contract a disease is right after a nuclear blast has rendered any aid completely inaccessible.

Also considering that one of the parts that suggests hand sanitizer says the following

If you are able to, set aside items like soap, hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol, disinfecting wipes, and general household cleaning supplies that you can use to disinfect surfaces you touch regularly. *After a flood*, you may not have access to these supplies for days or even weeks. Keep in mind each person’s specific needs, including medication. Don’t forget the needs of pets. Obtain extra batteries and charging devices for phones and other critical equipment.

The "After a flood" part makes me think this is just general disaster preparedness and has nothing at all to do with COVID.

Edit: There was another part about hand sanitizer that was much more COVID-19 related that I missed the first time, my mistake. But the entire page looks like a copy-pasted frankenstein.

Again, COVID is just not that high a concern to mention it 8 times on a short page that is supposed to be giving advice about surviving a nuclear explosion.

You also don't want to light yourself on fire if you're cold, slit your wrists to drink the blood if you get thirsty, or try to loot the nearest gun store for protection.

Bringing hand sanitizer with you is stupid and ridiculous, and so is social distancing from your family or people who you are with while you're trying to help each other through the disaster. It's idiotic and wrong. Again, water, shelter, warmth, and basic communication are the most important.

Covid is an absolute non-issue in this situation.

You're being incredibly hyperbolic with the "8 times" you keep saying. Only like 2 of those times are actually instructions about what to do if you have COVID.

The other are actually useful things, like: "While commuting, identify appropriate shelters to seek in the event of a detonation. Due to COVID-19, many places you may pass on the way to and from work may be closed or may not have regular operating hours."

You think that's bad, it's nothing compared with how hyperbolic the idiotic website is being about the danger of covid during a nuclear attack.

It appears from the wayback machine that they added the COVID precautions on or around November 11, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201111235211/https://www.ready...

A reminder that at that time there were no vaccines available, and the US was seeing a fairly large increase in both cases and deaths.

So someone was tasked with adding COVID precautions to this document then, and they have not been removed.

The idea that disease is a non-issue during a disaster (nuclear or otherwise) seems rather myopic. After a disaster, resources will be scarce, people may have to fend for themselves for a while or travel because they've been displaced. Why you wouldn't take reasonable and simple precautions to not throw disease on top of that is beyond me.

It also mentions not using disinfectant wipes on your skin, which is likely because it can cause irritation. Skin irritation also seems like an "absolute non-issue" and yet you aren't taking umbrage with that.

Again, see my previous post. Putting covid 8 times there (and no mention of any other disease or infection) is stupid and wrong.

Bleeding control, preventing infection of open wounds, and basic splinting of broken bones etc are all far higher priority on the medical scale anyway.

Why are you making excuses for this absurdity?

You do realize that this advice is supposed to apply for some time into the future, i.e. potentially during the next wave, right? Risk assessments are fluid and change with conditions. Covid precaution hostility is not rational.

No, they're clearly talking about quite immediately afterwards (as well as mentioning covid before, and during).

You do realize that this advice is useless at best, and that it is deliberate covid fearmongering, right?

I think you may have a reading comprehension issue, but this clearly isn't a conversation worth having.

I think you're unable to cope with the reality that covid is not as big a problem as you have been lead to believe, or that many government bureaucrats in charge of policies and response and advice are nitwits and have conflicting interests.

Wearing a mask also seems sensible to keep the radioactive fallout out of your lungs and thanks to Covid, most people have masks on their person most of the time right now. If you survive the initial blast, fallout is the thing that you need to be weary off and radioactive dust is just nasty. Your concern right after that should be staying safe, cleaning up, and minimizing the risk off radiation sickness, cancer, etc. The article does a good job of giving you some simple hints here of what might be helpful here. The covid thing is just ass coverage, I guess. It's the modern equivalent of making sure the deck chairs are properly arranged on the Titanic. It's not going to be a primary concern for anyone right after a nuclear attack.

No, the page is truly absurd. It mixes things up so much that you can't even tell why you're supposed to be doing something like wearing a mask. What kind? Gas mask? Cloth mask? Why?

The page is useless as is.

> If you’re two states away from where a bomb goes off, and insist on open-mouth kissing strangers as they cough on you, that’s up to you.

Which states? Two states away can be <10 miles or it can be >500, even if we ignore Alaska and Hawaii.

