The Effects of Nuclear War
Chapter IV
CASE 4: A LARGE SOVIET ATTACK ON U.S. MILITARY AND ECONOMIC TARGETS
The First Few Days
Survivors will continue to be faced with the decision whether to evacuate or seek shelter in place during this interval. The competence and credibility of authority will be under continuous question. Will survivors be told the facts, or what is best for them to know, and who decides? Deaths will have climbed due to untreated injuries, sickness, shock, and poor judgement. Many people will decide to attempt evacuation simply to escape the reality of the environment. For those staying, it likely means the beginning of an extended period of shelter survival. Ideally, shelters must protect from radiation while meeting the minimums of comfort, subsistence, and personal hygiene. Convincing people to remain in shelters until radiation levels are safely low will be difficult, but probably no more so than convincing them that it is safe to leave on the basis of a radiation-rate meter reading. There will be unanswerable questions on long-term effects.
Sheltering the survivors in the populous Boston to Norfolk corridor will present unprecedented problems. Almost one-fifth of the U.S. population lives in this small, 150by 550mile [250 by 900 km] area. Aside from the threat of destruction from direct attack, these populations are in the path of fallout from attacks on missile silos and many industrial targets in the Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Duluth triangle. Depending on the winds at altitude, the fallout from the Midwest will begin arriving 12 to 30 hours after the attack.
At the time when fallout radiation first becomes intense, only a fraction of the surviving urban population will be in adequate fallout shelters. Those that are sheltered will face a variety of problems: making do with existing stocks of food, water, and other necessities or else minimizing exposure while leaving the shelter for supplies; dealing with problems of sanitation, which will not only create health hazards but also exacerbate the social tensions of crowds of frightened people in a small space; dealing with additional people wanting to enter the shelter, who would not only want to share scarce supplies but might bring contamination in with them; dealing with disease, which would be exacerbated not only by the effects of radiation but by psychosomatic factors; and finally judging when it is safe to venture out. Boredom will gradually replace panic, but will be no easier to cope with. Those with inadequate shelters or no shelters at all will die in large numbers, either from lethal doses of radiation or from the combination of other hazards with weakness induced by radiation sickness.
The conditions cited above are generally more applicable to urbanites who are trying to survive. The problems of rural survivors are somewhat different, some being simpler— others more complex. With warning, people living in rural areas could readily fabricate adequate fallout shelters. However, it might be more difficult for a rural shelteree to have current and accurate information regarding fallout intensity and location. The farm family is likely not to have suffered the traumatic exposure to death and destruction, and consequently is probably better prepared psychologically to spend the required time in a shelter. (Possible consequences to livestock and crops are addressed later in this section. )
Outdoor activity in or near major cities that were struck would likely be limited to emergency crews attempting to control fires or continuing to rescue the injured. Crews would wear protective clothing but it would be necessary to severely limit the total work hours of any one crew member, so as not to risk dangerous accumulations of radiation. Areas not threatened by fallout could begin more deliberate fire control and rescue operations. Whether a national facility would survive to identify weapons impact points and predict fallout patterns is doubtful.
The extent of death and destruction to the Nation would still be unknown. For the most part, the agencies responsible for assembling such information would not be functioning. This task would have to wait until the numbing effect of the attack had worn off, and the Government could once again begin to function, however precariously.