How plan for nuclear fallout

By DAVID TEMPLETON
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, May 02, 2007

You know it's a bad day when a thunderous explosion is followed by a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

Decisions you make in the next few minutes will determine your family's fate.

Do you hop in the car and drive furiously in the opposite direction? Do you have time to get your children at school and duck into a basement shelter? Or do you head straight to the fruit cellar with cans of SpaghettiOs and jugs of water to hunker down for days to let nuclear fallout dissipate?

To help Americans with such lifesaving decisions, two Carnegie Mellon University professors have outlined the science, psychology and rationale for survival _ that is, for those far enough from ground zero to survive the initial blast.

"Individuals' Decisions Affecting Radiation Exposure After a Nuclear Explosion," written by H. Keith Florig and Baruch Fischhoff, was published in the May edition of Health Physics.

The paper provides radiation experts and government officials the tools to help people survive a 10-kiloton explosion _ roughly equal to 10,000 tons of TNT or nearly the size of the 1945 blast that devastated Hiroshima. A blast that size would erase one square mile with fallout causing additional deaths and cancer risk 20 miles downwind and beyond.

Detonation of a stolen or improvised nuclear device in an urban area would pose the greatest threat, the study says.

Within 20 miles of ground zero, survival and subsequent health impacts would depend on quick wits and sound decisions, said Florig, a senior research engineer in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy.

For now, he said, the Department of Homeland Security's Web site: ready.gov/america/_downloads/nuclear.pdf provides useful but limited information on surviving such a blast. It generally advises people to seek shelter, limit exposure and, if possible, flee to safety. But it leaves key questions unanswered.

"No one took the time to sit down with people and ask them what they want to know," Florig said. "We're trying to look at the problem from the user point of view."

Fischhoff, a psychologist who specializes in decision-making, said government officials should use the study to develop a strategy to help groups of people, especially those without money or transportation, survive such catastrophic events.

"I think we should plan in advance an evacuation strategy," he said. "I would like to see someone systematically work through the decisions and see a planning effort that works through the decisions of different groups who could not protect themselves, to help them work through the hazards and provide support systems."

He said no one strategy is for all people, so strategies are necessary for different groups.

What are the odds that your city would be hit, and if so, that the wind would be headed in your direction, and that you would be home and face the prospect of finding shelter in a basement?

Probability would rise for anyone living near likely targets, including Washington, D.C., New York City or San Diego, the nation's largest West Coast port.Here are important details to embrace:

Taking shelter in existing space with supplies available is better than nothing. One must evaluate the options and react immediately.

One question is whether people should forsake personal safety to help family, friends and neighbors. Such decisions have risks and consequences, including the chance of finding a better shelter.

Other questions include whether to prepare a shelter in one's basement in advance; whether to risk leaving one's home for safer, more distant shelter; and how long to remain in a makeshift shelter before evacuating.

The study does not encourage construction of nuclear shelters. Instead, it lists supplies people should store in the most walled-in segment of one's basement. Generally it suggests that people must decide for themselves whether the risk is sufficient to prepare a space in the basement and keep supplies on hand.

A key decision is whether space is available for a temporary shelter and to store supplies. The entire project would cost several hundred dollars a year, Florig said.

Those who decide to stock supplies should consider having food, water, clothing, utensils, medicines, first-aid and sanitation supplies, a battery-powered radio, a flashlight, dust masks, duct tape, plastic sheeting, bedding, pet needs and even entertainment, since one might be stuck there for days.

A 10-kiloton bomb would be lethal to most people within a mile from ground zero. For those surviving the initial blast, survival depends on radiation exposure to fallout that could cause death or pose a serious cancer risk.

Key to that decision is learning the blast location quickly via radio or media, if electricity is available. Those close to the blast should secure shelter as quickly as possible. Those 2.5 miles from ground zero can expect fatal levels of fallout in less than 15 minutes. That means one's best bet is to head to the deepest underground shelter within minutes, if wind is blowing in their direction.

Arrival of fallout depends on wind direction. If the wind _ and fallout _ is headed straight toward you, one choice is to get into a car and travel at a 90-degree angle from your location to avoid the "fallout footprint." Florig said that footprint likely would be long and narrow in the direction of the wind. So traveling out of the footprint as fast as possible would be one way to avoid or limit danger.

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