There are essential items every household should stockpile. Don’t be without them. If an attack occurs, no one will have time to run to Wal-Mart. These items should be together, preferably in a suitcase for easy transport, and set aside in an easily accessible area. If you evacuate, take all these things with you. They are:
Do not go outside.
Evacuation of people by air is possible, and if there is a bio or chemical released by cruise missiles through bomblets, flying out from the infected areas would be much safer than going out by land.
After a Nuclear Explosion or Radiological Incident:
A nuclear plant mishap will allow for immediate and organized evacuation. Whereas, with a surprise nuclear detonation, there is more confusion and no time for immediate evacuation. At the impact of a nuclear explosion everyone needs to turn away from the blast, lie face down, and wait 20 seconds for the shock wave to pass over. Cover your face the best you can and do not look at the blast!
Afterward brush off as well as you can and find stable shielding. One thing to remember is that the walls of wooden construction can weaken ionizing radiation two times, brick walls up to ten times, basements up to seven times, and basements with concrete walls up to 100 times, so your best bet is to be in the concrete basement. But don’t go into basements if there is a fire above it.
There are three types of aggressive actions that should be made available to the population for any WMD attack. This can only happen through a solid civil defense program in place for the city. Ask your city to provide the following:
1. Safe bunkers. If the government has been forewarned of an impending attack, the first action is to find a safe bunker because you will not know where the missile might hit.
2. Personal protection gear and medical supplies for all people.
3. A good evacuation plan. This would include ways to evacuate at least four miles outside city limits––but only if it is safe outside to do so. Manuals for WMD instruction should be made available to all citizens so they have a list of what food and medical supplies they will need for a five day evacuation, and the location of collective points (such as schools) where they would be meeting to commence the evacuation.
After an attack, evacuation can be partial or complete if there are safe bunkers for shelter. In a partial evacuation, schools, senior homes, and other institutions need to leave first, along with the people that are not involved in the manufacturing or handling of necessary production. Workers who are needed to operate a nuclear plant or electrical station should try and stay behind as long as they can to maintain city safety.
There should be enough underground bunkers to protect and feed part of the population for three days, house the IC (incident command) and administrative government personnel, contain a mobile electrical unit, and harbor a medical facility. The size of these buildings should vary from a small size that holds up to 150 people to the biggest size to accommodate over 450 people. They must have proper ventilation/filter systems because isolation is vital.
It is possible to have pre-built or fabricated above-ground safe houses erected within an hour. These systems would work only in certain conditions: the levels of radioactive dust must be low, the filter/ventilation system provided needs to be effective against the chemical or biological agents released, and the facility must be far enough away from fires. Hiding time in these bunkers in fire areas will usually be no longer then seven hours. Coal mines and metro stations are good places to use as bunkers. One-level buildings with basements are workable.
Anyone taking shelter in a bunker or basement after a nuclear blast where the level of radiation exceeds between 8 to 80 R/hour cannot remain there longer than 24 hours. If the level of radiation is between 80 to 240 R/hour they should remain up to three days, and if the level is over 240 R/hour they are safe in their bunker more than three days. If your bunker is damaged by the shock wave or any other way, do not wait for rescue teams; get out fast. It is difficult psychologically and physically to live in bunkers for days.
After four days the radiation is settling and this is when folks can leave their bunkers and quickly relocate to other enclosed buildings. Do not stay outside. If you have to be outside, don masks. Once inside a secure building, tape windows and do not activate air or heat systems. Eat only canned food, and touch nothing that has been sitting out. If transportation comes to the rescue, get on that bandwagon.
Potassium iodine (KI), available over the counter, should be stockpiled because it has the potential to protect the thyroid gland against radioactive iodine up to 95 percent. (CAUTION: iodine can cause allergic reactions). KI needs to be taken right away, at least 130 mg a day as long as you are exposed (65 mg for ages between three and 18, 32 mg for ages between one and three, and 16 mg between ages birth to one). Waiting to take the iodine six hours will drop that effectiveness to 50 percent. An 11-hour wait will not work at all. The Chernobyl incident from the Ukraine released so much radioactive iodine in the air that thyroid glands blocked completely in six hours.
