EFFECTS OF A NUCLEAR BOMB EXPLOSION ON A CITY
NUCLEAR FALLOUT
Fallout is the residual radiation hazard from a nuclear
explosion, so named because it "falls out" of the atmosphere
into which it is spread during the explosion. It commonly refers to the
radioactive dust created when a nuclear weapon explodes. This radioactive
dust, consisting of hot particles, is a kind of radioactive contamination.
It can lead to contamination of the food chain. Fallout can also refer
to the dust or debris that results from the nuclear explosion.
Bush approves nuclear response
America's
Ultra-Secret Weapon, High Power Microwaves
A Soldier's Viewpoint on Surviving Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Attacks
From: SFC Red Thomas (Ret)
Armor Master Gunner
Mesa, AZ
Since
the media has decided to scare everyone with predictions of chemical,
biological, or nuclear warfare on our turf I decided to write a paper
and keep things in their proper perspective. I am a retired military weapons,
munitions, and training expert.
Lesson
number one: In the mid 1990s there were a series of nerve gas attacks
on crowded Japanese subway stations. Given perfect conditions for an attack
less than 10% of the people there were injured (the injured were better
in a few hours) and only one percent of the injured died.
60
Minutes once had a fellow telling us that one drop of nerve gas could
kill a thousand people, well he didn't tell you the thousand dead people
per drop was theoretical.
Drill
Sergeants exaggerate how terrible this stuff was to keep the recruits
awake in class (I know this because I was a Drill Sergeant too). Forget
everything you've ever seen on TV, in the movies, or read in a novel about
this stuff, it was all a lie (read this sentence again out loud!). These
weapons are about terror, if you remain calm, you will probably not die.
This is far less scary than the media and their "Experts," make
it sound.
Chemical
Weapons
Chemical
weapons are categorized as nerve, blood, blister, and Incapacitating agents.
Contrary to the hype of reporters and politicians they are not weapons
of mass destruction they are "area denial," and terror weapons
that don't destroy anything. When you leave the area you almost always
leave the risk. That's the difference; you can leave the area and the
risk but soldiers may have to stay put and sit through it and that's why
they need all that spiffy gear.
These
are not gasses, they are vapors and/or air borne particles. The agent
must be delivered in sufficient quantity to kill/injure, and that defines
when/how it's used. Every day we have a morning and evening inversion
where "stuff," suspended in the air gets pushed down. This inversion
is why allergies (pollen) and air pollution are worst at these times of
the day.
So,
a chemical attack will have it's best effect an hour or so either side
of sunrise/sunset. Also, being vapors and airborne particles they are
heavier than air so they will seek low places like ditches, basements
and underground garages. This stuff won't work when it's freezing, it
doesn't last when it's hot, and wind spreads it too thin too fast. They've
got to get this stuff on you, or, get you to inhale it for it to work.
They also have to get the concentration of chemicals high enough to kill
or wound you. Too little and it's nothing, too much and it's wasted.
What
I hope you've gathered by this point is that a chemical weapons attack
that kills a lot of people is incredibly hard to do with military grade
agents and equipment so you can imagine how hard it will be for terrorists.
The more you know about this stuff the more you realize how hard it is
to use.
We'll
start by talking about nerve agents. You have these in your house, plain
old bug killer (like Raid) is nerve agent. All nerve agents work the same
way; they are cholinesterase inhibitors that mess up the signals your
nervous system uses to make your body function. It can harm you if you
get it on your skin but it works best if they can get you to inhale it.
If you don't die in the first minute and you can leave the area you're
probably gonna live. The military's antidote for all nerve agents is atropine
and pralidoxime chloride. Neither one of these does anything to cure the
nerve agent, they send your body into overdrive to keep you alive for
five minutes, after that the agent is used up. Your best protection is
fresh air and staying calm.
Listed
below are the symptoms for nerve agent poisoning:
Sudden
headache, Dimness of vision (someone you're looking at will have pinpointed
pupils), runny nose, excessive saliva or drooling, difficulty breathing,
tightness in chest, nausea, stomach cramps, twitching of exposed skin
where a liquid just got on you.
If
you are in public and you start experiencing these symptoms, first ask
yourself, did anything out of the ordinary just happen, a loud pop, did
someone spray something on the crowd? Are other people getting sick too?
Is there an odor of new mown hay, green corn, something fruity, or camphor
where it shouldn't be? If the answer is yes, then calmly (if you panic
you breathe faster and inhale more air/poison) leave the area and head
up wind, or, outside.
Fresh
air is the best "right now antidote." If you have a blob of
liquid that looks like molasses or Kayro syrup on you; blot it or scrape
it off and away from yourself with anything disposable. This stuff works
based on your body weight, what a crop duster uses to kill bugs won't
hurt you unless you stand there and breathe it in real deep, then lick
the residue off the ground for a while. Remember they have to do all the
work, they have to get the concentration up and keep it up for several
minutes while all you have to do is quit getting it on you/quit breathing
it by putting space between you and the attack.
Blood
agents are cyanide or arsine which affect your blood's ability to provide
oxygen to your tissue. The scenario for attack would be the same as nerve
agent. Look for a pop or someone splashing/spraying something and folks
around there getting woozy/falling down. The telltale smells are bitter
almonds or garlic where it shouldn't be. The symptoms are blue lips, blue
under the fingernails rapid breathing.
The
military's antidote is amyl nitride and just like nerve agent antidote
it just keeps your body working for five minutes till the toxins are used
up. Fresh air is the your best individual chance.
