Boom! Blinding light washes out the landscape around you.
Several things all happen within a second.
First, your vehicle dies as an electromagnetic pulse spreads at the speed of light, killing all
unshielded electronics. In the civilian world, that means practically everything. If you were
not blinded by the flash of the explosion, you'd see sparks dancing along the high
voltage wires overhead as they are overloaded with energy. All modern vehicles that rely on
fancy computers and electronic gadgets to make them super efficient and comfortable
are now just useless hunks of junk on four wheels. Personal computers, cell phones,
even pacemakers are all instantly shut down across a 40 mile radius,
and they will never be coming back on again. The power grid is absolutely ruined and will
need to be completely replaced before it's ever operational again, a task that will take years.
You're lucky that you were driving in the opposite direction of the detonation point,
because if not you would've been facing towards it. What's just happened about a mile above your
city is the birth of a second sun that burns brightly for just a few milliseconds. That's
all that's needed to unleash billions of joules of energy though, and much of that energy is in
the visible wavelength and searing the eyes of anyone who happened to even be glancing in its
general direction at detonation. Those within a two to three mile radius will be blind forever-
assuming they survive what's coming next- while anyone outside of that area may be
blind for a matter of hours or minutes depending on distance. Even those who
avoid being permanently blinded will likely suffer at least some vision loss as a result.
You're safely out of the immediate impact area, but for those who aren't,
ionizing radiation tears through their bodies from the detonation. Their DNA is completely
unraveled as the ionizing radiation rips through them- it's like taking millions of microscopic
shotguns blasts, only these pellets completely disintegrate the very instructions for life.
Most people within a half mile will die immediately from the radiation exposure-
if what comes in the next few seconds doesn't kill them of course.
Outside of that range the effects of radiation poisoning fall off steeply.
You were in your car, which protected you from a lot of the thermal radiation, but not all of it.
Your arm was hanging out the window, and even at over two miles from the
detonation point your arm has suffered some pretty nasty second-degree burns.
You're lucky, 35% of the energy from a nuclear explosion is released as heat,
and anyone caught out in the open can suffer third degree burns at a distance of
even five miles. If third degree burns cover 24 percent of the body, or second degree burns
cover 30 percent of the body, those individuals will go into serious shock with death imminent.
All flammable material directly under and surrounding the blast site catch on fire
because of the intense heat. Even at two miles out, some of the paint on your car evaporates
and the car door becomes painfully hot to the touch. Tires on vehicles all around you burst as
the rubber softens and weakens, while billboards catch on fire. People caught out in the open are
consumed in flames as their clothes ignite while they're still wearing them. Some people's hair is
literally seared off their heads, leaving behind painful second-degree burns across their scalp.
This has just been one second into a nuclear detonation.
Your car spins out of control as the tires go flat, but you get lucky and come to an abrupt,
but mostly safe stop. You have barely enough time to look in the rearview mirror before you
see what's coming next. Like an invisible tsunami, the pressure wave is now smashing
its way across the landscape, starting from the detonation point and radiating outwards. This has
been a nuclear attack using an intercontinental ballistic missile, so the explosion took place
a few hundred meters above the city. This way the pressure wave could expand outwards unimpeded by
terrain and buildings. A ground impact is highly unfavorable, as it leads to buildings or terrain
features absorbing much of the pressure wave and limiting the damage dramatically.
Directly below and up to a mile away from the detonation point, the destruction is complete.
Buildings are flattened and tall skyscrapers are annihilated, leaving behind only the very core of
each building jutting up a few hundred feet like a shattered, skeletal finger. Plenty of sewers
and service tunnels criss-cross a modern city, not to mention transportation tunnels and subway. All
of these are collapsed, killing hundreds stuck below or trapping them with no hope of rescue.
Outside of a mile, the damage falls off, but is still severe.
Multiple story buildings are seriously damaged, leading many to simply collapse in on themselves
or against their neighbors. Buildings with only a few stories are less severely affected,
but have every single window blown out and many of their roofs collapse, killing anyone below. At
least the tunnels and sewers that criss-cross the city here are safe from collapse, only a few are
seriously damaged. Almost no human beings up to two miles out survive if caught out in the open.
You're just over two miles out from detonation point, and here the damage falls off once again.
Windows are blown out and some roofs and walls collapse, but generally buildings remain standing.
As the pressure wave catches up to you, your car is physically picked up and tossed like an angry
kid playing with his Hot Wheels car. The pressure wave blows your car over and threatens to tip it,
but you’re too far away and your car comes crashing back down onto all four wheels.
