[ RadSafe ] U.S. Called Unprepared For Nuclear Terrorism - Experts Critical of Evacuation Plans

[John Jacobus]

With enough money, you can decontaminate the areas
affected by initial radiaiton and fallout.

--- Susan Gawarecki <loc at icx.net> wrote:

> I was interested in the true experts' reaction to
> the below article.  
> Just how time-critical is it to evacuate from
> downwind after surviving 
> the initial blast and energy flux?  Considering the
> likely resulting 
> traffic jam, would the much-maligned strategy of
> sheltering in place 
> (rather than attempting to walk out) be a rational
> response?  What would 
> be an appropriate length of time to stay put in a
> sealed room for the 
> worst of the short-lived radionuclides to decay,
> before then trying to 
> leave the area?
> 
> My suspicions about the article were piqued by the
> statement about 
> "possibility of forever abandoning many radiated
> neighborhoods," which 
> seems extreme considering that Hiroshima and
> Nagasaki have been rebuilt 
> 60 years after their bombings.  Would the explosion
> of a bomb at ground 
> level, creating more radioactive fallout than at H &
> N, be a more 
> critical factor?  Wouldn't this also offer somewhat
> more protection from 
> the initial blast?
> 
> Also, wouldn't virtually all forms of communication,
> as well as car 
> computers, be disabled by the electromagnetic flux?
> 
> In case anyone wonders about my reasons for wanting
> to know, I have some 
> emergency response oversight roles in my job, as
> well as serving as 
> Communty Awareness Chair for the Local Emergency
> Planning Committee.  
> Seems there's a lot more to be aware of recently.
> 
> Susan Gawarecki
> Executive Director,
> Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee
> 
> U.S. Called Unprepared For Nuclear Terrorism -
> Experts Critical of 
> Evacuation Plans
> By John Mintz, Washington Post Staff Writer
> Tuesday, May 3, 2005; A01
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050201454.html
> 
> When asked during the campaign debates to name the
> gravest danger facing 
> the United States, President Bush and challenger
> Sen. John F. Kerry 
> (D-Mass.) gave the same answer: a nuclear device in
> the hands of terrorists.
> . . .

+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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