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"Radiation Accident"
Jim,
Two very good comments from you:
> They DID call us ...
> Fortunately, the fire department had the wisdom and foresight NOT to
> evacuate the area ...
This is how a (potential) radiation accident has to be handled: Before
taking any such actions like evacuating several blocks call the experts,
then follow their advice.
> With regard to the news stories ... this is what you get when you have
> radiation detection equipment in the hands of persons who are
minimally
> trained to use it, and don't use it frequently enough to maintain any
> kind of proficiency ... the response folks admitted as much.
I know a very good example to support this statement: About 30 years ago
somebody spilled deliberately I-131 onto the seats of a railway car on
its way to Vienna. Police never told us, how they got to know, but it
must have been an anonymous call. A few days after police received a
call, that another railway car was contaminated. Police rushed to stop
the train, fenced everything off and found with their robust and simple
instruments, that there was a very high radiation field. The scale was
green-red, where the red part indicated alarm levels. When my collegue
Prof. Tschirf arrived with more sophisticated instruments he could not
find any elevated radiation. Checking with the police instruments he
found out, that the police "experts" had used the BATTERY CHECK button
and the red part of the scale confirmed that the batteries were ok.
Best regards,
Franz
Franz Schoenhofer
PhD, MR iR
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
AUSTRIA
phone -43-0699-1168-1319
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