This. Even if I have at the ready a survival kit with a couple of weeks of canned and dried food and potable water, and a couple of firearms and ammo, I’m better off staying in my house.
The majority of responses are missing the point of the OP: knowing that by the time nuclear war breaks out all hope is gone, how far in advance and on what notice do you decide to do something while it’s still doable? Like get the hell out of your prime target completely doomed hometown?
Well, obviously there are a ton of variables, so it depends.
But, at my age and with my limited resources. I’d hope to go quickly from a heart attack or something. I wouldn’t want the blast to be anywhere near me because I would not want my loved ones who live nearby to be affected.
Missing the point might be happening but I’m not sure it’s by those of us near a prime target doomed hometown.
My entire state is a prime target, 60 miles away is a super prime target. I doubt it is possible to get timely enough notice/warning to get nearly two million people out of my state on the few highways we have, over the great distances that would be. Highways would be hopelessly clogged and at a panicked, hysterical standstill within 30 minutes of any warning of a launch being detected. I could, I suppose choose to die in my car in that traffic jam to end all traffic jams or I could choose to be vaporized sitting on my couch, holding my precious cat in my lap, hopefully being able to call my faraway children and tell how much hey are cherished and loved. I choose the couch, the cat and calling my children.
I think it’s wishful thinking that with enough warning a safe orderly evacuation can be done. How and where? Tell us to go to XXX and ZZZ and they’d just redirect the missile there. Besides, XXX and ZZZ don’t want us.
60 miles is pretty far. I ran NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein for a 5 megaton Dong Feng-5 Chinese nuke. I think you’d be well outside the “vaporize” zone. Depending on wind conditions, you may have some fallout and radiation issues.
Nuclear weapons aren’t as “clean” as sometimes portrayed in film. That is to say a blinding white light and everything within some radius is instantly vaporized (while everyone outside that radius experiences a slight “shock wave” effect and are witness to a spectacular mushroom cloud). In reality such a weapon exploding in downtown Manhattan would start a really long bad day of third degree burns and getting pulled out of collapsed buildings for a lot of people between New Brunswick, NJ and New Rochelle, NY.
We have a summer house about 60 miles from NYC near the Pocono Mountains. But a fat lot of good that would do me if I wasn’t already well past Newark when the alert came (or if it was rush hour).
You’re still missing the point. Are you imagining that one day, completely out of the blue with no presaging whatsoever, nuclear war breaks out? I’d say that deterrence has worked well enough for the past six decades that no nuclear power would launch an attack against the continental USA unless things had deteriorated dramatically first. I’m asking at what point in that deterioration would one contemplate trying to beat the rush?
The rush can’t be beaten because everyone else is going to try to beat it too, because we are all hearing the same news, warnings and predictions. There is no secret sauce here. I suppose the rare, wealthy Nebraskan could have a private plane already fueled, capable of them flying themselves to their previously purchased and self-sufficient stocked solar cabin compound with a maintained landing strip in the far Alaskan or Canadian wilderness. Probably less than a dozen Nebraskans with both the money and the will to do that.
I lived through the Cuban missile crisis as a trembling, terrified, sleepless 12 year old. Not going to put myself in that head space again.
I’m not going anywhere pre-emptively. 300 million other Americans have the same info I do and I hate traffic. I’ll wait until the bombs fall to make any decisions. In the unlikely event I’m incinerated*, well, at least I don’t have to deal with the aftermath. After the bombs fall, I’ll seek actual information I can act upon.
*I’m not convinced that a Russian nuclear attack is going to immediately claim as many lives as people think. Their arsenal is likely decrepit and exaggerated. Fallout and nuclear winter (from theirs and ours) is another thing.
When the missiles start flying I plan to go there:
Want to have a good look. Just give me 20 minutes to get there, that’ll do.
BTW: Am I the only one who sees a distinct '80s vibe in this thread?
Skip “Da hills”. Portland down to Grant’s Pass, check the news, then either southwest to the coast (Eurika sounds good) or southeast just a mite.
I think you’re missing the point of most of the responses, at any rate of mine: I don’t care if I could instantly transport myself and my husband to somewhere safe and welcoming (if there is such a place). I don’t want to be around for all the insane shit that will happen to the world after the use of nuclear weapons. There’s no threshold, no advance notice that will change that simple fact. If I were the only person who knew for sure it was going to happen in 30 days, I would not try to save myself.
I’m sure it makes a difference that I am 75 years old already, and have no children. I could not survive living rough or having to grow my own food, even supposing other people would leave me in peace somewhere to do that. Which they would not. Really, what’s the point?
“Missing the point” or otherwise, I live in Ottawa so hopefully the nuclear PTB take Canada seriously enough that I could get downtown, order and enjoy a good meat-lover’s pizza and a really nice dry red before vaporization happens.
I’m not one of those survivable types who would do well in a neo-stone age scenario.
This my attitude. If the bombs fall, I’m going surfing. All the shit in the sky should make for an awesome sunset.
You will remember it for the rest of your life…such as that is.
No, it’s not instantly all or nothing. A handful of people drop everything and run when they hear “Putin threatens…”. A tiny percentage will leave when they hear “NATO forces on alert”. More when “unconfirmed reports that Russian troops have entered Estonia…”, and so forth. It’s a bell curve.
Again, we’re not talking about so instantly that you’re literally outrunning the shockwave. I’m talking about the seven days of leadup.
You are kinda asking when we decide to follow Chicken Little. I think it’s a conservative estimate that 95% of people will not seriously believe there will be a nuclear war until after it actually happens. We are all conditioned to believe that MAD makes intentional nuclear war extremely unlikely. The more likely scenario is an accident or renegade in which there will be no warning.
I learned of a few things to look for back when I was on a SAC Base in Southern California from the fighter pilots, so I might have a slight advantage.
So, a couple of things with the hypothetical, and solutions.
First, a lot of us have mentioned that in anything short of a ‘tactical’ nuclear exchange, say, less than a few dozen relatively low yield weapons, I don’t want to imagine the desperate and ultimately futile struggle against the large number of survivors who are quickly going to be utterly screwed by the collapse of society, ready resources, and long term climatic and radiological consequences.
So, may want to specify the scale of the exchange.
The other issue is the need to survive in our existing world. So most people are saying that they find it unlikely there will be a sufficiently believable, credible, imminent threat that would cause them to “get out of town” before many if not most others are doing the same, causing the same scenarios you find against the hypothetical.
Are you allowed to share?
And many of us are asking “Where would we go” if we got out of town. Very few of us have that well-stocked cabin in the woods. And most of us don’t know if we’d be in a target zone or not. I live 35 miles from an Air Force base. Would that be targeted? Hell if I know.