Saving lives means preparation. Without it, people will die unnecessarily. Citizens in their city and state should fight tooth and nail to get their local politicians to provide a solid civil defense program.
Evacuation:
Being educated about what to do in the event of a disaster can save your life. Keep your head and move with knowledge, not with fear. Evacuation will be first and is important to understand. A proper evacuation is organized removal of the population from dangerous areas to a safe zone far enough away from radiological or certain chemical contamination. It is effective when done in a timely and organized manner.
Evacuation in large cities can be done either by using the public transportation systems, including airplanes, or by leaving the city in cars or on foot. Public transportation is the best way to go, especially because masses tend to get confused. City drivers would have better specifics and knowledge of the best route to get out of the city and into the safe zones. If a person chooses to drive their own vehicle, they must know where to go; otherwise they can end up driving toward the hot zone, instead of away from it, and dangerously contaminating themselves and their family with high levels of radiation or chemicals.
Everyone should keep a battery-operated radio in their home because this will be valuable for the safety of your family in knowing what to do and where to go. A good compass should also be in your supplies, in case the city is destroyed and your sense of direction is muddled. Walking is the fastest way to evacuate a hot zone if traffic jams clog the roads and slow down the process. Having proper clothing is a must in this case if you are in a contaminated area.
The most important mindset to take on during this kind of crisis is that you are not alone; you are part of a unit, working with everyone around you. No one gets left behind; you work together to reach your goal. This attitude will diminish panic and accomplish a great deal more.
In the case of a nuclear plant incident, evacuation will be much easier because the city would not be a mangled fireball. (The personal response of evacuation and protection mentioned in the next few pages applies to a post-nuclear explosion as well. Radionuclides inside the fallout after a nuclear detonation and after a nuclear plant incident differ, but the principles of protection against radioactive fallout are the same).
Boats should not be used as a source of evacuation if the body of water is near the destroyed nuclear plant; the water surface will be heavily contaminated. Avoid walking on soil or grass. Travel on asphalt roads if possible and avoid gravel roads that harbor dust. First responders and federal organizations have the survey equipment to analyze radiation levels and should be giving out information on what are the safe and unsafe routes to use. Again, keep the radio close at hand.
Before evacuation starts and before you leave your home:
Lotion applied thickly to the face will help keep radioactive material from penetrating the skin. Do this whether you plan on using public transportation, your own vehicle, or if you are walking.
In a large WMD event, expect to lose belongings, property, and cars––but don’t look back. Stay focused on saving your life, not your material goods.
Evacuation by Vehicle:
Grab your stockpiled suitcase (the openings should be taped) full of emergency items and place it with you in your vehicle. Heavy-duty trucks that sit up high from the ground are ideal protection to use for evacuation.
Once inside the vehicle, seal off all the vents, all openings under the dash, and around the windows with duct tape. The air conditioning and heat systems must be turned off and remain off. This will limit the presence of dust sneaking inside your vehicle as you drive.
Once you determine which way to leave the city, do not open the car or stop until you arrive at a safe destination. Stay close to the car in front of you, tailgate if possible, so that radioactive dust cannot fly up and possibly find its way inside. Avoid traveling through forest areas because the density of the foliage protects and absorbs the concentration. Drive away from the radioactive fallout cloud, and avoid rainfall if possible.
Do not eat or drink, if possible, until you reach the safe zone. If you or your children need water, take small drinks, but do not remain without face coverings for a long time. Use only bottled water; do not drink water from the faucet or from a well. Usually, if a mass evacuation is going smoothly, safe zones are four to six hours away. It is best to wait to eat or drink until you arrive at your secure destination.
Clean zones might become contaminated due to a shift in weather, and evacuation to another zone might be necessary. Keep this in mind.
An effective emergency plan of evacuation by government officials would include regional breakdowns so that people in set districts or neighborhoods would have ready public transportation available.
Children and pregnant women should go first, since they are most sensitive to ionizing radiation, followed by the elderly. No one should be left behind.
