The NYC Nuclear Advisory Is Pure Insanity
Why all of their advice is completely and horribly wrong
New York City released a PSA on “how” to survive a nuclear attack, hosting a video on YouTube (below). I’m flabbergasted at how inaccurate the advice is. I can only assume they watched the same clickbaity video I did, and then mangled even that poor quality advice.
The advice is so bad that the YouTube dislike add-on for my browser shows it currently being being at over 19 thousand dislikes to a measly 3.2k likes:
The embarassing, cringe-worthy video notes “3 steps” for “surviving” a nuclear blast. For those of you who can’t read the NYC’s terrible advice, it says:
Get inside
Fast
Get into a building
Move away from windows
Stay inside
Shut doors and windows
Go to the middle of the building
Get clean immediately
Remove clothing and shower with soap and shampoo
Stay tuned
Follow media
Sign up for notify NYC
Those with knowledge on how to actually survive a nuclear blast are probably furrowing their eyebrows in disdain. Those not familiar will think this all sounds like legitimate advice, however The Daily Beagle is here to provide a breakdown of why it is terrible.
A Critical Analysis
Get Inside “Fast”: Why It’s Wrong
It’s not sufficient to just get inside the nearest building. Although fallout advice tells you to find the nearest shelter, they often omit a major factor to survival: how long you will be staying there for.
Radioactive particles have what’s known as a “half-life” where, over a specific period of time (that varies based on the type of particle), they reduce their energetic output by half. And half again, so on and so forth.
This means, fallout doesn’t just immediately land and then suddenly disappears. It decays. You may have heard this term as radioactive decay, and without getting technical, it’s the energy a radioactive particle emits over a period of time of decaying.
It can last for at least 2 weeks:
Similar areas were found for 600 rads over 2 weeks.
If you were to exit within the first 48 hours (2 days) of an attack, you’d be dead from radiation poisoning if your area was hit with fallout. Which means whatever building you occupy, has to be stayed in for 2 weeks minimum to ensure basic safety. Which means it also requires…
Food and Water
Probably the biggest miss by the NYC’s terrible advice is not telling people to have at least 2 weeks of food and water on hand. Having pushed the boundaries myself, I have gone without water for 4 days, but that requires extremely careful conditions (total minimisation of loss of water via EG sweating). Any tap water you’re going to be pulling in - if the utility even works - is likely to be contaminated and will need to be filtered.
Food you can go without for 30 days or so. However you will feel terrible after about a week and will sleep a lot to avoid exhaustion. Nutrition (vitamins, electrolytes, etc) are a major part of diet, and most people only focus on energy when it comes to food, but nutrition is very important. So ensure you have A-Z multi-vitamins handy with enough for 2 weeks for each person.
You might also grab rations. Boat rations - designed to be eaten at sea without cooking - are arguably the best kind to keep on hand, as they’re often dry and compact, very energy dense, and don’t require heating or cooking. You’ll likely hate the taste after 2 weeks, but will be grateful you have something to eat.
Move Away From Windows
This is pretty weak information overall. You will be in one of two situations: either you will be in the fireball’s blast radius and already dead, or you’ll be outside the kill zone and won’t be affected by the pressure waves that would break glass. The sound (pressure) wave will travel within seconds, and reach you *within* a few minutes. The pressure wave isn’t what will kill you at distances that far - it’s the wind-directed fallout.
Assuming you get *no* alert, your first warning a nuclear strike is inbound is when you first see the flash. If you’re observing the flash directly, and are not wearing UV protective lenses, you will experience temporary flash blindness; or if you’re very close, permanent (people this close will be dead).
If you experience temporary flash blindness, you must rely on tactile sense to manouver. For blind people, this isn’t as challenging, but for someone recently turned blind you will find this difficult.
First, don’t panic, and don’t try to rotate or change your position if you do go blind. Recall what direction you’re facing when you last had sight, and then - this will sound crazy, but you are now 100% tactile, so it is necessary - drop to all fours.
What? All Fours?
Dropping to all fours allows you to feel with your hands as well as your feet, and gives you a better position of stability so you don’t trip or fall. Blindly reaching your hands out whilst standing is very ineffective as most threats to your stability are ground level. Last thing you want is to trip and injure yourself to the point of unconsciousness.
If you have gloves, put them on to avoid ground ordinance injuring your hands, otherwise, consider the injuries temporary compared to the permanent radiological death.
If blind, you will not be able to meaningfully travel anywhere, and will need to enter the first and nearest open building. On all fours, “climb” towards the nearest wall, railing, fence, then return to standing upright holding onto it for balance. Use one foot to probe ahead of the other. It will be slow, and time is of the essence in this stage.
Listen carefully for sounds, EG traffic, vehicle, footsteps, and other dangers, and if someone offers to assist you, accept it. You’re in no position to defend yourself from robbers anyway, and someone who can see can guide you into the nearest building whilst you recover eyesight.