As to "open-mouth kissing strangers" after a nuke, that's a rational way to build the social structures that you're going to need to survive. Stand back and be the creepy guy. That difference trumps whatever "little safer" you think that you're getting.

> If you’re two states away from where a bomb goes off...

Spoken like someone who isn't from Rhode Island.

The good news is, Providence _probably_ isn't on the top of anyone's to-bomb list, so a direct blast likely isn't going to be a concern.

"The principles of MAD have been narrowed for a post cold-war age. Now that Russia and the United States have decreased their nuclear arsenals, it's been decided mutually that only Providence and Shoyna are to be bombed."

What the fuck, this has to be a parody:

Be Safe AFTER

Immediately after you are inside shelter, if you may have been outside after the fallout arrived. ...

Engage virtually with your community through video and phone calls. Know that it’s normal to feel anxious or stressed. Take care of your body and talk to someone if you are feeling upset. Many people may already feel fear and anxiety about the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The threat of a nuclear explosion can add additional stress. Follow CDC guidance for managing stress during a traumatic event and managing stress during COVID-19.

Last Updated: 02/25/2022

I’m glad I can expect Zoom calls to remain a feature of the post-apocalypse landscape.

Apparently we will have all of the downsides of Armageddon without the bliss of its few upsides.

I’ll make sure to update JIRA ahead of standup the afternoon of the apocalypse.

Being scared/stressed/panicked by a nuclear attack during a pandemic is reasonable. Trying to be conscious about taking care of your mental health during a traumatic event is hard to do, but it’s important. Some people need to be reminded of that. That’s fine.

Yeah, that part is fine.

This way you'll be able to watch the flesh slough from your neighbors bones in realtime.

If you're warned of an imminent nuclear attack, be sure to move towards the expected epicenter of the blast. You'll want to be vaporized rather than cooked alive or suffer fatal radiation sickness (over the period of days or weeks). You'll want to be spared the horror of watching others die and society quickly unravel. You'll want to avoid being a burden on the non-existent safety net that won't survive.

Watch "The Day After". It's probably the most realistic depiction of a post-apocalyptic situation to date. (It's not dramatic and cool, or cinematic--long, boring, and flat out horrifying.)

It it is absolutely not- sugar coated bullshit. You need to watch "Threads" - a British production from the 80s. Terrifying: https://archive.org/details/threads_201712

Because I am apparently a masochist, I watched Threads for the first time in the week leading up the the war. It lives up to its billing.

I'm not sure advocating suicide is the best advice.

For a large area around a nuclear blast you'll be dead anyways. It's just choosing to minimize suffering on the way out.

If we are envisioning a single “nuclear explosion” (not a large nuclear attack), then this advice is not as crazy as it might seem. Think terrorism, or accident. If you survive the initial event, and the rest of the country is immediately in a position to render aid, then your objective is just to stay healthy and safe for the 1-4 days it would take to start getting things sorted out. In that scenario, access to clean water, first aid, and not getting covid actually seem like reasonable things to worry about.

There’s not really any good advice in a MAD scenario. Only a tiny faction of people would be able to set out for the wilderness and survive. The vast majority will die of exposure of one kind or another regardless of how much prepping they do.

Well, also the wilderness can't support a large foraging population for more then a couple weeks at most. Like, there are straight up too many people for wilderness survival to work at scale - North Korea is in widespread ecological collapse because its population has essentially stripped the wilderness bare trying to survive.

I thought this was satire, but then I saw the .gov

We are living in a satire universe folks.

The US govt is literally adopting the dumbest takes on Twitter[1] as official policy.

[1] https://twitter.com/DanaHoule/status/1496723469890949127

As far as I can tell, this person is not in government [1] and is not claiming to represent anyone but themselves. I don't understand how you conclude that their comment is US govt policy.

[1] https://newrepublic.com/authors/dana-houle

The OP is the government policy... the tweet is a dumb take. Do you not see any overlap between the dumb take and the government policy?

Sorry -- I misread your comment. Thought you were saying the tweet represented US policy.

That's not such a dumb take, diseases and wartime conditions go hand in hand.

Forest for the trees.

These are the type of things that had to be a result of government bureaucracy and unnecessary rules. Probably something like "All guidance must mention xyz about COVID".

In case of nuclear hellfire, remember to continue to be scared of Covid.

