Anonymous wrote:Read Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

This is the exact scenario of this book

I read it. Great book, well worth the read. Two things that stood out to me: How the decision to use a nuclear weapon is the President’s decision. Not Congress. Not the Secretary of Defense, although that person will probably be asked to weigh in. It is up to one person, whether it’s the middle of the night or any unexpected random time. And he has maybe ten minutes to decide whether to retaliate.

The other thing that stood out to me was how short a period of time you can track where the missile is headed. Parts of it drop off after the first 20 or so minutes. You can’t KNOW which country it is headed toward. And you can’t even be sure it’s not a technical error, causing you to think this is a nuclear missile streaking across the sky, but it wasn’t. So you try to contact the Russians or the NK or the Iranians, to confirm or to explain you think, say, Germany is firing a missile toward the US, so if YOU see one headed your way, it’s actually targeting Germany, not to worry Russia, we’re not aiming at you….

It’s a book that has stayed with me for many insights.

Anonymous wrote:Do we die immediately in DC and Arlington from the blast?

A basement might protect you. Oh, and living behind a hill could offer some blockage from the blast.

Anonymous wrote:My kids are 7 hours away in college so I’ve thought of that. They’d make it- we’d be vaporized

* unless it was a summer attack

My kids are 7 hours away in college so I’ve thought of that. They’d make it- we’d be vaporized

Anonymous wrote:I lived in DC during 9/11 and the crazy months afterward and mentally gamed out options. Came to the conclusion that my attack preparedness was limited to a fifth of really good whisky and our balcony with a view of the Washington Monument.

In the event everything goes sideways, the road system will be overwhelmed. I'd rather die with my feet up on a lounge chair than stuck in the mother of all DC traffic jams.

+100

Anonymous wrote:I lived in DC during 9/11 and the crazy months afterward and mentally gamed out options. Came to the conclusion that my attack preparedness was limited to a fifth of really good whisky and our balcony with a view of the Washington Monument.

In the event everything goes sideways, the road system will be overwhelmed. I'd rather die with my feet up on a lounge chair than stuck in the mother of all DC traffic jams.

I think there is a possibility that you could boat out of DC. My plan is hotwire someone's boat at the marina and head south.

I lived in DC during 9/11 and the crazy months afterward and mentally gamed out options. Came to the conclusion that my attack preparedness was limited to a fifth of really good whisky and our balcony with a view of the Washington Monument.

In the event everything goes sideways, the road system will be overwhelmed. I'd rather die with my feet up on a lounge chair than stuck in the mother of all DC traffic jams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Better to die quickly than a long drawn out, agonizing death.

Yes we live about 2.5 miles from the pentagon and 3 mikes from the White House here in Arlington.

I grew up here (55) and remember watching “the Day After” as a kid which horrified everyone at the time. I remember my dad saying at least we would be vaporized in the initial blast which would be better,

I had nightmares for years after watching TDA.

However, my dad served in the military and had been around nukes so he always said don’t worry. I didn’t realize it was his way of saying we wouldn’t survive long enough to suffer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been thinking about this a lot. It likely won't matter, but my biggest irrational fear is being stuck in DC if it happens. If I am going to die, I want to be at home where I love it, not at my fed job, which I now resent.

There's a scene in the Walking Dead where a woman describes her boss telling them not to leave their office/jobs in DC and how she kills him to try to get home to her family.

I think about that more than I should.

I was working in Crystal city on 9/11 and we saw the fireball when the plane hit the Pentagon. We were told we couldn’t leave. Go that- at the time people weren’t even certain it was a plane and there were false reports that they were going to bomb buildings in DC.

I ran down to my car and floored it out of the underground parking lot and made it to my parents’ home 20 miles south before all the roads shutdown. Ironically, my dad was in a training and they decided not to tell anyone what was happening so by the time he got out all the roads were shutdown and he was stuck and didn’t make it home until 6pm.

I would do what that lady did …lol

The lesson on 9/11 was to fight back and to trust your instincts (those that went back in the building because they were told it was safe when it turned out not to be)

Anonymous wrote:Growing up my dad always told me immediately.

Same!

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Better to die quickly than a long drawn out, agonizing death.

Yes we live about 2.5 miles from the pentagon and 3 mikes from the White House here in Arlington.

I grew up here (55) and remember watching “the Day After” as a kid which horrified everyone at the time. I remember my dad saying at least we would be vaporized in the initial blast which would be better,

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I actually looked into this at one point. I think our idea of the huge bomb from WW2 is what is stuck in our head. But nuclear weapons have changed. A dirty bomb is much more likely, that only instantly effects a small area. But the lasting radiation will do WAY MORE DAMAGE, especially because we are all stupid. If you stay inside for 48 hours (hard to do if you are sheltering in your workplace) you have a much higher change of survival. But if you go outside, deadly radiation will ensure a painful death over the course of some time. Then the radiation lingers of course, and will cause many more slower deaths afterwards as people wander outside.

So it does depend on the half life of whatever is used.

I remember reading some DC preparedness document and being kind of upset I might not be killed in the initial blast.

The WWII bombs were anything BUT “huge”. They were incredibly small in terms of yield.

Most strategic nuclear warheads today are in the 300-500 kiloton range - making them 20 to 50 times more powerful than the WWII bombs.

And this level of power is actually far smaller than previous generations of early/mid Cold War weapons, which had yields in the megatons, instead of kilotons. But as missiles and other delivery systems became more accurate, the size of the warheads was down-sized for better efficiency. No need for a 30 megaton aircraft-deployed bomb when a 300 kiloton missile-delivered weapon is more accurate.

Why are you contradicting experts?

Anonymous wrote:More and more I feel like moving out of this area and going to live a simple life like…in Maine. Or the rural parts of Montana.

The locals don’t want you there, with your city attitudes and opinions and voting for democrats. You won’t fit in, and they’ll remind of of that daily. Stay in the city - any city - where you belong.

More and more I feel like moving out of this area and going to live a simple life like…in Maine. Or the rural parts of Montana.

Anonymous wrote:So I actually looked into this at one point. I think our idea of the huge bomb from WW2 is what is stuck in our head. But nuclear weapons have changed. A dirty bomb is much more likely, that only instantly effects a small area. But the lasting radiation will do WAY MORE DAMAGE, especially because we are all stupid. If you stay inside for 48 hours (hard to do if you are sheltering in your workplace) you have a much higher change of survival. But if you go outside, deadly radiation will ensure a painful death over the course of some time. Then the radiation lingers of course, and will cause many more slower deaths afterwards as people wander outside.

So it does depend on the half life of whatever is used.

I remember reading some DC preparedness document and being kind of upset I might not be killed in the initial blast.

The WWII bombs were anything BUT “huge”. They were incredibly small in terms of yield.

Most strategic nuclear warheads today are in the 300-500 kiloton range - making them 20 to 50 times more powerful than the WWII bombs.

And this level of power is actually far smaller than previous generations of early/mid Cold War weapons, which had yields in the megatons, instead of kilotons. But as missiles and other delivery systems became more accurate, the size of the warheads was down-sized for better efficiency. No need for a 30 megaton aircraft-deployed bomb when a 300 kiloton missile-delivered weapon is more accurate.