Debris pelts the landscape around you, but you’re mostly safe inside your car.
A few people standing out on the street get taken out by chunks of
concrete hurled through the air by the hundred-mile-an-hour wind.
The roar of a second sun coming to life above your city has been so incredibly
loud that you've temporarily lost all hearing. It'll probably return in time,
but for those closer to detonation they could experience permanent or severe hearing loss.
A strange silence falls over the city five seconds after detonation
as a massive mushroom cloud slowly drifts up into the sky. Then, the screaming starts,
tens of thousands of people seriously injured, tens of thousand less so. You are now on
a ticking clock, because you've survived the initial explosion through sheer luck,
but surviving what comes next is going to take skills, knowledge, and quick thinking.
Tik tok, tik tok- you've got 15 minutes before you're dead.
What's currently happening and what will kill even more people than the initial explosion,
is that an ecological disaster is in the brew, and about to break out all over you and every
survivor in your city. The detonation of a nuclear weapon above your city has sent ionizing radiation
all over the landscape, penetrating into the very building materials of the city itself.
The thermal flash and pressure wave pulverized all of that irradiated material
and turned it into very fine dust. Then, the incredible heat- reaching as much as
the surface of the sun for a few milliseconds- creates huge convection currents that suck up
gargantuan quantities of air and sends it roaring upwards into the sky, hence the mushroom cloud.
But all that air is impregnated with billions of tons of highly radioactive dust,
and in approximately fifteen minutes that dust is going to start falling all around you.
You panic, because you know what's coming- but now you've got a choice to make.
You could probably find a working vehicle somewhere and take that to flee the city,
trying to outrun the fallout cloud that's about to break over your head. In fact, many people along
the suburbs are right now climbing into their cars to do just that. But you're smarter than that,
you know that even if you found a working vehicle in the next minute, you could never
outrun the cloud of fallout looming overhead. It's being propelled along by winds in the
upper atmosphere and will outpace anything but the fastest sports car. Plus, the roads
and highways are inevitably going to be choked up with vehicles and other people with the same idea.
The particles in the stem of the mushroom cloud will end up falling right back down
where they were picked up. Not many people will die from them,
but that's pretty much only because anyone under the growing thick,
black, sooty stem of a massive mushroom cloud is already dead from the initial explosion. It's
the rest of the billowing cloud that you have to worry about, because what goes up
definitely comes down. But you're not the only one in danger, as much of the radioactive fallout
will reach the uppermost layers of the atmosphere where it will be carried along by strong winds.
Massive plumes of radiation will fall for hundreds of miles from the detonation point,
poisoning communities entire states away. This is the very reason why Russia may saber-rattle and
talk tough about using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but in reality would only be shooting
itself in the foot as prevailing winds would carry much of the fallout right back into Russia itself.
To avoid dying in the next fifteen minutes, you have a choice to make.
Avoiding radiation poisoning is about three things: time, distance, and shielding. The more
time you spend away from a radiation source, the safer you will be as radioactive decay- especially
in fission byproducts of nuclear explosions- tends to make dangerous particles extremely
short-lived. The greater the distance between you and an unshielded radioactive source also means
you’d be exposed to less radiation. Meanwhile, shielding takes into account placing barriers
between yourself and a radioactive source. If you can't meet the requirements of one- time,
distance, or shielding- then you must compensate by adding even more of the two other requirements.
To survive a nuclear attack you're going to have to do all three though.
First, take a look around you. Your first choice, and the absolute worst, is to remain
in your vehicle. This will put some shielding and distance between yourself and the fallout.
The good news is that the radioactive debris about to rain down on you is only hazardous if it's
extremely close to your body, so if your car can simply physically keep it away from you your odds
of survival have greatly increased. You need to put all the windows up and close all the vents,
stuffing them up with anything that you have available. You can't let there be a single crack-
the first radioactive particles to fall will be the size of grains of sand or salt,
and these should be easy to keep out. However, over time the finer radioactive debris will begin
to descend and this can be as small as specks of dust. In fact, you can detect the presence
of radioactive fallout after a nuclear explosion simply by seeing coatings of dust on objects.
A car is a terrible survival choice, but its better than nothing. However,
an even better choice is to shelter inside a building with a basement if possible.
Basements may not seem like the best choice since so much of that fine debris is going to
settle in low places, but the key is to choose a basement with as few entrances as possible,
and then to seal those entrances as best you can. However, in many modern cities-
especially in sunny SoCal- basements are rare. In that case, you want to move to the centermost
area of a home or building and shelter in place there. Staying at the core of a building will
add distance and shielding between yourself and harmful fallout, but if you're going to survive
you're going to have to take some precautions before the radioactive dust starts falling down.
