# Your home city gets nuked; what do you do? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 14, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116 "2017-01-14T16:34:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/21 "2017-01-15T02:48:09Z")
I live in Austin, Texas. My parents live in Asia, and I’ve actually been considering a move to Asia at some point, career-wise. So if Austin got nuked, and all of my earthly possessions were gone, I’d probably head to Asia and start a new life there. Assuming that I could still get a plane ticket, which I understand is quite iffy in the OP’s scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/22 "2017-01-15T02:49:13Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > You were away on vacation that is. You get up one morning and the news media are screaming that a large-yield thermonuclear device has incinerated \. . . . I guarantee that the biggest problem is that it won’t just be one city. Technically, if there’s an emergency, city staff are supposed to report to the Emergency Operations Center, ready to help with the emergency. And the county Emergency Operations Plan does have a section on nuclear explosions. But I read it, and it was mostly about helping with the evacuation when a strike was expected. So I’m going to guess that in case of a strike, I’m not really required to report. [quote=“Lumpy, post:1, topic:777116”] . . . [li]Your job? Gone.[/li][li]Insurance- what insurance? Half the insurance agencies in the country just declared bankruptcy. . . . ?[/li][/QUOTE] Nearly ready to retire. Hello, CalPERS. Damn, I need to get medical insurance now. Insurance isn’t going to pay up on the house, which is a shame, but I don’t have that much equity built up. Does a nuclear strike void the mortgage? I guess I’d leave the auto-pay for the mortgage on for at least a couple of months. Give the banks time to ask for government relief. > [@Lumpy](#): > > . . . [li]Your bank account is frozen for the duration of the emergency (week? months? a couple of years?) Maybe your bank went under when the insurance companies did.[/li][li]The credit rating of everyone who lived in your city is now zero.[/li][/LIST]I think we’ve established that insurance won’t be paying out and that banks will probably be operating and required to pay out. My city’s credit rating will have tanked, but my rating will be fine as long as I don’t do something silly like not paying my mortgage. > Now what? > [@Lumpy](#): > > . . . Now what? Wait for news on which other cities were hit. Move in with relatives in Phoenix. Mourn the three generations of family photos that I don’t have to sort now. Wait for the emotional reaction to hit. > [@Gatopescado](#): > > . . . We can talk about the over-kill of nukes, because if my place goes, the enemy obviously ran out of legitimate targets long ago. This. Unless it was some mad tinkerer building a nuke in his garage. In that case, it might have been a small enough boom that I might need to report. [Oh, man. I need to play with[this simulator.](http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)] ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/23 "2017-01-15T03:03:58Z")
Good thing I have two homes that are 6,000 miles apart, my bank is FDIC insured and I have no pets. I’d lose a few really good friends though. I’d get by ok I guess. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/24 "2017-01-15T03:13:28Z")
I live in Dallas, and my parents, brother/SIL ,uncle and cousins all live in Houston, and my MIL/FIL/BIL/SIL and niece/nephew live in Austin, so I imagine I’d go live in Houston near the rest of my family, and occasionally visit my wife’s family (assuming I’m still welcome). I think the hard part would be getting past the loss of my immediate family. My possessions don’t really matter; I’ve made a point over the years of not getting attached. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/25 "2017-01-15T03:24:58Z")
OK. I played with the simulator. Assuming that the detonation no bigger than the Nagasaki bomb and it’s centered on the harbor or City Hall, my house is outside of: [ul]The fireball radius The air blast radius (20 psi overpressure) The radiation radius The air blast radius (5 psi overpressure) and The thermal radiation radius (3rd degree burns) [/ul] It’s not too far outside that last radius, so if fires start, the fires may take down the house. But the land is worth more than the house and the winds should take the fallout east, not towards me. So I’ve got somewhere to rebuild or pitch a tent. Eventually. Also, I’m definitely supposed to report. It only took out about 1/10 of the city. The primary emergency center was nuked, but the secondary one is intact. It would take a Russian Topol (800 kilotons) to get the whole city. If Russia or China is attacking, they’ll be using more than one missile. Wherever I was vacationing, it probably got me. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/26 "2017-01-15T03:39:27Z")
Live in a town on the coast of eastern Taiwan. It would be a major screwup on someone’s part to have wasted a nuke on that. No pets. Only a few personal friends here, although my wife has more. There’s nothing I would lose in the house to worry about. We just back to Taipei to her family’s place instead of home and start from there. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/27 "2017-01-15T03:53:59Z")
Well, my hometown is Washington, DC, so it’ll kind of be a lot of people’s problem. I guess I’d just hang out at my brother’s house in the Shenandoah Valley. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/28 "2017-01-15T04:52:14Z")
I don’t live in a city or even a small town. Assuming an errant nuclear strike on the crossroad, where the one restaurant and the gas station across the street from the one restaurant/bar where hit, I would miss the bar the most. I will need to learn how to make beer. It would be as if millions of screaming trees cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. Those not converted directly to ash could be used as fuel and shelter. The invention of toilet paper would be high on the list. Find a chain saw in some collapsed basement, a little fuel, the rivers would still be teeming with slightly radioactive fish. I’m good. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/29 "2017-01-15T04:57:55Z")
