Gather Information: If you don't already have a copy of Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson Kearny, order one immediately (www.oism.org), download and print a copy while waiting for the hard copy to arrive, and read it. Better still, order several copies and provide one to family members, a newspaper reporter or editor, your county medical society, teachers, legislators, and other public officials. NWSS refutes disinformation about nuclear weapons effects and is the authoritative source of tested information on expedient preparations. Moreover, it has much practical information on surviving adverse conditions, including cold, contaminated water, and famine. Use it in preparing your shopping list.
The Doctors for Disaster Preparedness web site (www.oism.org/ddp) provides links to a standard military textbook and public health sources, and also offers some unique items: Mr. Kearny's remarks on terrorism at our 2001 meeting; an edited 1991 transcript of Gen. Ya'acov Lapidot's lecture on civil defense in Israel during the Persian Gulf War; a link to the Israel Defense Forces instructions for preparing a sealed room; and some suggestions for your shelter medical kit. Don't wait for the emergency, when you might lack Internet access and electricity, and when time for shopping has run out: print hard copies of the information you want today.
Purchase Supplies: The most effective defense against chemical and biological weapons is to avoid exposure. This is one of many reasons to be prepared to stay home for an extended period and to have what is needed to make a ``sealed room.'' Do buy a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter if you don't already have one.
Do not spend all your survival dollars on expensive luxuries like Cipro and freeze-dried strawberries. For the same price you could have buckets of grain, thousands of doxycycline tablets and multivitamin pills, lots of salt, enough soap to last at least a year, and other commodities likely to be in short supply. NWSS discusses survival rations, with ways to store and use unprocessed grain and beans.
Remember to provide for communication. Obtain battery-operated radios (and preferably a short-wave radio), protect them against EMP (see NWSS), and stock up on batteries, which will quickly disappear from shelves in a crisis.
Expect to be without electricity. Your house (and your shelter) will be very dark. Flashlights (and more batteries), candles (do not use in inadequately ventilated spaces!), matches (in a Mason jar to keep out moisture), and the makings for lamps that burn cooking oil (see NWSS) are a necessity. Acquire what you need for cooking with minimum fuel (see the fireless cooker in NWSS).
Take Your Own Pulse: One of the Laws of The House of God, an irreverent novel about the life of a medical intern, is that when called to an emergency such as a cardiac arrest, you should first take your own pulse. This is a slightly more effective way of saying ``Don't panic!'' Over-reaction could easily multiply casualties many-fold. If, however, you see the brightest light you have ever seen in your life, don't pause for any reason. Dive immediately under the nearest available protection. Don't Forget the Nuclear Threat: Government programs have been focused on only two types of weapons of mass destruction. ``All hazards'' still tends to mean what former FEMA Director Julius Becton called ``all hazards but one.'' Nevertheless, the Bush Administration has acknowledged that Osama bin Laden may have a nuclear weapon-and many other potential enemies definitely have them. Except for high government officials, all nuclear protection for civilians is, in effect, up to individuals. Discuss the various options with your family-now. If there are only four roads out of Tucson, for instance, and no prepared shelter along the way or at the destination, you don't want evacuation to be your only choice.
In the presence of high-dose radiation, there is no substitute for shelter-and no way to know when it is safe to emerge (or for how long) without instruments to measure radiation levels. What will you say to your child when he asks where to go for shelter, or what instruments you have? The latest edition of NWSS has some suggestions for preparing a permanent, dual-use fallout shelter in addition to instructions for constructing expedient shelter and a Kearny Fallout Meter.
Though a protection factor of 40 is the old standard for publicly designated fallout-shelter space, plan to prepare shelter with a P.F. of 1000, which requires about 10 ``halving thicknesses'' of mass, or 3 tenth-value thicknesses. The halving thickness of concrete for gamma rays is 2.4 inches and of packed earth, 3.6 inches. The tenth-value thickness, in inches, for steel is 3.3; for concrete, 11; for earth, 16; for water, 24; for wood, 38.
The duck-and-cover drill, long the subject of ridicule by the unilateral- disarmament lobby, is the only protection available in an attack without warning. Outside the area of instant death from blast effects, it could save lives by protecting people from flying and falling objects, from burns, or even from a portion of the initial radiation. Glasstone and Dolan point out in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons that ``if some shelter could be obtained, e.g. by falling prone behind a substantial object, within a second of seeing the explosion flash, in certain circumstances it might make the difference between life and death.''
The alarm has sounded, and Americans are awakening to the fact that aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf offer no security against attack at home. There may be motivation and a window of opportunity to develop a serious civil defense program.
In response to the anthrax attacks, DDP has sent a message to the President, Vice President, and Cabinet secretaries, urging that the ``U.S. federal government immediately undertake to locate, hire, and bring to the United States as many as possible of the thousands of Russian scientists and engineers who have participated (or are participating) in research on anthrax and other biological weapons. They should be provided with excellent facilities and an unlimited budget.''The message was sent by courier, as Federal Express packages were not being accepted at most government buildings.
There is hope that the government-and the press-will gain some perspective about what constitutes a serious threat. DDP press releases are receiving attention.
There is also extreme danger that panic could result in ill-considered, destructive government measures. For example, the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, prepared by the Center for Law and the Public's Health at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities for the CDC, would permit governors to seize dictatorial powers upon declaring an emergency, even without consulting public health authorities, to control and appropriate property, to ``manage persons,'' to destroy ``contaminated'' property without compensation, to impose price controls and rationing, to seize firearms, and to impose criminal penalties (not just quarantine) on citizens who refuse a vaccine or mandated medical treatment. Comments will be posted at www.aapsonline.org.
We don't know how much time we have, or what the ultimate outcome will be. But we do know this: no one has the luxury of sitting on the sidelines.
DDP, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd. Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716, (520)325-2680, www.oism.org/ddp.