Hopefully you've got duct tape available nearby, in which case you need to immediately seal all
windows and doors with duct tape. A closed window will be fine to protect you from the
initial larger grains of debris that falls down first, but every window is leaky, and the finer
particles will ride in on those air currents, potentially poisoning you inside the shelter.
This is why it's important to seal windows and doors with tape and to
make your shelter as far from any window as possible, ideally past several closed doors.
Your first priority is securing your shelter, and luckily
you found an intact office building to hide inside along with a few other survivors.
Working quickly you all sealed off exterior windows and then taped up the doors leading
to your inner core. But now that you're somewhat safe, it's time to get naked.
No, you're not repopulating the earth already, but you are avoiding a very nasty death
by radiation poisoning. If you were outside at the time of detonation,
there's a serious risk that you've already contaminated your clothing
with radioactive particle debris. That's why any of you who were outside when the bomb went off
need to immediately remove all outer garments and put them in a plastic bag of some kind,
then seal the bag off. If possible, put that first bag inside a second plastic bag,
and then store it somewhere far away from you and make sure everyone is aware of its location.
You are also going to immediately want to start wiping everyone down, and this means using the
buddy system to get those hard-to-reach spots you can't get to yourself. You're going to be
stuck with your new friends for a while, so what better ice breaker than getting naked and
giving each other a quick wipe down? You need to remove all exterior contamination from your
body so that it doesn't rest against your skin and damage your body with ionizing radiation.
You can do this with simple soap and water to scrub away any grime,
but even just brushing off with a clean cloth is enough. Afterwards though anything that you
used to clean each other off with is going to have to go into another containment bag.
Never reuse or reopen an old containment bag already full of contaminated material.
Now you've avoided the most imminent hazard- exterior contamination. Your next greatest threat,
and one that will persist for a while, is interior contamination. This will come from the finer
radioactive debris that can get inside wounds or be breathed in and settle in your lungs or along
your esophagus. Inside your shelter, your odds of survival are good- but only if you stay in place.
You've created distance and shielding, but now you need to add time to the equation.
Fallout contamination decays very quickly, with it giving off 80% of its energy in
the very first day. However, the debris is still energetic enough to be deadly even after one day.
For every 7 fold factor of time, dose rate decreases by a factor of ten.
Two hours after detonation, the fallout will have lost half of its energy,
but this can still be extremely deadly. Ideally, you want to shelter in place a
full 72 hours before leaving your shelter, at which rate remaining radioactive debris
will still be harmful but only if you remain in contact with it for long amounts of time.
Unfortunately, your city is going to be a hellblasted nuclear landscape after an attack,
so you'll be in constant contact with radioactive debris even after three days.
That's why the CDC recommends you wait a full 7 days before leaving your shelter,
as this will give you the best survival rates. By that time radioactive fallout
will have a fraction of its original energy and be much less dangerous.
At this point external contamination is unlikely to be a serious threat anymore,
but the biggest threat comes from internal contamination. Too weak to penetrate the
skin at this point, radioactive debris that gets lodged into wounds or inside your lungs
can still be deadly or pose serious long-term health risks. So when you leave your shelter
you want to take precautions against breathing in fine radioactive particles.
Face masks like the type we've been wearing due to the Coronavirus outbreak are ok,
but not great for this. You would be better off wetting a t-shirt or other large cloth
and wrapping it over your mouth and nose. It's important to keep it wet as the moisture will
attract fine particles and trap them, and important to cover both your nose and mouth.
After any excursion you'll need to wash whatever protective equipment you've used and all exterior
garments. If you can, give your body a good washing down as well just to remove any fine
particles that you might end up breathing in or shoving into a cut or scrape accidentally.
Hopefully you had food and water in your shelter- at least just water,
or you probably aren't making it to this milestone and your story ends here. But if
you've managed to survive seven days, you're now going to have to think about long term survival.
First, you need to consider if it's best to remain where you are or to seek help.
Assuming that this was a small-scale attack,
there should still be help from the military or emergency response agencies coming to your city.
If it was a full-scale nuclear conflict though, you're probably completely on your own.
If you think help is coming, work on increasing the resiliency of your shelter.
Improve the shielding to the outside by creating layers of plastic or cloth, like curtains,
that hang in front of the exterior doors. This will help keep radioactive dust down as people
go in or out. If you can, simply make suits out of garbage bags to wear over your outer clothing,
that way it can be removed and thrown away in a specified disposal location after each trip.