These are hard trade offs to make. Covid is increasing in Ukraine as people make this trade off. I read that they have run out of oxygen tanks.

One horseman at a time please.

  1952 - "Duck and cover"
  2022 - "Mask and distance"

Duck and cover; still laughable after all these years:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60

"Fallout" is far more useful than current covid information sites. It's sad how far the US gov't has fallen in 70 years:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GFmy55rPrT0

Remember: In case of nuclear blast, stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye!

“After a flood, you may not have access to these supplies for days or even weeks.”

Looks like part of this was copypasted, and no one bothered to proofread it.

Serious question: should we all get tarps to cover up the ground around us before fallout comes? We could save significant topsoil this way.

If that makes you feel better; go for it.

“Space Weather” preparedness is an interesting read too https://www.ready.gov/space-weather

I am genuinely asking; how worried should we be?

I'm really freaking out about this...

My dad spent his career processing nuclear waste as chemical engineer. I called him over the weekend to ask about the prospects of surviving a nuclear strike. We had a good long chat about it, but the summary is that if you can avoid direct exposure to the initial gamma ray burst, and then avoid the fallout for at least a few hours (ideally longer if you can), you actually have a sizable chance of survival.

After that it's a matter of cooperating with the people around you for the basic needs. It would be pretty grim, but people could still rebuild civilization.

Have a battery powered portable radio! I’ve read that the amount of fallout that comes down (and thus the amount of time you’ll want to wait in shelter to avoid the initial fallout) can vary dramatically depending on yield, blast location, wind speed, etc.

A battery powered portable radio will let you access the information you need to know if you should be sheltering for 2 hours, 2 days, or a week.

Also, a battery powered emergency radio will be absolutely useful in a wide variety of other (probably much more likely) disaster scenarios.

Dumb question that's going to reflect a lot of basic ignorance about hardware, electricity, and magnetism: how do I protect this radio from EMP? Similarly, what's going to ensure that the broadcast infrastructure survives the blast and EMP to disseminate information to the people with radios?

My answer is: I wouldn't go out of my way to. For me, a nuclear disaster is pretty low on my list of scenarios, so it's not worth the extra effort to shield it.

Maybe the blast is further away, and the EMP isn't strong enough to harm your radio. Maybe while it's off without batteries the EMP doesn't induce enough current to harm the radio.

Maybe the EMP destroys your radio entirely, and you have a non-functional radio. Then you're not really worse off than if you didn't have the radio to start with.

For the transmitter: obviously nothing you can really do there to prepare yourself. Again it depends on where the blast is, and where the transmitter(s) are. Also, transmitters can obviously be moved around, so it's possible that the stationary transmitter near you is destroyed, but 24 hours later someone has set up a portable transmitter and started broadcasting (very likely for any disaster that has some semblance of emergency response after the fact).

And remember: this is going in your emergency preparedness kit, not your "nuclear blast" kit. Your radio is unlikely to suffer an EMP in the event of a hurricane, earthquake, extended winter storm power outage. In many of those scenarios, the radio would be useful for locating emergency response.

So, having a portable radio in your emergency kit isn't a guarantee that you'll have a portable radio in a disaster (it may get damaged in flooding, for example), but rather a gamble that in a disaster you'll have a 95% chance of having a workable radio.

I'm by no means an expert on nuclear blast survival, and what to do after the fact, but I do know that radios are a useful part of a disaster preparedness kit, that'll be useful in almost every disaster scenario.

A metal box.

EMP isn't magic: it's an induced electric field in any long conductor from the a broadband intense burst of electromagnetism - basically any conductor turns into an antenna.

This sucks for transistor electronics because they're tiny, and the induced current can easily damage and blowout MOSFETs.

But any sealed metal container is a Faraday cage: the net electric field across it is zero. Same story for anything buried underground - the ground is conductive and zeros out the induced field almost immediately.

So pretty much a metal box is high likelihood, a buried metal box guaranteed.

Ok, this covers my end. What about the broadcast end? It's not like they can collapse down the antenna and bury the transmitter in an ammo can when the antenna is a couple hundred feet tall and permanently attached to the transmitter.

Is there some kind of national contingency plan for this or something whereby there's a a way to get critical radio infrastructure back up after a nuclear exchange?

What did he have to say about decontaminating top soil?