Change face masks during evacuation at least three times and wipe face down with alcohol-free baby wipes when you do this. Expect delays and be ready for them.
Evacuation by Foot:
If you are stuck in the city, especially if you are walking, stay in the middle of the road and away from buildings that may be heavily contaminated. If it is raining, do not walk through rain puddles that might be heavily contaminated. Shield yourself as best you can, and use a raincoat. Avoid unstable crowds; the last thing you want is to get caught inside a panicky group. Do not go through parks; avoid grass and trees. One evacuee from Chernobyl, who wore shoes, used a bicycle, and rode through grassy fields, ended up in the hospital with third degree radioactive burns on both feet.
For evacuation by foot, one 1,000 people should be broken into ten groups, with each group having one leader. The leader should be in charge of the map and the radiological and chemical survey instruments, with proper instruction on how to use them to check contaminated ground levels as they walk. These groups need to head away from the city with haste, but with carefulness so as not to shuffle and kick up contaminated dust.
Evacuation of pets applies the same as for humans. Pets need to be covered (especially their paws), washed, and even shaved if possible. Evacuation of animals from farms should take place after the people.
Personal Decontamination:
When you arrive at the safe zone, decontamination stations should be set up to wash and change clothes. Place used masks and worn clothes in doubled plastic bags and dispose where instructed. Also collect belongings like watches, rings, wallets, and money in separate labeled bags to allow responders to survey the belongings later to see if they could be decontaminated. If no decon stations with showers are organized at your safe location, this can be a problem, because the most important thing is that you shower and wash thoroughly. Radiation decontamination has the ability to become fixed on the skin and delayed removal by shower might be dangerous. In these cases techniques of removal can only be performed in a hospital setting.
If at all possible, have someone help wash your hair because it will be the most concentrated area of contamination and the most challenging area to clean. You may want to cut hair short to avoid the difficult job of cleaning, then dispose the hair in bags. Do not use shampoo combined with conditioner, or rinse with conditioner, since conditioners can bind the proteins of your hair with the radioactive material. Use baby shampoo.
Before tackling your hair, wash your hands thoroughly with a shampoo and water mixture, than slip on waterproof gloves and wash your face and eyes with the same. Do not use soap. Use wet swabs to clean the ears and nose.
Gargle and spit out, using a 3.6 percent hydrogen peroxide solution for your mouth. Brush teeth well, including the gums and tongue. Flush the eyes, keeping them wide open. Use direct water flow, starting at the inside corner of the eye. Blow the contents from your nose into a tissue.
Cut fingernails and toenails and clean under them. Dispose used items into plastic bags. Wash any small “hot spots” or tender areas (like underarm) with wet soapy pads in a spiral motion beginning at outer areas to the center. With large areas, wash with downward strokes and never backtrack over that cleaned area with the same pad. If you have no cleaning pads, use sponges or tampons.
Do not re-use washing aids after rinsing. Three percent strength of lemon extract is a good way to remove radioactive contamination and can be mixed with the shampoo and water.
As you wash the hair, do not let any water splash into the face. It is best to sit on a chair and keep the head back at all times. Do not open the eyes or mouth. Use little water, mostly shampoo, on the hair; wash and rinse at least three times. Make sure you or your helper use waterproof gloves.
Finish showering your entire body, using shampoo and water mixture, and use a soft brush or sponge over the skin. Then, dry off with a towel.
Afterward, if you have the items, take dry unscented soap powder and mix it together with plain cornflakes to make a thick paste. Apply it heavily all over your hair using little water; then brush it in well. Rinse, shampoo, and rinse again two more times. Use soft brushes and pads to comb hair. Hair dryers are okay to use. This method of cleaning is an awful ordeal, but necessary to decontaminate.
Despite all this showering will not guarantee that some radioisotopes did not penetrate the skin or still remain inside the hair.
Dispose of all worn clothes, utensils, towels, shampoo, and brushes into the plastic bags.
A good way to remove contamination from the skin on the hands is to use a perfume-free lanoline or skin cream and cover with plastic while they sweat. Leaving this on the skin for at least three hours will be effective in taking off almost 40 percent of external contamination. Remove the lotion with pads, preferably non-alcoholic baby wipes, and do not use water. This process should be done twice.
