I was digging through this nuclear survival guide recently, it was as entertaining as it is informative. But it got me thinking, how the heck would I survive a nuclear attack and is anyone else even remotely ready for one?
How would you survive?
I wouldn’t.
Not even worth thinking about.
If the initial blast didn’t kill me, the fallout certainly would. If I somehow survived all that, starvation (or, even more likely dehydration) would kill me.
Even a moderate exchange would cripple the technological society we live in. No power, no food, no water.
Game over, man!
Without my meds, I doubt I would survive very long anyway. Not to be thought about.
Living east of Sacramento, I don’t think I would be in too much danger, unless the fallout cloud from the Bay Area blows this far east. I don’t think Sacramento is a target, though Beale Air Force Base north of here is a home base for B1s.
I guess it depends on the magnitude of the exchange. In a full shooting war, Sacramento is undoubtedly targeted by multiple warheads.
The closest thing i’ve seen to acknowledging that it’s mostly luck and community and location is a really old classic called Alas Babylon. It’s set on the Florida coastline and it’s still probably too optimistic (someone’s grandad was a rum runner and knew where a natural salt mound was in the marshes and they found it nearly immediately based on fifty year old diary descriptions of the landscape. I grew up on the carolina marsh coast - very similar environment and I call bullshit) but it at least recognizes things like the dangers of ‘hot’ materials being stealth killers, and doctors being prime kidnap victims because of their knowledge and supplies.
All i can say is that all those gun nuts stocking up around here for ‘defending’ their life and stuff better get damn good at glancing headshots on squirrels and bunnies with those AP rounds because otherwise there won’t be anything left to put in their pots.
Step 1 is to not be inside the blast radius.
Step 2 is to not look directly at the blast
Step 3 is to stay away from windows facing the blast
Step 4 is to get away from the fallout for at least a few weeks, either in an underground shelter or far away
Step 5 is find water, food, and medical care for yourself and the people who didn’t follow steps 1-4
At this point, give yourself a pat on the back, you’ve survived a nuclear attack.
As for me personally, I live far enough out in the suburbs that I suspect I’ll be outside the blast radius (barring an errant warhead), so Step 1 complete. For Step 2, I don’t know, but I don’t spend a lot of time staring forlornly in the direction of the most likely nearby blasts, so I’m probably okay there. Step 3 is similar to my Step 2 strategy. Step 4 involves using my vehicle if the wind is blowing my way and hunkering down at home if it is not. For Step 5, I have about 250 gallons of fresh water, several months worth of food, and some basic medical supplies (including Potassium Iodide. Fortunately everyone in my family is (currently) healthy and not in need of life-sustaining medicine or treatment or anything like that. Oh, and I’m ready to shoot the baddies.
I will survive as long as my insulin holds out. I say a month. As a T1 my pancreas makes none. Food, ammo, ability to hunt and fish ( if not contaminated) and emergency goods are all here in my house and storage on site. So my husband and adult children would hang on awhile. That is if they aren’t killed in the blast.
Moved to IMHO from General Questions.
samclem, moderator
I live about 15 miles from StratCom at Offut AFB. Survival is out of the question.
I lived closer growing up. At the height of the Cold War we would have drills. The Nuns would have us crouch under our desks and pray the Rosary. We woiuldn’t have even seen the flash…
Be a bit more careful with step 2. Don’t look at the fireball either, not just the initial blast. The fireball will persist for quite some time, and will contain substantial amounts of UV radiation that will severely damage your eyes. Remind any small children or adults that seem interested in looking at the thing that is ending their civilization as well.
Step 3, as well, you don’t need to be looking out a window for the glass to harm you, sitting near it and reading a book is just as dangerous. There is also the fact that if you don’t know that you are going to be nuked, and you hear a rumbling outside, you may be tempted to look out the window to see what is going on.
As for your last sentence, I hope that works out for you. There are many preppers who think that a gun is all they need, because they will take the supplies that other people have laid down.
