Say I know an atom bomb is coming my way. I decided that the life of post apocalyptic survivor is not my thing and I decide to cooperate with the inevitable and die in the attack.
I want a quick and certain death. But I also want to enjoy the fireworks as much as I can. I want to see that mushroom cloud. I want to see buildings burst into flames in a second. And once I have seen as much as I can, I want to die in a flash.
Where do I need to go? Make all the assumptions you need in regards to terrain and all that. Only one bomb, though. No distant watching and then waiting for a second bomb over my head to finish me.
You should get a nice thick wall of something between you and the flashpoint – ideally a mountain, hill, or cliff that won’t immediately collapse, or go into a hole in the ground. Otherwise the burst of high-energy photons, gamma rays, and particles will cook you instantly, before you get a chance to enjoy anything. So reconcile yourself to not seeing the fireball, and face away from the blast.
Immediately after the flash goes off, you can look at the effects of that intense bombardment on houses, trees, and buildings. It’s probably a good idea to still wear dark glasses, because the reflections alone could be quite bright, depending upon how close you are.
Then you can let the intense pressure wave and superheated air blow you away when it reaches you.
If you do want to survive, get far enough away – many miles, depending upon the nature and size of the blast (In an H-Bomb blast my home, almost 10 miles from Boston, would still be obliterated, but I’d probably be safe from a sub-Hiroshima mini-fissile nuke) – and simply watch the blast, weakened by the inverse squarelaw of distance, and absorption from the air. Tourists used to do it near Vegas all the time in the fifties. The explosion is supposed to have a purplish cast to it that i never see in films. Be sure to wear dark glasses.
If you are far enough to see the mushroom cloud, which takes maybe a minute to form, then you are likely to survive. Blind, burned, broken, and drooling, but not dead yet. Oh, you might die, depends on how tough you are, and the geometry of the blast wave, and such. But hardly the sure thing you are asking for.
Rooftop, just a few hundred yards outside the fireball, a sure kill, and . . . many milliseconds seconds to enjoy the view. Oh, but you are blinded in the first few microseconds. And your eardrums are among the most sensitive to shock of all your body parts, so, forget listening to the wailing of their women.
Build yourself a shack of fairly flimsy, highly flammable materials, on a hill not far away, you could even survive the blast, and die in the firestorm. That could take minutes. Not a sure kill, though.
This was only a test. Had this been an actual emergency, you’d be writhing on the ground in unspeakable agony, your blackened skin falling away in ragged strips.
Assuming a 1.5 megaton nuke try to be 7-8 miles away. Within 2 miles you are atomized near instantly. 3 miles not atomized but close enough…you’ll fry ASAP. 3-7 miles is probably too close to get a good look. The blast wave will be arriving pretty quickly and likely you won’t have more than a few moments to get a good look, if that, before being smashed. 7-8 miles you are far enough away to have a little bit of time to maybe get a good look at your doom doing its thing. Still not much time but maybe a bit. Beyond that you have a better chance of getting a look but more likely to survive. Much past ten miles and you probably get to enjoy the nuclear holocaust aftermath and succumb to radiation poisoning or starve or whatever.
My best advice is rent Terminator 2 and watch the scene where LA gets nuked then aim to be right under the missile when it detonates in a real war. You won’t even know you died.
Mr. President, I’m not saying that we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say, no more than then to twenty million, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks.
When I lived in Uptown, about 3-4 miles from downtown Minneapolis, and thus had NO chance of making it out of the cities without days of advanced notice, I decided that if the worst happened, I would go out on the deck that faced downtown, sit facing that direction and fashion some aluminum foil like one of those little reflectors you see Gomez and Morticia using while moonbathing on the old The Addams Family show.
Can’t find it and I’m quite sure I responded to say “yeah, I wanted to know that too.” I can even remember the gist of it, which was that if it was someone else’s cancer, your body would recognise it as a clump of foreign cells and the immune system would tackle it.
Don’t you go blind if you get to see that double flash up close and personal ? If so, that would cut short your ambitions of watching the mushroom cloud.
That said, surviving the attack isn’t so bad, you just have to remember to check your Pip-Boy for rads regularly, and obey your Overseer. And do keep that Hunting Rifle at hand - them molerats are a pain in the butt.