Blister
agents (distilled mustard) are so nasty that nobody wants to even handle
it let alone use it. It's almost impossible to handle safely and may have
delayed effect of up to 12 hours. The attack scenario is also limited
to the things you'd see from other chemicals. If you do get large, painful
blisters for no apparent reason, don't pop them, if you must, don't let
the liquid from the blister get on any other area, the stuff just keeps
on spreading. It's just as likely to harm the user as the target. Soap,
water, sunshine, and fresh air are this stuff's enemy.
Bottom
line on chemical weapons (it's the same if they use industrial chemical
spills); they are intended to make you panic, to terrorize you, to herd
you like sheep to the wolves. If there is an attack, leave the area and
go upwind, or to the sides of the wind stream. They have to get the stuff
to you, and on you. You're more likely to be hurt by a drunk driver on
any given day than be hurt by one of these attacks. Your odds get better
if you leave the area. Soap, water, time, and fresh air really deal this
stuff a knock-out-punch. Don't let fear of an isolated attack rule your
life. The odds are really on your side.
Nuclear
Weapons
Nuclear
bombs. These are the only weapons of mass destruction on earth. The effects
of a nuclear bomb are heat, blast, EMP, and radiation. If you see a bright
flash of light like the sun, where the sun isn't, fall to the ground!
The heat will be over a second. Then there will be two blast waves, one
out going, and one on it's way back. Don't stand up to see what happened
after the first wave; anything that's going to happen will have happened
in two full minutes.
These
will be low yield devices and will not level whole cities. If you live
through the heat, blast, and initial burst of radiation, you'll probably
live for a very, very long time. Radiation will not create fifty foot
tall women, or giant ants and grass hoppers the size of tanks. These will
be at the most 1 kiloton bombs; that's the equivalent of 1,000 tons of
TNT.
Here's
the real deal, flying debris and radiation will kill a lot of exposed
(not all!) people within a half mile of the blast. Under perfect conditions
this is about a half mile circle of death and destruction, but, when it's
done it's done. EMP stands for Electro Magnetic Pulse and it will fry
every electronic device for a good distance, it's impossible to say what
and how far but probably not over a couple of miles from ground zero is
a good guess. Cars, cell phones, computers, ATMs, you name it, all will
be out of order.
There
are lots of kinds of radiation, you only need to worry about three, the
others you have lived with for years. You need to worry about "Ionizing
radiation," these are little sub atomic particles that go whizzing
along at the speed of light. They hit individual cells in your body, kill
the nucleus and keep on going. That's how you get radiation poisoning,
you have so many dead cells in your body that the decaying cells poison
you.
It's
the same as people getting radiation treatments for cancer, only a bigger
area gets radiated. The good news is you don't have to just sit there
and take it, and there's lots you can do rather than panic. First; your
skin will stop alpha particles, a page of a news paper or your clothing
will stop beta particles, you just gotta try and avoid inhaling dust that's
contaminated with atoms that are emitting these things and you'll be generally
safe from them.
Gamma
rays are particles that travel like rays (quantum physics makes my brain
hurt) and they create the same damage as alpha and beta particles only
they keep going and kill lots of cells as they go all the way through
your body. It takes a lot to stop these things, lots of dense material,
on the other hand it takes a lot of this to kill you.
Your
defense is as always to not panic. Basic hygiene and normal preparation
are your friends. All canned or frozen food is safe to eat. The radiation
poisoning will not effect plants so fruits and vegetables are OK if there's
no dust on em (rinse em off if there is). If you don't have running water
and you need to collect rain water or use water from wherever, just let
it sit for thirty minutes and skim off the water gently from the top.
The dust with the bad stuff in it will settle and the remaining water
can be used for the toilet which will still work if you have a bucket
of water to pour in the
tank.
Biological
Weapons
Finally
there's biological warfare. There's not much to cover here. Basic personal
hygiene and sanitation will take you further than a million doctors. Wash
your hands often, don't share drinks, food, sloppy kisses, etc., ....
with strangers. Keep your garbage can with a tight lid on it, don't have
standing water (like old buckets, ditches, or kiddie pools) laying around
to allow mosquitoes breeding room. This stuff is carried by vectors, that
is bugs, rodents, and contaminated material. If biological warfare is
so easy as the TV makes it sound, why has Saddam Hussein spent twenty
years, millions, and millions of dollars trying to get it right? If you're
a clean person have a clean home you eat well and are active you're gonna
live.
Overall
preparation for any terrorist attack is the same as you'd take for a big
storm. If you want a gas mask, fine, go get one. I know this stuff and
I'm not getting one and I told my Mom not to bother with one either (how's
that for confidence). We have a week's worth of cash, several days worth
of canned goods and plenty of soap and water. We don't leave stuff out
to attract bugs or rodents so we don't have them.
These
people can't conceive a nation this big with this much resources. These
weapons are made to cause panic, terror, and to demoralize. If we don't
run around like sheep they won't use this stuff after they find out it's
no fun. The government is going nuts over this stuff because they have
to protect every inch of
Finally,
there are millions of caveats to everything I wrote here and you can think
up specific scenarios where my advice isn't the best. This letter is supposed
to help the greatest number of people under the greatest number of situations.
If you don't like my work, don't nit pick, just sit down and explain chemical,
nuclear, and biological warfare in a document around three pages long
yourself. This is how we the people of the
SFC
Red Thomas (Ret)
Armor Master Gunner
Mesa, AZ
