We're regular readers of several internet news sites and daily listeners to NPR. In what we've heard and read lately, we're getting a little concerned about the possibility of India and Pakistan using nuclear weapons against each other. From what we know, there is the possibility of us here in the US (Cent. Wisc.) getting some effects of any nuclear blast that may take place. Are any of you preparing for anything of this nature? and if so, how? Don't mean to be alarmist, but I'm going to be really bummed if we suffer due to these two countries going at each other!

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), December 31, 2001

Answers

Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't cause nuclear blast effects here.

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), December 31, 2001.

We spent today calibrating and charging a box of dosimeters and a larger radiation detector. We have enough KI stored to treat our entire rural community. We also are thinking of how to build an underground shelter/root cellar. We are in an area far from any targets but we, too, are concerned about radiation - either from a confrontation between other countries or one on US soil.....

But I think you'll find 99% of people choose to remain blissfully ignorant and irrationally optimistic about the possibility fo either a nuclear "event" or war OR the survivability of one. I know in my own circle of friends and family, the prevailing thought is "I'd rather just die than live after a nuclear war". I'm afraid many, many WILL survive but die because they won't know what is safe to eat/drink, how to shelter and reduce exposure to fallout, etc.

Happy thoughts for the last day of 2001, eh?

-- (elizabeth.morgan@hotmail.com), December 31, 2001.

In answer to Rose, We had a cloud of fallout pass over the US after the Chernoble Disaster in the USSR (in the 80's). It was very downplayed and not talked about. But when it rained the day it was to pass over the US I kept my kids indoors. Feels like the 50's and 60's again to me. You can't run from this stuff. I wish the Earth well. I see a new boon in Fallout Shelters again. They used to build houses with them. I remember fallout shelter signs in the city on various buildings. I remember as a 8 year old being afraid of going into the Co-op store (groceries on the MSU campus) because I thought it was run by communists. We were taught that cooperative meant communisum. Communisum meant terror. Sigh. de javu.

-- Susan (cobwoman@yahoo.com), December 31, 2001.

Underground houses are starting to look even better! You don't have to go to a fall out shelter if you live in one.

-- buffy (buffyannjones@hotmail.com), December 31, 2001.

Good point Buffy! My cottage will now have a sod (living) roof for sure. You helped me make up my mind. Thanks.

-- Susan in Northern Michigan (cobwoman@yahoo.com), December 31, 2001.

Rose: I looked into buying some KI and ended up going the route of getting regular iodine for wounds. The one site I looked at mentioned skin application of betadine or iodine as a possible alternative, verified my some medical studies I think. I'll look up the site if you're interested. Otherwise I've got a basement and some food put by and a cistern under concrete, hopefully that'll help if ever needed. I'd rather stick my head in the sand and pretend it's not an issue but after Y2K I find I pay a bit closer attention to possible outcomes (even though that one was thankfully wrong).

Meanwhile, Happy New Year fellow Countrysiders!! May 2002 be a happy, healthy, prosperous and Peaceful year for you and yours!

-- Susan (smtroxel@socket.net), December 31, 2001.

Rose, as a matter of fact we did have fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lessor than we did with the Chernoble Disaster. They just didn't report it back then in fear of people panicing and since so little was known about raditation back then it was believe to "probably" be unharmful. Chernoble was not readly told either because of people's fear.

Those incidents were very very minor than if nuclear war breaks out in India and Pakistan. We are talking about 10-50 times (perhaps up to 100 times by some reports) the amount of radiation being released (depending on the number of warheads released). More release of radiation that has ever been seen or monitored before.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were tiny baby bombs and of differant nuculear makeup of what is out there today. Chernoble is the closest we've come and it too was a wee tiny baby in comparison.

People should not panic, but you really do need to deal with the possibility. No one really even knows how bad it will be and what effect we will see in the areas of cancer, etc. It will also have a severe effect on the weather. All that the scientist know is it will change our weather patterns in ways we have never seen before - of even more concern to most scientist than the radiation itself.

