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Comment by creativeCak3 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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