I recently saw a comment chain about nuclear bombs, and that led me to thinking about this. Say there is a nuclear explosion in the downtown of my US city. I survive relatively fine, but obviously the main part of the city has been destroyed, while major zones extending from the center were also badly damaged. What would be a good response to (a) survive and (b) help out the recovery effort?

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
    101·
    4 months ago

    It really depends.

    Scale of bomb

    Design of bomb.

    Distance from epicenter

    Ground explosion or atmospheric

    Prevailing winds

    City construction

    Etc, etc.

    It’s nowhere near as simple as we’ve been taught.

    I’ve looked at the bomb simulator linked above, and for me and my city, and where I live, prevailing winds, etc, only the two largest warheads would have direct effect on me, and fallout isn’t a concern for the rest (distance and prevailing winds).

    Now after that, it would surely be a complete shit show. I’d likely have no water (or maybe I would, this suburb isnt tied to the city). Power would certainly be an issue, as would telephone/cell, radio would be problematic for a short while. Food would be a problem, of course.

    • OtherbarryEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      Yes of course, I meant as a general idea of what you’d aim to do lacking any other information beyond the fact that the bomb itself fell in the local downtown area (going by the post itself).

      Thing is if a bomb dropped that close most people will not know what the scale of the bomb was, what the design was, how far exactly they were from the blast radius, whether it’s ground / atmospheric, wind direction, all that stuff. In that short amount of time you’d just need to run into the nearest still-standing shelter & figure things out from there.

      Hopefully with some extreme luck the bomb would fall just as you were walking/driving past your nearest fallout shelter and can easily get in. Or you’re a prepper and aren’t far from your homemade bunker with supplies, radio, and whatnot.