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Edited on Wed Sep-12-07 04:19 PM by Wiley50
http://www.nukefix.org/The computer program Nukefix is designed for analyzing and fixing the nuclear weapons problem. This web site exists so that you can download Nukefix. Encyclopædia Britannica and Newsweek.com have described Nukefix as a "superb tool." With it you can perform your own analysis of the nuclear weapons problem. The Pentagon and World Trade Center Attacks: The warning that the attacks enunciated was: "Massive destruction can occur." The issue is no longer theoretical. From elementary techniques to sophisticated modeling, we can learn a great deal about the nature of risk. The math need not be complicated. Consider, for example, an "optimistic" case of ten ostensibly peaceful nuclear-weapon nations, each of which is so peaceful that it would initiate one, and only one, nuclear attack once in 300 years. One might be mislead to think that such a scenario would produce a "peaceful world." However, look carefully at the problem. The outcome is not intuitively obvious. Given, for example, a 900 year period, each of these nations would initiate 3 attacks, if they performed as stipulated <900/300=3>. With 10 such nations, this would mean 30 nuclear attacks during the 900 year period <10*3=30>. Thirty nuclear attacks over 900 years hardly constitutes a peaceful or secure world, notwithstanding that each of the nations appeared peaceful at the outset. Such a performance would mean one nuclear attack every 30 years, on average <900 years/30 attacks=30 years per attack>. There are now at least eight (possibly ten) nuclear weapon nations. These nations will have to be far more reliable than stipulated in this exercise for the world to be nuclearly peaceful. We can use an uncomplicated technique to estimate how the attacks would be distributed over time. If one multiplies a number (which I will call k) times the average years to occurrence, one can determine the random probability (PB) that the event would occur within a given period of time .
In the stipulated case, one would expect a 50% probability of occurrence within 20.8 years and a 75% probability of occurrence within 41.6 years <0.6931= loge(1/(1-.5)); 0.693*30=20.8; 1.386 = loge(1/(1-.75));1.386*30=41.6>.
If any comfort can be taken from the New York and Washington, DC attacks, it would be that they were not nuclear. If they had been nuclear, instead of contemplating the destruction of three buildings and loss of approximately 6,000 lives, we would be presented with a pervasive gray radioactive ash, hundreds of thousands of deaths, widespread destruction and the prospect of cities made uninhabitable into the indefinite future.
Many years ago Bernard Lown observed: "Few societies are more susceptible to the malevolent consequences of a nuclear detonation than rich, urbanized, highly developed, industrial countries."
The brief mathematical calculations above dealt with probability of occurrence. We also can employ calculations to assess severity of occurrence. One "small" nuclear attack producing 180,000 deaths on average once every 30 years would produce the annual equivalent number of deaths experienced in the New York and Washington, DC attacks this year: a 6,000 per year average <180,000=6,0000*30>.
Estimating the average annual long term risk of death posed by nuclear weapons requires only elementary calculations, which apply without regard to probability distribution. Observe that in the stipulated case the average annual risk was defined exclusively by the size of attack (1800,000 deaths) and the average interval between attacks (30 yrs).
An attack in a major urban center producing 180,000 nuclear weapon deaths would typically constitute a very "optimistic" projection. The number of deaths would usually be far greater.
Indeed, given the scale of nuclear weaponry throughout the world, risk over the long term in the neighborhood of an average 2.4 million nuclear weapon deaths annually worldwide appears in the base case shown in the computer program Nukefix.
The 2.4 million figure would present a public health problem at least 395 times more severe than what we experienced in New York and Washington <2,369,886/6,000=395>. Indeed, the average annual risk of 2.4 million deaths would be 395 times more severe than 6,000 terrorist deaths, even if such a number of terrorist deaths were to occur each year from this year forward.
For this reason, to state the case delicately, the nuclear weapon problem remains at least as great a problem worldwide as what we witnessed September 11th.
Rather than miring ourselves down in fatalism, calculations of the kind shown here suggest that we must construct a far safer nuclear world than the one illustrated in this exercise.
When you download Nukefix, you can simulate more favorable outcomes, or you can look at snapshots on this website from parts of the program. By doing so, you can get explicit illustrations of the kind of conditions necessary to reduce the nuclear-weapon public health threat.
