What happens if we have a nuclear war?

Fear not! Well I mean fear a little.  Nuclear war would be horrible, but one nuclear bomb going off, will not wipe out the United States.

If a nuclear attack happened on U.S soil and assuming you are a few miles away from ground zero. You have a decent chance of living. This all depends on the size of the bomb. But if you are very close to the blast anything short of a fortified shelter is not going to help.

Nuclear bombs as bad as they are not as bad as Hollywood movies likes to make them out to be.

They vary in size and in this case size matters. The larger the bomb the larger the blast radius.

Now assuming you heard the boom and see the blast area off in the distances you and your family can survive.  

Remember if you can see the blast and your still alive, the worst is not over. Getting in a safe area from the radioactive fallout is what needs to be on your mind and fast. After the blast you only have about 10-20 mins before invisible fall out is raining down on you.

 

How to survive

The most important part is prepping before it happens. Once it happens you have very little chance of living if you did not prep.

Peppering does not involve building an underground bunker and stocking up on guns and ammo. Although if you have the resources to do that.

 

The 1^st thing you should do is note all areas with fall out shelters. Surprising to a lot of people today, the U.S has a lot of old fall out shelters. Lots of old public and government buildings have approved fallouts shelters from ww2 and the cold war. I remember going to school in the 90's and seeing the old radioactive signs in the basement where our gym was located.

If you have these in your area a mental note or paper map should be kept. Do not trust that your cell phone will work in the after math. Never store this type information on digital medium.

 

The 2^nd thing you should be doing is to see how well your basement can protect you from fall out.

A basement underground is a decent place to start your main protection area. If your house is made of stone or brick you are even better off. The week point in most basements will be the upper layers of the house. Radiation can pass almost anything with ease. The few things can protect you are Lead, very thick stone or cement walls, many feet of earth.

 

Using your basement is not a foolproof plan, but its better then being in the open.

 

The 3^rd thing is to collect supplies as you will be spending days or weeks in your basement.

All the following should be stored in ready to go bags incase you have the option to go to one of your planed fallout shelters.

1.       A hand cranked radio

2.       Long term food storage

3.       Water

4.       Cutting tools

5.       Soap and rags.

6.       Lots of thick trash bags

7.       Extra clothing

8.       Extra blankets and pillows

9.       Pads to sleep on.

 

You want a radio to be able to know when its safe to leave your fallout area.

Long term food stored so you and family can eat. Going upstairs to raid the fridge even for a second can expose you to high levels of radiation and coming back to the basement will exposure others.

Water water and more water. Even with the lack of food you can live 3-10 days with water only. They say a gallon a day per a person, but you need water to clean yourself after exposure and daily cleaning of your self and if you're using dehydrated food you need water to prep it to eat it.

 

Cutting tools are a must. Having good decent knives will come in handy 10 times over. People always forget how important a knife is. Opening packets of food 2-3 times a day with your teeth for weeks is going to cause a problem. A cut gum or bad tooth can cause an infection that leads to a slow death. Remember you want to be alive to protect your family. Having a handful of decent cheap knives are just fine. You don't need to spend a lot of money on knives.

 

Soap and lots of it. Store many bar soaps, its cheap and will last forever. Once you come to your fall out area you need to strip all your cloths off and store them in the trash bags triple bag them and get them far away from people as you can. Even if you need to open the basement door and toss them out.

Stand in an open trash bag and wash yourself with the soap and water, taking care not to scratch your skin.  Make sure to get every part of your body. Once you are done get out of the open trash bag and clean your feet that was standing in the water and put the dirty rag in the bag and toss that outside too.

Make sure anyone that is clean does not handle the exposed clothing. Only one person should toss all the bags at once to limit ex-poser.

 

Make sure to have a few days worth of clothing many light layers are better than heavy layers you can always layer up and down depending on the weather.  Don't expect the heat to work so make sure to have blankets.

Even if you have beds in the basement make sure to have pads as you may end up leaving that area for a safer one.

Keeping all your items in large hiking type bags is best. If you have any warning time to head to a better fallout shelter you should. With all your items in bags you will be able to grab and go. Most if not all public fallout shelter will not be stocked with food and water.

If you want to go the extra mile have these items in a smaller amount in the car. You never know when or where it may happen. You could be at work and after an attack the roads would be nu-driveable. You may need to bunker in at the office.

I hope these short and more simple way of surviving is helpful. If you need more in-depth information please leave a comment and I will do my best to help.