Fumble along the walls until you find an open door and go inside. Head into and refuse to leave a grocery store if blind. A grocery store will have all the food and water supplies you will need, and you can make an impromptu shower from bottled water. Encourage the store clerk to lock the store after 15 minutes, as this is roughly how long it will take for fallout to land, and once it has landed, you do not want doors or windows open.
NYC’s Next Failure: ‘Shut All Windows’
You must shut and lock all windows and doors, disengage any air conditioning (AC) units pulling in air from outside. Not simply because of raiders, but because of radioactive particles filtering in. If you have duct tape, seal up any vents and gaps that could allow air in from outside. Do not allow radioactive fallout to get inside your house.
Be wary not to make a complete seal leading to CO2 build-up and unconsciousness. Instead, setup a basic filter (EG HEPA filter) on a window vent to draw air in a very filtered manner, and treat the filter as though radioactive.
If your window blows in or melts or is otherwise faulty:
If the room is non-essential, seal off the entire thing and lock/block/seal the door into the room. No-one is to go in. Essential is defined as: if you don’t have access to that room you’ll die. A food storage area is a good example.
If the room is essential, try to board up or block the window to minimise how much fallout comes in. It must be a complete seal. Any holes or gaps defeats the purpose. Seal it up as soon as possible.
Moving To Adjacent Buildings Is Acceptable
If you’re connected to another building (say, another apartment), moving to it (with owner’s permission) is acceptable, so long as the transfer is not exposed to the harsh elements. So if you have the same shared stairwell to another room you can move to it. Just be aware other buildings may not be as secure as yours.
Speed Isn’t The Key Here: Preparation Is
NYC says to just get into a building “fast”, but you ought to have already gotten key survival supplies:
Geiger counter (allowing you to determine if rooms are ‘hotspots’ or ‘safe’)
Rations
Survival Water Filter (doesn’t need to be the most expensive; even a relatively cheap Sawyer one will do)
Map of the area (paper; computers won’t work)
Duct tape
Informed Friends and Family
NYC’s Shower Failure
NYC failed to explain why you need to shower, and their telling you to use soap and shampoo is straight up wrong. Do not use soap and shampoo.
What they’re hamfistedly trying to refer to is called decontamination, which is a procedure to remove contaminants from your body. Instructions vary depending on who you ask, but they do not involve soap or shampoo.
If your Geiger counter confirms you are covered in radiative material, you want to remove and dispose of (literally, throw outside, don’t even bin it) all of the clothes you’re wearing, and head straight into the shower to use water to wash off the fallout particles from your body. Do not use a bath, as you will be sitting in the radioactive contaminants.
A shower will proactively wash off radioactive material down the drain. Be thorough and properly run water through your hair and every part of your body that was exposed. Do this for as long as the running water supply is not contaminated with radiation.
If you don’t have a Geiger counter, or your one broke, assume the worse and act like you’re contaminated. Remove all clothes, including underwear, toss outside, and shower immediately. Put on new clothes that were kept indoors and were not exposed to any outside airflow.
If you don’t have a shower, either improvise one using a water bottle in a bath, or if you only have a sink and toilet, wash as much off as possible in the sink and try to improvise a shower. The water must be drained off into a sewage system to avoid contaminating you.
Don’t Bother ‘Staying Tuned’
Nuclear detonation produces an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), which fries electronics within a given range, as a result, a lot of your electronics are not going to work straight off the bat, plus, the main infrastructure being nuked means the power is bound to go out. Batteries will not last long enough to give coverage, and it is more useful to preserve whatever power you have for survival.
Gamma radiation from the fallout will also penetrate and interfere with electronics long after detonation has occurred, meaning no WiFi and no radio signals. There won’t be anything to receive, and even if there was, you wouldn’t be able to pick it up.
Some electronics do exhibit a recovery after being exposed to gamma radiation, after the radiation is stopped. But the recovery is hardly ever back to 100% functionality
That also means don’t bother “signing up”, because this is the dumbest suggestion of all. It would require a working internet connection, and in an attack that is very unlikely to be functional. Power’s out. Line’s out. Device is dead. Interference is high.
Don’t Start Any Fires
If your building catches on fire you will be forced outside into the radioactive wasteland with no suitable escape vectors. Smoke also offers particulates of which fallout can travel on.
Imagine the fallout as invisible snow that takes a very long time to “melt” and will kill you as it does so. It is on every rooftop, every building, every car, every surface, every river, every tree. If it is outside a building, it is covered in fallout.
In Conclusion?
Hang tight in a suitable location with enough food and water (plus nutritents) to last 2 weeks, preferably a working shower (improvised or otherwise), wait it out until at least 2 weeks has passed and don’t bother with any electronics except a geiger counter designed for high radiation.
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