To the extent that the horror, destruction, and death that occurred in New York and Washington can have beneficial effect will reside in the ability of nations to prudently and sensibly reduce the likelihood and severity of future attacks.
Over the thousands of days that are yet to come, many of the thoughts that occurred during the first weeks after the attacks will need to be replaced by accurate analysis, and effective sustained action, consistent with living normal constructive lives.
The computer program Nukefix makes it possible to assess and reduce the probability of a nuclear weapons use.
Nukefix screen snapshots show probability of a nuclear use, effects of proliferation, START II treaty, deterrence, simultaneous detonations, and more. This is THE BIGGIE. It is sufficiently large that it is divided into two pages (one & two). It is one of the most important sections of this website.
The NEWS is this: Simultaneous detonations of eight primitive nuclear weapons can EXCEED the destructive capabilities of thermonuclear weapons of the sizes that now predominate. These "small" tactical weapons are far more dangerous than has been publicly acknowledged.
This is an important section. It contains many original pictures and much new information. You can see the destructive capabilities of modern nuclear weapons, simultaneous detonations, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, nuclear weapon effects, and the WWII firestorms of Hamburg in a manner you probably have never seen before.
Richard Feynman's assessment of the Challenger Space Shuttle Accident goes hand-in-hand with analysis of the nuclear weapons problem.
Answers to questions, such as: What is the chance of a nuclear use occurring during your remaining lifetime and your children's lifetime? What is the health risk?
Examples of basic probability relationships, which are axiomatic and not speculative. And, More.
National Public Radio has done an excellent job of reporting and analyzing nuclear weapon news. Many of their stories appear here, so that you can listen to them via real audio.
"You Will Survive Doomsay"
http://www.ki4u.com/nuclearsurvival/survival/books/doomsday/index.htm
You Will Survive Doomsday
By Bruce Beach
Copyright Information
This document is copyrighted. You are welcome to reproduce it, however, for FREE distribution in whatever quantity you desire and by whatever means you desire so long as you reproduce the entire document. Extensive quotes are also welcomed so long as credit is properly given.
Our purpose in publishing this document is to ameliorate the effects of a nuclear holocaust for as many people as we can reach, and to locate as many people as we can who are willing and able to join our nuclear survival group.
Table of Contents
* Twenty-three myths that are repeatedly heard
* Useful Figures and Tables
* Nuclear Survival Groups
* About the Author
* Bibliography
MYTHS
Here are twenty-three myths that are repeatedly heard (some much more often than others) that this document tries to dispel. (Myth#1 below, the rest at link--Wiley)
This document is published by a nuclear survival group. The group is not affiliated with any religious group or other organization. We welcome inquiries from all persons interested in joining our survival group. Send email to survival@webpal.org (Bruce Beach) for more details.
DOOMSDAY
MYTH #01: Almost everyone will suddenly be killed on doomsday.
You will survive doomsday. And here you thought that if it ever happened the bomb would fall right on you. Probably not. It will more likely go like this.
One day, the inferior Russian computers may make a mistake and decide that the US has already launched a pre-emptory attack against Russia. The US warning system has made that same sort of mistake many times and a number of times we have gotten just minutes away from launching our retaliation before the mistake was discovered. Who is to say the Russians will always be so smart?
Forty minutes after a missile is launched from Russia it will be landing on its target in North America. Before this occurs the US has just minutes within which to respond or it will be caught with its missiles down. The hotline to Russia happens to be not working (this has also happened a number of times before). That is one of the factors that entered into the Russians decision to launch.
So, what's his name in the White House reaches for a jellybean and pushes the button. Interception missiles of course try to stop the Russian missiles before they reach their first two primary targets, NORAD (NORthern Air Defense) headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado and its backup at North Bay, Ontario.
These are hardened underground computer and communication sites that may require several bombs to wipe them out. Given the number of missiles that may be intercepted the Russians have sent a handful.
A better way to wipe out the communications of North America is to just explode four thermonuclear devices at a high altitude over the continent. These will generate an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) that will knock out most electric and electronic devices tied into the power grids. It will also knock out any new devices that contain IC's (integrated circuits) and that have an antenna over thirty inches long. That means that your car radio, portable radio, and television will be inoperable, even if the power ever does come back on.
