
How to Survive a Nuclear War: The York Experiment - lermontov
https://www.historytoday.com/taras-young/how-survive-nuclear-war-york-experiment
======
m-i-l
It is easy to forget nowadays how much fear of nuclear war there used to be
always lurking in the background. One anecdote to illustrate: My secondary
school was built on top of the region's nuclear bunker. They were short of
classrooms so we sometimes had lessons inside the bunker. At the start of
these we were grimly advised that if nuclear war broke out during the lesson
we would have to evacuate the safety of the bunker to make way for the local
dignitaries who had been assigned spaces there, i.e. doctors, the local MP
etc. (Not exactly helpful for building a sense of self-worth in the
impressionable young.)

~~~
lugg
Feelings of self worth are transient and alterable. That lesson about self
worth vs reality will last a lifetime.

~~~
m-i-l
Indeed. As easy as it was to grow up hating "the system", with the benefit of
perspective it has to be said that a good selection of well-trained doctors,
well-connected councillors etc. are likely to be more useful in a post-
nuclear-holocaust recovery scenario than a bunch of school kids whose survival
story would probably end up reading more like Lord of the Flies.

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brobdingnagians
If you want a good, full book on nuclear survival, it's worth checking out
Cresson H Kearny's book on it from research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
I'm not planning on using any of the information, but it's fairly enjoyable to
learn about some of the particulars. It's like thinking of how you would
survive a zombie apocalypse. It is fairly optimistic about survival if you
aren't in the blast radius and is chock full of useful information, including
what sort of attacks would be most likely and what to do in each phase. He
makes a real point of saying that it wouldn't be the end of the world and is
very survivable; people get a much more depressing and fatalistic view
sometimes. Cheer up. [ [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-War-Survival-Skills-
Instruc...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-War-Survival-Skills-
Instructions/dp/1634502973?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duc08-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1634502973)
]

~~~
arethuza
Perhaps fine for a large less densely populated country and small scale
attacks.

Somewhere like the UK in the early 1980s facing a realistic Soviet attack
(e.g. the one that almost happened in Autumn '83) then almost all of the
people in this country _would_ have been in serious trouble with little
prospect for long term survival.

NB The UK government was always rather more "realistic" about the actual
impact of a war than the US.

------
ggm
Don't mistake this booklet for "protect and survive" which was handed out in
the 1970s and 1980s. this was the precursor work.

I was the lucky recipient of "protect and survive" in my terrace house in York
in the 1980s. We blithly understood the staircase was our best bet, both for
initial blast protection and ultimate entombment. The Raymond Briggs cartoon
book "when the wind blows" felt more realistic to most of us.

I did not enjoy watching Peter Watkins "the war game" which was with-held from
general broadcast and mostly only seen in film societies. It wasn't exactly
hyper realistic, but it was chillingly unpleasant. It was dated by the time I
saw it (shot in B&W I believe, and in the sixties so over 15 years old by the
time I first saw it)

~~~
neilwilson
I still have occasional nightmares about Threads
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads)).
Mostly about the milk bottle melting. Possibly the scariest TV show I've ever
watched - largely because it was set just down the road in Sheffield.

~~~
secfirstmd
Threads is outstanding. I rarely if ever had a nightmare after watching
something but that movie is so frightening and depressing that the first time
I watched it I could barely force myself out of bed the next day. Incredible
work by the BBC.

~~~
andyjohnson0
Same with me. I was seventeen in 1984 when it was first shown but didn't see
it at the time. I finally watched it a few years ago and had a night of
unusually disturbed sleep followed by two days that were mentally tinged with
vague feelings of doom and contamination. Not something I'd want to experience
again.

------
sehugg
Reminds me of that episode of "Benson" where they game out a nuclear attack
scenario in the basement (bonus: first mention of ARPANET on TV):
[https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=benson&p=3&it...](https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=benson&p=3&item=B:05045)

------
burfog
It's like surviving any kind of disaster: You need the mindset that you will
survive, instead of staying unprepared because you are too fearful to plan for
disaster.

The whole country of Switzerland is protected by law. Everybody has shelter
that will withstand a 12 megaton strike at a distance of only 700 meters. Very
few warheads are that large.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter#Switzerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter#Switzerland)

A few other countries, mainly in northern Europe, have lower-quality shelter.
Impoverished countries have an excuse, plus they tend to not be targets. The
rest of us are being irresponsible.

~~~
snarfybarfy
If nukes start to really hit Switzerland then it will look pretty grim
everywhere else as well. Might as well just get it over with and enjoy the
light show.

~~~
ahje
This.

I live less than 30 km from a large military base (although not in
Switzerland). If we actually reach the point where someone decides to nuke
that base, then I'm toast reagardless of whether I survice the blast or not.

A quick ending is preferable to slowly dying from radiation poisoning I
guess...

~~~
credit_guy
Not clear why you think that. 30km is quite far. [1] is a pretty good site to
play around and get an idea how far the nuclear blast reaches. For example the
Russian Topol SS-25 (800 kT TNT) has an air blast radius (5psi) of 6.5 km.
This is quite a large bomb. For comparison, most US warheads are W76, with a
100kT yield and a blast radius of 1km. The largest currently deployed warhead
is the Chinese Dong-Feng-5, which at 5MT has a blast radius of 12 km.

[1] [https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)

~~~
ahje
That's a cool site -- will have a look! :)

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Tsubasachan
NATO alone had 3000 nuclear weapons stored in Europe ready for a Soviet
invasion. If things really went to hell nobody was going to survive.

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sureaboutthis
In the eighth grade (1966), our teacher gave a talk about what we were to do
if the air raid sirens went off. He said we would all be taken to the basement
of the building and the doors to the outside would be locked. "Even if your
mother and father are outside trying to get in, we won't let them in", he
said.

I remember that to this day.

------
ryanmercer
For those interested in this article, there's a book worth reading about this
general subject:

Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--
While the Rest of Us Die by Garrett Graff
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010MHAG72/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010MHAG72/)
.

------
mothsonasloth
I wonder if silicon valley has any bunkers?

Surviving a nuclear attack is doable, provided you are:

Outside the flash zone Outside the shockwave / concussion area Sheltered from
fallout radiation Have access to a constant source of uncontaminated water Can
survive the following saturation nuclear attacks (from SS18s etc) Able to
survive the civil unrest Disease Dwindling food source

Have I missed anything?

~~~
sdrothrock
> Sheltered from fallout radiation

It might be included in this, but you'd also want to have an air supply
isolated from fallout.

~~~
brohee
Filtering air intake thru a HEPA filter is plenty good enough, fallout is
dust.

------
steveax
And here we are in 2018 on the cusp of what is looking to be a new nuclear
arms race. It’s two minutes to midnight:

[https://thebulletin.org/2018-doomsday-clock-
statement/](https://thebulletin.org/2018-doomsday-clock-statement/)

~~~
EADGBE
Just like in 1953. [https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-
announcements/](https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/)

Fear mongering at its best.

------
lexxed
Well it seems like people go crazy just 2 days in a bunker

~~~
VLM
We've had a few decades of evolutionary pressure for cubicles and open
offices... modern results might surprise.

~~~
ryanmercer
This. I hate travel, I get 26 days of vacation a year. I'll take a week off at
a time and sometimes not leave the apartment at all over the course of 8-9
days, or even look out a window for that matter. I imagine I'm far from alone.

And when I went aboard U-505 recently, my first thought was "I could totally
live in here", a fried that went aboard her with me agrees that we could both
happily live on a sub/spaceship/bunker for extended periods.