We didn't get into that specifically, but the part that struck me as hopeful is that the most dangerous fallout also inherently has the shortest half-lives. Of course you wouldn't be able to completely avoid exposure, but with small enough doses you can survive for quite a long time.

I wouldn’t be too worried. The best things you can do to prepare are often the same kinds of other disaster prep you should do. Have a couple of weeks of water stored safely in your house. Have a small emergency supply of food. Have a well stocked first aid kit (watch for expirations). Have a battery powered portable radio.

Look at ready.gov for a checklist: https://www.ready.gov/kit

Such a kit will have the high value things you’ll need for a wide array of emergencies (hurricane, extended power outages, other natural disasters, etc).

(Adding on) If doing stuff helps you with worrying, then assembling the emergency kit is a pretty good thing to do. Chances are, you won't need it for nuclear war, but having it will help you be prepared for other emergencies that are probably more likely, too.

Having been one who grew up during through the cold war in the 80s, it's just something you have to accept. I remember in 4th grade on the playground, the kids (me) were debating with the teacher whether it was better to stand outside and get nuked or go inside and live through the aftermath.

Having said that and having lived through all this before and nothing happened, I wouldn't worry too much. Also read Alas Babylon, it's pretty good and related.

On a side note, we could also get hit by an asteroid at any time with no notice, so there's always something to make you unease if you dwell on it.

either way nothing you can do. So don't worry until there's something you can control

Not worried at all.

If a nuclear war happens, you probably won't know about it for very long. So why bother stressing?

This is like asking whether you should be worried about the fact that you will die someday. If you sweat that sort of thing, you'll never get anything done.

Either we all die or we don't[1], either way there's nothing you can do. I'm sure there's things you can be worried about that you can actually affect.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs

That’s not quite true! If you live, a little prep will go a long way.

Have an emergency kit (see ready.gov for a good checklist). If you survive, such a kit will help significantly in the immediate aftermath.

It’s also a useful kit for a wide array of (more likely) natural disasters.

After you’ve put together your kit, then I agree. You’ve done your prep, nothing else you can control about it, so don’t stress too much about it.

I have no interest in living after society breaks down.

Not every disaster will involve the break down of society. It's entirely possible that a nuclear strike won't end all life on earth.

I personally wouldn't be so quick to give up, but to each their own.

Not extremely. Helpful stuff to know, but there is, right now, no real reason for anyone to launch an attack of this scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

Don't freak out. I am not at all worried, you should not be either.

We've lived under this threat for, what, 70 years now? You just have to learn to put it out of your mind. Day to day I worry more about someone crashing into my car when I am driving (a much more likely Bad Thing).

I read this from the BBC and it calmed me down a bit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60559574

Depends who you ask. I'm not worried at all as it doesn't benefit either side.

We were much closer in the 80's, nuclear warfare won't break out over this.

MAD should actually help you sleep at night.

I'm no military expert, but it seems like common sense to assume that if the Russian government gets a single nuke off the ground it will be the last thing they ever do.

True, but are you willing to bet Putin isn't that crazy?

We have 70 years of precedent already.

When nuclear superpowers invade another country in a proxy war, the other superpower is allowed to send military aid without threat of nuclear retaliation.

If that wasn't the tacit agreement then WWIII would have already happened over Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan at least.

Honestly its a good thing we've got Biden in power since he's old and mellow and chill and won't be trying to act tough and make shit worse.

Sounds like it is about to get really horrible for the people in Kyiv and Kharkiv though.

> Try to maintain a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household. If possible, wear a mask if you’re sheltering with people who are not a part of your household. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and those who are unable to remove masks on their own should not wear them.

Is there a reason other than Covid-19? I know that when they give Iodine 131 pills to to fight thyroidal gland cancer the patient must be isolated from everyone else because he is radio active. But other than that this doesn't make any sense.

It seems they mis-copy-pasted from a page on pandemics:

> For those who can afford it, making essential purchases and slowly building up supplies in advance will allow for longer time periods between shopping trips. This helps to protect those who are unable to procure essentials in advance of the pandemic and must shop more frequently

Watch the "fallout" video I pasted elsewhere. It covers dealing with contamination.

Last Updated: 02/25/2022

Absolutely insane. And at the same time:

President Biden on Monday rejected concerns about the potential for nuclear war amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Asked if Americans should be worried about a nuclear war, Mr. Biden said: "No."

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-...