All over the continent the power and lights will suddenly go off. If you happen to be listening to a battery operated old tube type radio (when did you last see one of those?) that is tuned into a "hardened" transmitter sight (I don't know where you will find one) that transmits (fat chance) the EBS (Emergency Broadcast Signal) then you will know that doomsday has begun.
Otherwise you will be standing out there with the rest of us survivors saying, "Nice day, eh? Strange the power would go off on a nice day like this." Silence. The sun will continue to shine, and the birds will sing, and the breezes will blow and you will still not know that they have a bit of a problem up in North Bay. They are no longer there. Silence.
Eventually word may drift in. On the chance that there is something to the rumor you decide to try to call someone. Your spouse, a friend, a relative. Don't bother. Silence. The telephone isn't working either. Even if the EMP hadn't done it in, a mere power outage causes such an overload of demand on the central exchange that you couldn't even get a dial tone.
You are a survivor. Doomsday has occurred and you are a survivor. While you are waiting for the spouse and kids to get home maybe you should do something practical. Like go down to the supermarket and lay in a bit of an extra stock.
You may notice that the little corner store has closed. If he has believed the rumor, he wants to save his stock. And besides, your money may not be worth anything tomorrow. You thought you had seen rapid inflation before but this is like from zero to a million in sixty seconds.
At the supermarket, if you are early enough, you will find pandemonium. If not, you will find practically nothing. Maybe a large bag of dog food (take it) and some cans of floor wax (forget it). The rest of the stuff was all in those carts that you met come flying up the walk as you came running down.
There won't be any girls at the cash registers, (they have done their shopping and gone). Besides, the cash registers aren't working anyhow, with no power. It may have taken the hired manager a little longer to figure out that he should grab what he can and head home to his family, but he has probably gone now. The only cops you will see are the one's grabbing stuff themselves.
If on the way back you spot a shopping basket with something in it - think twice before helping yourself. If there is an altercation there are probably no doctors at the hospital to sew up the lacerations. Everyone else is also too busy to bother calling an ambulance, if they could, and one wouldn't be available if they did.
Of course the trip to the supermarket may have been nothing like that at all. It may have just been a bit more active than usual but if most people haven't caught on yet then we are very lucky. You just keep mumbling under your breath. "Good people, good people - that's the way, that's the way, just stay calm." This way we can just go about doing what we have to do as quickly as we can, while trying to not stir up panic. "Yes. I understand the cash registers aren't working but please let me just help you add this up by hand. No, that's fine, just keep the change."
Then, of course, if everything is really this calm we can take that good old plastic credit card and go out and buy all the good survival stuff that we are going to need and should have gotten beforehand. Don't worry about paying for it, no one is ever going to send you a bill. Getting the stuff home may be a bit of a problem if the car isn't working (the EMP may have wiped out that fancy electronic ignition). "No, that's fine. You don't need to deliver it. I'll just put it here in my little red wagon." But you sure don't want to lug it all the way up to your thirty-second floor apartment, if there is somewhere safe that you can stash it. "Can you really believe that people are staying this calm? How is it that we seem to be so much smarter than the rest?"
More than likely you are now back home and all you have is the fifty-pound bag of dog food. Are you really going to be able to carry it up to your thirty-second floor apartment? You know the elevators aren't working of course. Then maybe you could hide it in the trunk of your car in the garage- if no one sees you.
Ah, back home in the apartment. Home sweet home. The kids are home from school now. Do you have enough guts after that scene at the supermarket to send them out to do some more scavenging? It isn't exactly a party going on out there. Did you see Watts, Detroit, Washington D.C., and Baltimore after some of their similar parties? I did. I think I would keep the kids home. Not much you can do except to wait for the spouse to walk home. Shouldn't be more than a few hours.
The spouse finally makes it home. "What do you mean all you got is fifty pounds of dog food? We don't even have a dog." The electricity isn't on. We can't cook anything anyway. Best to eat everything out of the refrigerator before it spoils. Won't be anymore water as soon as the gravity feed tanks on the roof empty. Hope you saved a few pot's full. If everyone filled up their bathtubs - it is all gone. It has gotten cold. Might as well go to bed. There is no light to see anything by anyway. Certainly not going out in those streets in this dark with all that noise going on down there. Hopefully, everything will look brighter in the morning.