1. Find out how I can be helpful at the edge of this disaster. 2. Move elsewhere. Friends will let me stay with them while we sort this out. 3. Be very sad and angry. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/30 "2017-01-15T06:23:07Z")
While on vacation? I’d likely be visiting siblings so I’d just stay there. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/31 "2017-01-15T15:52:18Z")
Go to the immigration department and see what I have to do to change my tourist visa to resident status. I cant help but wonder why ISIS gives a fuck about Victoria, Texas. And where ISIS got the nuke. And how they delivered it. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/32 "2017-01-15T16:09:12Z")
When I was in high school, a class discussion about nuclear weapons brought up an interesting point for us. A gal commented that there was now way the Russians would worry about little ol’ Tacoma, Washington, nothing here worth destroying. Our teacher told her that little ol’ Tacoma has 2 major military facilities right next door and being as they are as close to the USSR as most any other installations other than those in Alaska, we should consider ourselves to have large targets on our backs. A few students didn’t take this news very well, a couple started crying and one was upset enough to not only leave the room, went straight to her car and went home. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/33 "2017-01-15T16:37:48Z")
I’ve lived most of my life in an area which, at the height of the Cold War, boasted a MAC base, a SAC base, the largest rail marshalling yards on the West Coast, a Lockheed test plant and a few other things that would make good targets. Nowadays, however, they would just be nuking a 1 high school suburban town on the edge of the desert. We would seriously mourn the loss of our pets, and I’d be pissed they knocked down the new house. But otherwise…we would survive. The banks would still be there, my job would pay off my retirement a few years earlier than planned, and we could easily replace the items that were lost. No family anywhere even close, and most dear friends live well outside the blast range. The weird thing is Martin Caidin nuked my town in his book _Almost Midnight_. A terrorist group planted a nuke at the summit of Mount San Gorgonio as a demonstration. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/34 "2017-01-15T17:05:30Z")
it would depend on where I’m at when it happens. Most likely try to make my way to either Canada or Mexico and live out the rest of my days (however long or short that may be) there, in whatever fashion I can. Loss of things, I can cope with, loss of pet I can cope with. Loss of family, would be much harder, but not a stranger to death of loved ones, so would cope in some fashion or other. The loss of the money is also somewhat problematic, I’m a member of a small local boutique credit union, that institution is gone with little if any evidence that it existed. The job being gone, not much of a problem. I have a varied skill set, and can usually find work where ever I go. I dunno if I’d even bother with insurance, how would I prove my claim? All my proof and documents of insurance are gone. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/35 "2017-01-15T17:22:47Z")
If it’s just my city and not a national-scale disaster, I would hope that FEMA, along with my insurer, would help me out. Cuz if it’s just my city that’s been nuked, why would my insurer (a national company) go bankrupt? If the whole country is fucked up, then I guess I’ll try to hunker down in place wherever I’m vacationing. Obviously that place is still in good shape if I’m hearing about the nukes on the news. If I can’t stay there, then I don’t know what I’d do. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/36 "2017-01-15T17:54:38Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Steal a Harley and roam the country solving crimes while always on the lookout for the people who blew up Washington DC. Sort of like an A-Team/Renegade hybrid. nitpick- it would have to be an old Harley, anything made in the last 15 years has EFI and if it was anywhere near the blast the electronics will be fried. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/37 "2017-01-15T18:34:26Z")
Got KI ? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/38 "2017-01-15T19:19:40Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > If it’s just my city and not a national-scale disaster, I would hope that FEMA, along with my insurer, would help me out. > > Cuz if it’s just my city that’s been nuked, why would my insurer (a national company) go bankrupt? > . Read the fine print, War Exclusion Clause. You’re not covered for damage due to acts of war, including invasion, insurrection, rebellion, etc. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/39 "2017-01-15T22:13:53Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I cant help but wonder why ISIS gives a fuck about Victoria, Texas. And where ISIS got the nuke. And how they delivered it. Yeah…I also wonder what their reasoning for target a town of less than 10,000 people in the lakes region of New Hampshire would be too. They hate nature, I guess. I’d be pretty bummed. If this happened, I’d lose my dad \*\*and \*\*my only brother, which would massively suck less than a year after losing mom. Since they and my best friend are pretty much the only things that keep me here, I’d probably go start over somewhere else once my bank account was unfrozen. Virginia, maybe. Some place it doesn’t snow much. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116/40 "2017-01-17T06:13:26Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > . . . Find a chain saw in some collapsed basement, a little fuel, the rivers would still be teeming with slightly radioactive fish. I’m good. So it’s [no size restrictions and screw the limit](http://s135.photobucket.com/user/HFlashman/media/screw.jpg.html)? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-home-city-gets-nuked-what-do-you-do/777116.md?page=3)