The bad news in washing in private homes is that the bathroom will more than likely become contaminated. The best place to wash is in special showers assigned for the task by city officials. There should be checkpoints of irradiation for people to make sure the decontamination process is efficient. This is the reason a good emergency plan is a necessity in every major U.S. city.
If there are open wounds on your skin and radioactive material has possibly gotten inside the wound in liquid or solid form, you have only 15 or 30 minutes until this material enters the peripheral blood. Depending on the chemical structure of the radionuclide, they would be concentrating in different “critical” organs. Therefore irrigating the wound as soon as possible with water is important. If there is arterial bleeding, you need to put a tourniquet two inches above the wound (use cloth underneath the tourniquet to protect the skin from bruising), then flush the wound. Cover the cut with sterile pad, but do not close the wound.
Once in the clean safe houses, do not get lazy. Everyone needs to consistently wipe down walls and surfaces with wet towels daily, just in case the radioactive dust has touched down in your area.
Be Wise:
Today’s media are not psychologically or educationally ready for large-scale WMD events. This means the various news broadcasts might give out a lot of confusing information.
For instance, if first responders would be establishing decon stations across the city, the media may report incorrect information that your life is in immediate jeopardy from radioactive fallout, and forget to inform you that only three or four stations are open in the city of one million. Long panicky lines would result, exposing everyone in the line to unneeded doses of radiation.
Proper decontamination of skin and clothes by responders takes at least ten minutes or more per person. Only four or five people being washed in one hour within one shower, makes a slow, slow process. Don’t stand outside in stalled lines; it is better to delay the shower and stay shielded from the fallout than to take on double doses that could be worse for you, shower or not.
Use wisdom during these times, and depend more on emergency broadcast news stations than the major television news networks.
To correctly prepare evacuation pathways, open mobile gas stations should be set up by responders in PPE gear to pump gas so that people do not have to get out of their cars and face exposure to radiation again. These gas stations should also be opened in the safe zones as special points for deactivation of transport and decontamination of people.
The government should have enough of these stations to accommodate the thousands and thousands of fleeing people. Personal monitoring equipment for radiation levels at these stations is crucial. Then responders can know who to send on their way, and who to keep back for decontamination.
Dead Zones:
If a nuclear accident happens the size of Chernobyl, or a large-scale nuclear detonation or biological attack occurs, many people will lose their houses forever. Replacement will be necessary in new clean zones (which will be a serious financial impact on the country). After such catastrophes, “no go” or dead zones will need to be erected and put in place around the most severely contaminated areas for decades because they will be impossible to decontaminate. If more than half the United States is contaminated, populations will have no choice but to live inside contaminated zones.
In Belarus and the Ukraine nearly two decades after Chernobyl, three million people are living in contaminated zones, and will do so for the next 80 years or more. The biggest dangers for these people are that their immune system does not respond to small doses of radiation; they are prone to receiving carcinogenic effects on the bones; and they could suffer genetic instabilities, which can transmit to future generations. They have become ultra sensitive to all types of allergens, antibiotics, vitamins, pharmaceutical drugs and chemical products, such as bleach. The effects of radiation on humans also cause people to age fast. A Chernobyl responder’s life expectancy today is about 49 years old.
During a nuclear plant explosion, a shortage of water supply would occur quickly; most underground waters would become contaminated in the first week. Don’t rely on home water filter systems for protection. A destroyed nuclear reactor will continually contaminate surrounding regions on the topsoil and in underground waters as long as it is alive and leaking radioactive material. It has been 22 years since the Chernobyl incident, and radioactive substance is still leaking from the destroyed area and poisoning nearby rivers.
Today, still, every autumn in Belarus, certain responders have the task of collecting contaminated leaves from trees before they can fall to the ground and blow to other areas. It’s a sobering fact to know that there is nothing earthly normal or fixable about radioactive contamination. Gaining knowledge of radiation and putting into affect a good family preparation plan are the first and most important steps in staying alive during a radiological catastrophe.