> Last Updated: 02/25/2022

I looked up the previous snapshot on Internet Archive, and I see no differences, except maybe some tiny formatting changes (which could also just be a result of how the Internet Archive is rendering it):

https://web.archive.org/web/20220206045759/https://www.ready...

The "Soviet surprise attack" model was always a joke. I can't believe people don't see that. If nukes are used in this war, almost certainly the first ones dropped will be warning shots, detonated underwater or in an uninhabited desert. Just to let the world know that you're serious. There would be plenty of time to try to get away from the major cities and military bases. Of course, those of us who aren't millionaires won't be able to get a plane ticket. But hey, that's capitalism.

Where are you imagining that all the people in the cities would go, and how would they get there? You should look at what the partial evacuation of Houston from Hurricane Rita was like [0]. It took people over a day to get to Dallas. And that was just one city partially emptying, mostly going to other cities.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita#Mass_evacuation

I live about 1300km away from Kiev in Berlin. Any fallout cloud might head my way if the winds are from that direction. Putin is right now leveling cities with heavy artillery and massacring civilians at a scale not seen since WW II in Europe.

So, the chances are he'd actually use a small nuclear weapon to make the point that the Americans are not the only ones who get to level cities with nukes (Nagasaki, Hiroshima). The main point of those attacks was to bomb the Japanese into submission. It worked.

All of the obvious targets for a Russian nuclear attack are cities in the Ukraine. It doesn't have any deserts. It's not a NATO member and his issues are with the Ukrainians and getting the rest of the of the world off his back. Such an attack wouldn't trigger any immediate retaliation from any NATO country. A first strike on the US or NATO member on the other hand would be suicidal as it pretty much would guarantee at least a response in kind and probably more. However, taking out Kiev or a smaller city elsewhere in the Ukraine, would be a desperate move of course but he might get away with it and it would probably lead to capitulation by the Ukrainians.

If he goes there, most of Europe is going to be worrying about fallout. Chernobyl fallout is still a thing in some places. A full nuclear blast, even a small one, might produce a lot more of it. Scary thing that such a thing is even conceivable right now.

I saw these guidelines 6 months ago. Was living in an area that was at legit risk of a nuclear incident.

Saw all the Covid stuff and just started laughing. No sense of scale or proportion here.

If it seems ridiculous to add COVID stuff here, consider that the nuclear stuff is equally ridiculous. No one wants to use nuclear weapons, and if they did it would be against military targets (mostly other nukes). If one did hit a populated area, the region between instantly dead and totally fine is narrow. Yet this page implies all readers are in that region, and the danger of fallout is highly exagerrated. Get to a shelter? What fration of a percent of the population can they accomodate? I just texted 43362 with my zip code (San Jose, CA) and got this reply: "We could not locate a SHELTER within 200 miles of [zip]." Even during the cold war hysteria of the early '80s, my town of 30,000 people had only one shelter: the bank.

The COVID-19 stuff is perfectly at home here.

“Last Updated: 02/25/2022”

Remember kids: In case of global thermonuclear war be sure to wash your hands, cover your face, and keep 6 feet of distance between you and the other survivors who just received lethal doses of radiation.

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”

- Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I (1843)

tbh I am more worried of an EMP nuke detonated high in the atmosphere than localized nuclear explosions. An EMP would lead to famines and total chaos.

To be honest, nuclear threats can pretty much be waved away with mutually assured destruction. I think we're all just saying, "Surely they won't do it..." because we know that if they do, there will be nothing left to worry about / plan for.

Do we know that to be a fact?

It has never happened, so the best we can do is speculate with what we know. The US and Russia did conduct some atmospheric nuclear detonations that unintentionally created EMP's. And determined yes it would be a bad day.

From https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_030...

  "The critical national infrastructure in the United States faces a present and continuing existential threat from combined-arms warfare, including cyber and manmade electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, as well as from natural EMP from a solar superstorm. During the Cold War, the U.S. was primarily concerned about an EMP attack generated by a high-altitude nuclear weapon as a tactic by which the Soviet Union could suppress the U.S. national command authority and the ability to respond to a nuclear attack—and thus negate the deterrence value of assured nuclear retaliation. Within the last decade, newly armed adversaries, including North Korea, have been developing the ability and threatening to carry out an EMP attack against the United States. Such an attack would give countries that have only a small number of nuclear weapons the ability to cause widespread, long-lasting damage to critical national infrastructures, to the United States itself as a viable country, and to the survival of a majority of its population." [Assessing the Threat from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), Executive Report, July 2017]

May Fortune restrain madness.