Day Two
Morning comes early with the noise of people throwing pots and pans over the sides of their balconies along with the blankets, pillows and other things that it saves them carrying down. Apparently some of the residents are moving out. Perhaps you should too.
Everything looks better in the light, doesn't it? TV still doesn't come on. Telephone isn't working either. And you know what - the toilet doesn't flush. Can't cook anything. Got to eat what you've got. See, that wasn't so bad. Make it sort of a picnic. Eat it right out of the can. There is not going to be any water to wash dishes.
But see, we survived doomsday. Didn't even see an explosion, hear a bomb, or anything. Maybe we should sit down together and try to figure out what we are going to do from here. The bombs may still be coming. Probably are.
If the attacker's plans have gone according to schedule they have probably finished with their primary targets. They have hit the three Titan Wings in Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas (three wings, eighteen missiles each, for a total or fifty-four) or the things have landed in Russia by now, so why bother. They have certainly been knocking the bejammers out of Montana and the Dakotas. Can't hear or see a thing from here of course.
Then they will start on the secondary targets. All the SAC (Strategic Air Command) bases both in the US and around the rest of the world. Oh, they have lots to keep them busy for a while. Cities themselves are pretty far down the list. Maybe they won't even go for them. Any airport with over a ten thousand foot runway is pretty important however because the SAC could land and refuel their bomber there. So you know where that puts us. They will probably get around to us in the next day or two.
There are two strategies of warfare. One is called counterforce and the other is called countervalue. With counterforce you knockout the enemy's forces so he can't harm you. This can be very chivalrous like the fighting codes of the knights of old. You never harm the women and children.
On the other hand, with countervalue, you go after everything the enemy holds dear in order to demoralize him. This was the technique of the Mongolian hordes.
"Take no prisoners." "Eliminate the enemy." "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." "Eliminate the Jews." "Sock it to the Japs."
Women, children, babies, everybody goes.
Now the problem with countervalue warfare is if everybody knows they are either going to win or die, some people can get very tough. So maybe the best thing is to knockout the military forces and hold the cities as hostage. "Now, either surrender or we bomb the cities." Anyway, the cities aren't generally the first targets.
And so here we sit. Unscratched, the day after doomsday. But we can see some problems on the horizon. Very possibly the city is going to be bombed in the next day or two. Even if it isn't, how can we stay here? The electricity is off. The heat is off. The water is off. And it isn't coming back on. The elevators aren't working. For older people it is "If we go down (if they can go down), we can't come back up."
There is no more food in the grocery store. And there won't be any more. (Unless you believe your government, which says they will start delivering it in about two weeks - want to bet?). Then there is that horrible stuff called fallout that is going to start showing up in about twenty-four to forty-eight hours, or sooner.
Now, we have all seen or heard about the book and the movie "On The Beach", and Beach himself shows up with the solution. A pocket full of cyanide pills. If you want one he will give you one for each of your kids or grandkids. There is only one catch. There are only so many and I don't want them wasted. So you will have to line up each of your children or grandchildren in a row and pop it down their throats right while I am here. How many of you will do it? "Here is your vitamin. Open wide..."
No? Then you really are a survivor. Here you always said you hoped the bomb would fall right on you and then when I offered you an easy out... Oh well, it won't be that bad. A world without electricity, automobiles, radio, television, telephones, and supermarkets. And maybe eventually with only twenty million people in North America. (They won't all be Canadians).
But then, that is the kind of world that was here in 1800. The people then didn't have cars, supermarkets, movies, TV, radio, telephones, modern medicine, airplanes, rockets, and computers. And they survived. They may have even enjoyed life. Maybe even more than many people do today with all their drugs, tranquilizers, and what have you.
People generally are survivors. Put them out on an ice floe in the middle of the arctic with no expectation of rescue, no supplies - nothing - and they will hold on. Some will even survive until they happen to be rescued.
So you are a survivor and you survived doomsday. But you will eventually die. We will all eventually die. That is the nature of this world. The question is not whether or not you will possibly die, but how long you will live, and what life will be like during that time.