I don’t expect to survive in any meaningful sense.
I probably won’t suffer a direct hit, but fallout is going to be shit around here. Still should be able to hunker down in the basement and hopefully wait that out.
I have some supplies put back that would suffice for a little bit. But they won’t last forever, and I honestly expect that we’ll be killed by defensive firearms enthusiasts before we get a chance to starve or die of dehydration. ETA as k9befriender just implied.
My house is about 6 miles in a straight line from the US Capitol building, my office about 9 miles. There’s some relatively significant variation depending on the size of the bomb and exactly where it detonates but pretty much anything over 1 megaton anywhere within proper city borders there’s a very high likelihood I’m toast instantly or very soon after.
.
I’d make sure to jump just as the shockwave hit and slo-mo dive to safety.
It takes planning to survive. Your chances are time-limited; people in the United States only get the choice whether to survive once every four years, near the beginning of November.
THAT’S how you survive. Don’t have a war in the first place.
My short term survival odds are not too bad considering my location (halfway between Denver and Omaha). With that being said. I expect to be passing through the digestive tract of scavengers within days. Lack of meds combined with physical limitations would make me easy pickings.
Given that even a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia would be significantly smaller these days than in the 60s, I’m looking pretty good. Back then I would have been screwed, living right next door to a major MATS base, just over the hill from a major SAC base and just down the road from the largest rail yard on the West Coast. With the lousy targeting accuracy back then, the strategy was to dump multiple warheads into the target area. Now, with much more accurate weapons, they would send fewer to do the job. Not that the job is there anymore. Both of the air bases are decommissioned and I’ve moved a few miles further away from the rail yards. Any attack these days I would watch on my TV, not experience in person.
I’m a “prepper”, but not in the usual sense of the word. I have a gun. A cheap .45 with a clip of hollow point rounds for just that situation. I’ve evaluated my life, my presumed survival skills in the new post-nuclear-war world, my view of the world and mankind in general and imho it’s pretty grim as it is now. I wouldn’t want to survive a nuclear war and I won’t, not long anyway.
BTW Lasciel as realistic or not as “Alas Babylon” was or wasn’t for the time it was written and set in, it’s still an enjoyable read, though a bit dated today for certain.
As a nuclear “aficionado,” I have some insight into this topic.
If a nuclear power with sufficient capability (i.e. Russia) were to launch a pre-emptive counterforce strike against the U.S. today I would survive only by virtue of being way off any target that would be considered. In a counterforce strike the opponent attempts to eliminate the ability to strike back. In such a scenario many “soft” targets like big cities are not targets. But at the same time any city that hosts a military installation basically becomes a target because a 1 megaton hydrogen bomb will probably destroy the city and kill almost all people within a 15 mile detonation radius. Radioactive fallout, the ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP), and long term agricultural destruction would doom the rest of the survivors.
To answer the OP, by week 2 after said attack I, along with about 90% of the American population, would be in dire straights looking for food, safe water, and shelter.
So how would I survive? I wouldn’t. We are all so dependent on electricity and basic infrastructure services that (I’ll predict) a year after a counterforce strike 90% of Americans would be dead.
Is that frightening? It should be. That’s why Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) worked so well during the Cold War. This was well put in the movie “Wargames”: “The only winning move is not to play.”
If the blast doesn’t kill you and you are able to escape and are resourceful, you can survive. For how long and the quality of life are what are in question. Pack yourself a bag with a clean suit, an N.B.C. Mask, duct tape, potassium iodide pills, fire starter, high energy compact foods, a radio (Baofeng, Kenwood etc…) a small water filtration system, enough water to get you to an area outside of the fallout and of course, weapons. If you survive the blast, grab the bag and get set up, escape to an area where the wind will not carry a substantial amount of fallout/or where it may settled, and preferably sheltered and out of densely populated areas(or what once was).
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.