Nothing about avoiding population centers? My reaction to nuclear attack would be to hightail it into the woods. Take some supplies, wait it out, and try not to be a burden to emergency services.

As for fallout and the like, I would just have to hope. Being far from potential targets and away from major jet streams (or whatever I'm not a meteorologist) would be my way to go.

How are you going to survive in the woods? In many places and times of year this would be very difficult for all but the most intensely prepared or experienced people. And is it even good advice?

I am rather experienced. Eagle scout, that sort of thing. Maybe I should have been more clear: That wasn't advice, just what I think I would do.

I was a ranger in the army, during survival exercise they said the techniques we learned would only apply to surviving during a war. For all other purposes seek civilization as humans are almost unable to survive in the wild anymore. It is very hard to spend less calories trying to get food than what the food you find contains.

I think you are wildly overthinking your ability to survive in the wild. Of course I know nothing about you, so you might be the one in a million that can do it.

Well, I wouldn't be going anywhere with no supplies at all. Considering that just one cooler's worth of food can last me at least a week but almost certainly longer, I wouldn't be really 'roughing it'. I could take a fishing pole, I suppose, but that would really just be amusement and the occasional snack - not a viable source of food.

Probably the one of most useful survival skills I learned in my days as a scout was how to survive off of the shitty food one's patrol cook prepared :)

I can be a week anywhere, in the survival exercise mentioned we went almost two weeks without food. I also try to fast over weekends these days.

The problem is not next few weeks but the rest of our lives. What would you eat next year?

It's one thing to be able to go camping. Long term survival is going to be a lot more challenging, and you won't be the only person taking to the woods looking for resources.

Also, fallout generally goes from what was bombed (cities) to what was nearby (forests and not cities).

I see. Well, it looks like I would probably just end up dead then :)

If you want to live in the woods, fine, but you probably want to wait, inside (in a basement or building interior), for a few days so the shorter halflife stuff in the fallout can decay significantly. Plus you'll want to wait and see where everyone else is going, so you can avoid traffic.

Curious as to why there is no mention of having and taking Potassium Iodide?

"The FDA has approved two different forms of KI (potassium iodide), tablets and liquid, that people can take by mouth after a radiation emergency involving radioactive iodine." If there was a radiation emergency, people should take a drug that would help protect them from thyroid cancer.

For the past few years I've held the view that choosing to live in a large metropolitan area (NYC, DC, SF, Boston) is basically choosing a fast, fairly low-pain death in the event of full-out nuclear war.

Did I get that wrong? Is a barrage of modern weapons actually survivable within city limits?!

Has this site been hacked as a psyops attack?? Usually ready.gov has cute infographics not photos

These are guidelines for preparing for a nuclear explosion, which can happen in contexts other than all-out nuclear war.

Probably not helpful in WW3. Possibly helpful in a "Goldsboro, North Carolina, January 1961 but not lucky" type of situation.

Seems weird to be concerned about social distancing in the event of a nuclear explosion.

Especially considering most mask mandates are being rescinded.

But you’re right. The first concern should be protection from the most immediate threat —which in this scenario would not be Covid-19. That’s bureaucracy for us…

If I were sheltering from a nuclear strike with a bunch of strangers, I think I would do the opposite - encourage everybody to come in close and share lots of hugs. Human beings need contact, especially while experiencing trauma.

Just be sure everyone in the hug was in shelter before being exposed to fallout, otherwise those hugs might be radioactive!

Yes, that's a good point. The document does specifically talk about avoiding contact with fallout, or removing it if necessary. Hopefully everybody gets inside before it drops.

An N95 mask might help with inhaling irradiated dust. But yeah, COVID would be rather low on the list of concerns.

imagine the bad luck if that’s when you contracted it?

Seriously, Covid is extremely low on my list of worries if I am close to a nuclear explosion. Like so far down that I can't see why it should be mentioned at all.

Radiation, access to food/water and breakdown of society are the only realistic concerns I can think of right away.

And I am not really sure if preparing is all that helpful, at least not the kind of preparation that is mentioned here. What I need is a way of providing food long term (years), and be able to defend it. In a place without radiation.