So you have survived. And if you and your kids are going to continue to survive you had better get the heck out of the city. Not only is there the possibility that there will be bombs but those little scenes down at the supermarket, or anywhere else a little bit of food happens to show up, are going to become more and more unpleasant as anarchy prevails.
Moreover, without the toilets flushing and with no one removing the dead bodies, health conditions are really going to reach a state you just wouldn't want me to describe. So, off to the country. But, how? And, where?
Before actually departing for the country let us further consider the alternative of staying in the city. Perhaps you are convinced that the Russians would never really get around to bombing your city. Or you feel you have sufficient underground shelter if they do. Nothing, of course, would protect you if there were a direct hit on your shelter, but a good bomb shelter could certainly give you very good protection as little as five miles from ground zero.
The trouble is that subways and underground garages are not designed as blast shelters. They do not have blast vents and doors. Anyone in such a place, at the time of blast, within a couple of miles of ground zero will be subjected to a phenomenon called popcorning. Minute particles of greatly accelerated sand will cause blisters to pop out all over exposed parts of the body. This, combined with several other pathological mechanisms, will probably result in a rather painful death within a few days.
Although the blast protection in an underground shelter is much superior to being above ground there are reasons that one is better off staying in their high-rise apartment rather than going to a large public shelter if they feel there is little or no danger of blast.
The public shelters have no supplies and no equipment. The average designated public shelter is supposed to shelter over three thousand people. Can you imagine the anarchy and conditions there? Without food, the first to die will be infants who are not being breast fed. Other early candidates will be persons who require special medications (especially the elderly) and anyone who happens to be injured.
Not only will deaths have negative psychological effects on the survivors, they will create severe sanitation problems. There will be enough sanitation problems anyway if the water and sewage systems are not working. Most of the designated shelter locations do not have sanitary provision for three thousand people in the first place.
One of the greatest hazards in an underground shelter is carbon dioxide poisoning. The designated public shelters, almost without exception, do not have adequate ventilation for large numbers of people over a considerable period of time. And the existing ventilation systems generally depend upon electricity being available.
There are ventilation defense and survival techniques available. However, if you were to try to implement them in a large public shelter situation you would probably be one of the first persons killed by the other survivors. The reason is that most people have misconceptions about either the air becoming radioactive, or containing radioactive particles that they feel would be more dangerous than the carbon dioxide.
Add to these problems the fact that you might not have any light in the shelter, that anarchy may become rampant, and that there will almost certainly be no food, and perhaps, more importantly, no water and you will see why no trained survivalist would want to be caught dead in the place.
Returning to one's own high rise apartment, after the danger of blast is past, gives much more favorable opportunities for continued survival than given by remaining in a public shelter. If you are ten or fifteen stories above the ground the distance will probably adequately protect you from any radiation from the fallout on the ground. If there are ten or more stories above your head then that distance will also protect you from fallout on the roof.
The apartment dweller should try to secure an inner room without any windows. A blast fifteen or more miles away will knock out the windows and it is the glass shards that will kill most people. Pulling drapes and blinds are all helpful defenses. A blast wave will be preceded by a brilliant flash of light. The survivor will have from several seconds to three or four minutes, depending upon the distance from the blast, to duck behind a sofa or to take other shelter.
Training oneself to take similar immediate defensive action can also help give protection from the intense thermal radiation that accompanies a nuclear blast, and that can start fires fifteen to twenty miles from ground zero. Fires, in themselves, can be a problem and if you are downwind from a large fire or firestorm you have to watch out for carbon monoxide poisoning.
Fire defense techniques are generally well known so I will not dwell upon them here. One thing you need not do is call the fire department, if you could. There is little they could do, if they were still around, without central water supplies. But the thing you can do is improvise closings to seal off all the apartments above you, and those immediately below you, so that fallout will not blow in and settle on the floors over your head, or otherwise near you.
Now, it may be possible to organize your activities with other survivors to become a cliff dweller like those of old. A bucket on a rope might be used to haul up water gotten from a nearby stream or pond, and waste could be let down in the same way.