I have been looking for a site (without the hype, in plain english, and factual) about how to survive radiation. What is your favorite site all?

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), January 01, 2002.

Pray for peace, use wisdon and don't let fear control you. Happy Future, Jim

-- Jim Raymond (jimr@terraworld.net), January 01, 2002.

Sorry to ms.rose , the others are right. There was most definitely fallout from our above ground nukes on japan.

I was living on the n. california coast at the time of chernobol->sp? Usda & suits-[don't know what dept. they were with] measured the radiation levels in the local dairies milk. Fat binding w/ it & passing it on to to consumers was a real concern & parents were advised to buy out of area milk for kids over 4 yrs. as a precation.

The rainfall & bay would often have measurable amounts of fallout for months afterward.

Remember even after we used the first nukes we allowed sailors to use water & pushbrooms to clean the decks of test ships that were used around the bimini islands! no haz-mat suits in use there sad to say.

-- bj pepper in C. MS. (pepper.pepper@excite.com), January 01, 2002.

I think Ms. Rose is also right - we have to distinguish between BLAST effects and radiation. You have to be pretty close (relatively speaking) to the actual detonation to suffer blast effects. But you can get measurable radiation from a blast halfway around the world, depending on wind/jet stream patterns. We got measurable fallout from some test China did recently....not mention Chernobyl. India/Pakistan could be worrisome....but what got us moving was the thoughts of the 84+ missing nukes possibly being in terrorist hands, not to mention the ultimate plans of China and Russia vis-a-vis the West and the US in particular (this ain't mere doomsday fantasy - they have and CONTINUE to publish their plans. Just last year there were military strategists in China discussing the window of opportunity for taking out the US with nukes.)

But anyone who has a healthy concern about nuclear-biological- chemical warfare in the US has been painted as a whacko. If you have traveled in Europe, you know they do not have the defeatist attitude we see in the US - whole countries have active, modern civil defense infrastructure and plans for their citizens. Why has the US dropped the ball so badly?

Cresson Kearney has the ultimate book and website on preparing for nuclear warfare - do a google search on him and I imagine his site will have links....Worldnetdaily.com is featuring the book "No Such Thing As Doomsday" today - it is a basic primer on various scenarios and preparations.

Just don't allow yourselves to fall back into complacency - nuclear warfare IS survivable -- but you will be MUCH better off if you have made basic, sensible, affordable preparations ahead of time.

-- (elizabeth.morgan@hotmail.com), January 01, 2002.

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'm a product of the 60's and just plain don't trust the gov't when they say "there's nothing to worry about", so I always like to be prepared. At least now I know I'm not alone in my worries. Believe me, I don't let my worries run my life, too many other things to be done here! We do a lot of research of our own and make our preparedness decisions after that. Yes, we've been called whacko (and other things I'm sure) because of the way we do things, but it'll be some of those name-callers that will be knocking at our door "if" anything really bad ever does affect us. Hmmm, do I let them in?

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), January 01, 2002.

Take a look at http://www.oism.org/nwss/ - a LOT of good info from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, including fallout shelters and how to build air pumps, etc. And it's not too technical that you can't understand it. DON'T try to print the whole thing - I did and wound up with about 4 inches of printout.

-- Eric in TN (eric_m_stone@yahoo.com), January 02, 2002.

Rose Marie, if you don't let them in, how will you be able to say to them "I told you so!"? If the bomb drops, I want to be right under it. I don't want to be living in the fallout. And since I consider Lahore Pakistan to be my second home, if it does happen, it will be the same as it if it fell on me. The Indians may say they will not be the first to use their nuclear capabilities, but they have much the advantage in conventional military strength, they have much the advantage in population size and resources -- they can put Pakistan in the position of having to use nuclear misslies to defend itself against conventional attack. Which would be most unwise beyond even the nuclear disaster -- China is an ally of Pakistan, do not forget. I don't think with US troops in Pakistan itself that either side will escalate things that far, and it would set into motion a whole series of countries being obliged to support one side or each other.