Why? In relative terms, yeah, obviously, but a respiratory virus breakout in a fallout shelter certainly isn’t any less troubling than a respiratory virus breakout at a workplace or music festival.

A covid outbreak in March 02022, when everyone is already vaccinated and the dominant strain of covid is the omicron strain (which, even without vaccination, is only as fatal as the regular flu instead of an order of magnitude worse), is dramatically less troubling than a covid outbreak six months ago, and it isn't worth mentioning in the context of fallout safety rules, except to say not to worry about covid.

I strongly suspect they don’t update these documents every month to keep up to date with different waves. That wouldn’t even make sense for a nation-wide document like this. Most likely these docs just got updated once when COVID first became a big deal, and will be updated again whenever someone decides the pandemic has subsided enough that it doesn’t need to be in these docs.

It says they updated it four days ago

Average flu deaths in the U.S. for the last decade are about 35,000 per year. In the U.S., even with vaccines and Omicron, we still had over 70,000 covid deaths in the last 30 days. Given that a typical flu season is 4 to 6 months long, I would say even the last month Covid has been much worse than a typical flu season. So, a covid outbreak in a fallout shelter would still be very difficult in that environment. There will be many older and otherwise immune-compromised people in a crowded shelter who are susceptible to a still highly contagious virus. It is completely reasonable to at least attempt to be cautious in the short term.

By the way, "everyone" is not vaccinated. Only 65% of Americans are fully immunized at this point. I'm not saying Covid is the threat it was a year ago, but some prudence is still reasonable.

Hmm, I guess you're right. Still, it doesn't seem like the same order of magnitude risk as fallout, civilizational collapse from nuclear war, or foreign invasion, and it's still much lower than the death rates from previous variants.

Presumably the people who aren't vaccinated are the ones who are choosing to take on higher covid risk because they think the vaccination isn't worth it.

+1 Also, this isn't a new threat vector. It's not like someone who hasn't heard of COVID-19 is going to discover this amazing survival tip here for the first time. Probably the doc change was proposed 2 years ago and finally shipped.

I notice that iodine tablets are not mentioned. I realise that iodine isotopes or iodine-like element isotopes are not the main concern after a nuclear weapon hit. But still, do they have no value?

> After a flood, you may not have access to these supplies for days or even weeks.

It's a copypasta from similar guidelines for flooding events

The sections mentioning COVID have been in place for over a year: http://web.archive.org/web/20210326031042/https://www.ready....

i.e., from a time when almost no-one was vaccinated, and the strains of COVID going around were much deadlier. It's absolutely reasonable for the guidelines of that time to try to prevent fallout shelters crammed with thousands of people from all coming down with COVID simultaneously -- and particularly trying to protect aid workers.

I'm about 45 miles from a large US military base, is there a point in doing anything?

Probably. Unless they're missile silos that are housing nuclear weapons meant to be used as part of an automated nuclear response, US military bases are surprisingly low on the nuke priority list.

The eastern seaboard, communications hubs and centers of industry will go first.

It's easy to mop up the military bases once the command structure and supply lines have been annihilated (and defectors/equipment may come in handy post-war). If the aggressor survives the initial strike, they basically just needs to wait.

(That'd only happen if the mutually assured destruction mechanisms failed. They're set up to glassify the surface of the earth once the government collapses. Most military bases get melted during that wave, but then so does everything else.)

The craziest part is that the Russians actually built the doomsday machine from Dr Strangelove, and then kept its existence secret.

Game theoretically, that somehow made it a better deterrent, as sarcastically posited in the film.

At least they didn't do something really dumb, like set the launch codes to all zeros()

() yes, that was the actual launch code. They probably didn't sticky note it to the monitor though, at least at first.

Given that tweets move faster than earthquakes you should have adequate time to get a good viewpoint for the blast.

I picked the worst time to build a deck over the fallout shelter in my backyard.

No shelters within 200 miles of me. I live next to New York City. Are we screwed?

I live next to New York City. Are we screwed

You're probably screwed unless you have an extensive shelter that you can stay in for days or weeks. I'd expect NYC to be high on the list of targets with multiple warheads.

Based on a simulator [1], An single 8 megaton airburst has a 28 mile radius of "extensive injuries/fatalities. With a dangerous fallout cloud hundreds of miles long (winds may blow it toward or away from you)

https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/

(their 1000 warhead large attack scenario predicts almost 200 million deaths across the USA)

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