Some ingenuity may be required in providing heat and light, but if you really have sufficient supplies of food for yourself and your fellow survivors to hold out until another crop can be planted and harvested (most survivalists recommend at least two years supply), and you seriously face up to the sanitation problems created by morbidity, and you and your co-survivors are sufficiently organized against anarchy, and there are no more nearer bomb blasts - then you are probably well on your way towards continued survival. At least you are many times better off than being in a public shelter.
There may be all sorts of reasons why you elect to remain in the city rather than head for the country. If the attack comes in the winter and you do not have a planned escape route, adequate clothing and supplies to make the trip, are not physically able to make the trip, and do not have a known destination of refuge, well then...
Those who have most prepared themselves and have made the best plans should pray that their flight does not come in the winter. During a storm, or severely cold weather, it is very likely that many more persons may be killed by exposure than by any other single cause. The roads and highways will most likely be jammed. If there has been an explosion in the vicinity then overpasses and utility lines may have been dropped onto the roadways making them unusable.
Even without a blast having occurred, traffic jams, accidents, or vehicles just running out of gas will probably create bottlenecks that completely clog the roads. Once people find themselves just sitting there, not moving, they will abandon their vehicles. My guess is you can forget using an automobile for escape unless you had a plan and immediately implemented it before the general panic set in.
A motorcycle, scooter, or even a bicycle might offer certain advantages over an automobile. One might carry a smaller form of conveyance on a larger one and then implement the smaller means of conveyance, such as a bicycle, when that became the necessity.
The most dependable means of escape would probably remain walking. If one had to walk all the way out, and they were in any physical shape at all, they could surely do it in two or three days. Once again, proper preparation can make all the difference. Proper walking gear, proper survival clothing, a planned escape route, proper selection of material to be packed, and proper allocation of loads.
And, as before, there are better alternatives. One could have pre-arranged pickup points and times with co-survivors coming from the refuge destination, or in a worsening pre-crisis situation you may have made an early dispersal. But the greater likelihood is that anyone with a practical survival plan who reacts immediately can get out well before the rush sets in.
Just getting out into the country, or to the other side of the mountain, will increase the survivability factors for many people. The threats of blast and thermal radiation will have been greatly reduced. But blast and thermal radiation while very nasty in their effects are not going to kill that many people anyway. Oh, they will kill millions, but as a percentage of the people living the day before doomsday they will, combined, kill only ten to fifteen percent. And most of these will be a considerable distance from the blast and will eventually die as a result of injuries caused by the broken glass shards.
As stated before, depending upon the time of year and the weather, many more may be killed by exposure. But there is still another big killer coming. That is of course the fallout from the weapon explosions that took place many hundreds of miles away. This fallout may require from a few hours to a day or two to arrive. If the weather permits, and the survivors know what they are doing, they may still have time to build an expedient shelter against the fallout.
Techniques for defense against fallout have been developed and tested at great expense by almost every nuclear nation. While information on these techniques has been made readily available, most people have not availed themselves of it.
Two basic techniques are available. One is to leave the contaminated area. But the extent of the contaminated area may be far too wide to escape, or one may not have accurate information as to the delineation of the contaminated area, or they may not have the means of transportation, nor the means of survival should they reach a radiation free area.
The other basic means is to provide shelter within the contaminated area. Weather, ground, and time conditions permitting it is possible to dig a trench and cover it with dirt supported by poles, wooden doors, or a vehicle. Properly designed, such an expedient shelter can make all the difference between avoiding the effects of fallout radiation, and not avoiding those effects.
The details of how to build an expedient shelter are to be found in books listed in the bibliography. One of the most important and often overlooked factors in designing a shelter is the matter of providing an airpump so as to eliminate the problem of carbon dioxide poisoning. The technique for building such an expedient pump from materials readily available in time of crisis is also found there.
The effect of fallout radiation is not always death, although many times it is. Even if it is death it is not immediate death. Intense radiation causes a very painful, and horrible death (what the literature calls a hard death) over several days. More likely the effects are drawn out over a period of weeks, months, or even years. As the title of this document points out, all these people will have survived doomsday. It is not a question of survival but the condition of survival with which we must concern ourselves. Everyone will die eventually but it is the quality of life in the interim that is of importance.
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