If you've got water to spare, create two 'cleaning areas' for boots. You can do this by filling two
buckets with water and dipping your boots into each one in succession. After a few rinses,
dispose of the water somewhere there's no chance of it contaminating your or your shelter.
You're going to want to pay special attention to boots and feet, as they will be the most likely
to be saturated with fine radioactive debris since most of it will settle on the ground.
You'll also want to make sure your shelter is visible to search and rescue parties
who are looking for survivors. Create large, geometric shapes made of bright
materials to immediately grab the attention of a helicopter or passing rescue vehicle or patrol.
SOS is a global sign of distress, but in a city you should be able to find many
creative ways of making it obvious that your shelter is occupied with survivors. Make sure
to regularly clean your emergency displays to make it obvious people are still alive,
otherwise rescue workers may simply assume that the shelter has been abandoned.
Whether you move out or shelter in place, you'll probably need to find food and water eventually.
It should be obvious, but avoid anything that isn't completely sealed in a non-permeable
material like plastic. Canned goods are excellent options as they are air-tight,
but even pastas or breads in plastic wrapping is ok to eat as long as the
wrapping is completely sealed. Just don't open any food items outside of your shelter,
and it's best to wrap them up in cloth or plastic as you transport them through the outside world
and back into your shelter- though as usual, you'll need to decontaminate whatever you used to
protect them. You'll also want to get rid of the wrapping material or tin cans after they're done
if they have been in an unsecured area where they could be exposed to outside dust.
Water will be trickier because there will almost certainly be no electricity in your city, which
means no water pumps to supply water. If you're lucky enough to be in a safe interior location
when an attack takes place, immediately plug up sinks and bathtubs and fill them with water
if it's still flowing. Underground water pipes will be safe from the radioactive fallout for a
long time, but not forever as eventually the body of water that feeds them will be contaminated.
That's why even if you have running water after an attack you don't want to rely on it.
Better yet to stock up on water bottles, which should be easy to find in shopping centers and
corner stores after an attack. Most water bottles are made of thick plastic which will keep the
contents safe even after fallout has descended. However, as usual you'll want to decontaminate
every bottle of water you bring into your shelter from the outside before you start messing with it.
If you can't find water, your best option might just be to start moving and get out of the city
or heading towards emergency services. Major airports are a good place to head towards as
it's likely that this is where the first rescue efforts will take place. However,
if you can't reach one or if government help isn't coming, survival will still depend on getting out
of the city. It'll help if you can figure out which way the prevailing winds are blowing,
and then head perpendicular to them. You don't want to head into the wind, because you could
just be getting facefulls of contaminated dust. Instead, much like a rip current,
head perpendicular and get out of the stream of air that's carrying radioactive waste.
Once you're out of the city, your best bet is to head towards high ground- you’re safer on the
leeward side of a mountain where the wind hasn’t blown radioactive dust and debris onto the soil.
Radioactive fallout will settle in low areas, and rains and streams will wash it down mountains and
into the valleys and plains below. It would be wise to learn what major drinking water sources
are around your city and then head to those that are on high ground. If you can shelter in a safe
area for a few months, radioactivity levels in remaining debris should be manageable- at this
point if you're forced to continue living in the area of a nuclear attack a long, healthy life is
out of the question. But you can probably enjoy a moderately long life with few serious health
problems. Some radioactive elements will remain deadly for years, Strontium-90 for instance is
still dangerous after 10 years, as is Cesium-137. If you can't get away from the site of a nuclear
attack, or if your entire nation has come under nuclear attack, there's probably little you can
do to avoid these dangers as these elements will become part of the environment itself.
But there's a reason why both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are habitable today,
and that's because a nuclear attack from another nation will almost certainly be of
the airburst variety. A ground burst weapon is one designed to explode when it hits the ground.
This greatly limits its destructive potential, but also causes massive plumes of irradiated material.
However, an air burst weapon explodes above its target so the destructive shockwave and
thermal radiation can hit as wide an area as possible. This also comes with the benefit
of shooting much of the weapon's radioactive output up into the atmosphere or into space.
Within days of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions people
were inhabiting the ruins and living lives with few if any health effects.
So cheer up, because the end isn't the end after all. Now's the time to grab your
trusty Pipboy and head off into the greatest Fallout Larp event the world has ever put on.
Now go check out What If North Korea Launched A Nuclear Bomb Minute-by-Minute,
or click this other video instead! Another settlement needs your help!