One thing which gets no airplay in the US media is how scarily fascist the ruling party of India, the BJP, is. I was in Bombay during the "riots" (read:"pogroms") of Jan 1993 -- I have seen them in action. The BJP is associated with the Shiv Sena ("Shiva's Army") which is anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, anti-Sikh, anti-untouchable, anti-moderate Hindus -- in fact, anti-anybody who does not agree with their bigoted agenda. The Shiv Sena is hand-in-hand with the RSS, the same organization which assassinated Mahatma Gandhi and which literally uses as its training manual "Mein Kampf".

It has always irritated me how India gets all this wonderful publicity as "the world's biggest democracy" and people think of non-violence & Gandhi & sweetness & light when they think of India, when in fact it is quite the opposite. It is hard to have a real democracy in a country that big, nor where so much depends on everybody "knowing their place" in the heirarchy and staying there.

I think as long as we think of nuclear war as something which happens to someone else, somewhere else, rather than as something which happens to us, no matter where it happens or who is right under it, we are increasing the odds of it happening. In other words, until we accept our kinship with the whole human race and our joint tenancy of the entire planet, we aren't understanding the scope of the danger we all are in.

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), January 02, 2002.

I agree whole heartedly with snooze, but at the same time I do feel that people should be prepared. I remember reading once an estimate of the volume of radiation in the atmosphere from nuke testing, bombs, accidents, etc; the figure was astounding; it knocked me on my ass. We are constantly being bombarded by this crap, every day. Grow your food, store your food, share your food, and spread peace with your life, go underground if you have to, but don't hide from the reality that we live in a nuclear disaster, and although the holocaust isn't measurable on the average North American's health status, it is there. Prepare for peace. Actualizing peace in your thoughts, and vision is not complacency.

-- roberto pokachinni (pokachinni@yahoo.com), January 03, 2002.

GREAT reply, roberto!

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), January 03, 2002.

I agree that everything will get here in the air sooner or later. I have been getting information, and doing what I can to be ready for smaller disasters. The big stuff I plan to do eventually, like a root/storm/bomb shelter. I don't think worrying will help, but neither can I ignore the times when I have to take care of my kids. I have to at least try to give them the best I can. I know that radioactive dust will penetrate a small greenhouse, so I do not know what ideas there could be for keeping your garden pure. I worry most about the dust, as if we were near the blast it wouldn't matter. :o) I would just hope to get to the shelter in time.

I have seen a kit you can buy for a cheep radiation meter, but I do not know how much my husband would spend on such a thing. Or if I could even figure it out when the time came! :o) Need to read more on this I guess.

-- notnow (notnow@blabla.com), January 04, 2002.

Question: Even if you and your seeds were in a root cellar, what would be the effect of radiation or fallout on the soil? If covered in a deep mulch would it then be useable? Would water in a deep well be safe? I have not checked out the other internet sites that have been mentioned but how can homesteaders make the best of choices that would be available now or later? Thanks for your thoughts.

-- Marie (Mamafila@aol.com), January 04, 2002.

Fallout comes in the form of rain, snow and dust. It permeates everything it comes in contact with. Thus your seeds and you are fairly safe in a deep root cellar, provided you have at least two weeks supply of food and potable water....gas masks are useless. Having a good protected vented airpipe is more important as is a method of removing stale air and human waste.

If India and Pakistan go at it, there won't be much in the way of fallout over in the mid-central/mid-south states. Up along the Highline, Alaska and in Canada--yes, much greater possibility. All is dependent upon the upper air jet stream.

Protection from blast? Not necessary unless you're within 25-mi of detonation. I'm more nervous about the local sites than I am about India/Pakistan.

-- matt johnson (wyo_cowboy_us@yahoo.com), January 04, 2002.