Why would anyone waste their time and money building a 'fallout' shelter?
The bombs are so big these days that the giant spring shock system that was built in Cheyenne mountain years ago was obsolete almost as soon as it was finished. The shock waves will liquefy human organs, whether or not you're inside of a 'fallout shelter', and even if your 'fallout shelter' is equipped with a giant spring shock system.
The bombs are so big these days that if about 700 of them go off, the atmosphere will be largely, if not completely depleted by the explosions. That's 700 total.
Nuclear winter, which would likely last for decades, remember, will kill off most of the plants on land and in the ocean that would normally produce more breathable atmosphere.
It is possible to use nuclear blasts to destroy the ozone layer, which will then allow cosmic rays to fry the planet, permanently, and the rest of the atmosphere will be sloughed off into space by the solar wind. After the atmosphere, the water will evaporate. Your fallout shelter will not protect you from that. Unless your fallout shelter is pressurized, you will explode. Unless you can manufacture water, you will die of thirst.
It's also possible to blast enough iron into the atmosphere to cause people and animals to experience an illness known as Iron Overload Disorder. This causes heart attacks. You will die of a heart attack in your fallout shelter, if you can't manufacture your own atmosphere out of nothing.
It's possible that people living on submarines may be the last to go, but they too will go.
If someone out there decides to use some of their fancy nuclear warheads to blast apart the moon, (do you think anyone else thought of this, or am I the only one who thought of the moon as a target?) Earth will experience tsunamis, meteorite strikes from moon rocks, earthquakes, volcanoes, the tides will end, the seasons will be erratic, or unending.
Do you think that an all out nuclear war would last for a few days, and then it would be over? Why? Everything is automated these days. Nuclear blasts could continue for decades afterward given the right programming.
Do you think an all out nuclear war would be limited to the use of nuclear weapons? Why? If the fighting forces are aiming for mutually assured destruction, there is no reason not to use chemical and biological weapons. 'Fallout' shelters are not designed or equipped to deal with those kinds of weapons, generally.
The half life of uranium 235 is about 700 million years. No one is going to 'survive' for 700 million years. No fallout shelter is that good.
Supposing, though, just to ease your cognitive dissonance, that the planet hits the jackpot, and manages to hold on to it's atmosphere.
If you think you will rebuild the cities, think about how long it would take you to cook a hunk of chicken in a microwave oven. Then remember that you are no different than a hunk of chicken to a radioactive particle, and it will happily also cook you in five to ten minutes. That's not really enough time to rebuild a city. Not unless you know magic.
If you think you will build cities elsewhere, well remember that our greatest cities are strategically placed where they will benefit you economically and socially already. You can put a city in the middle of nowhere, but without NY harbor, there will never be a city like New York. If you can't use the Hudson River, or any other river to transport goods to the interior of the nation because they're too hot, then that has grave consequences for very large swaths of land. There is a reason why no one has 'rebuilt' Pripyat.
Furthermore, the radiation there seems to have killed off the microbes which feed on leaf litter and other dead vegetation. That means that all of that radioactive vegetation is just sitting around waiting for a forest fire to light it up, and re-release the radioactive material into the atmosphere.
In real life, lightning strikes cause wild fires commonly, so you could expect radiation to be re-released onto planet earth repeatedly and randomly, after a nuclear war was technically over and the radiation spread over the surface of the Earth rather than left underground where it belongs, for thousands of years.
Nuclear testing took place on Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958. Vegetation there is still poisoned with cesium 137, 50 years hence. So even if there was, by some miracle, an atmosphere left, and people didn't get cooked by all of the radiation, there won't be any gardening of plants that are safe to eat for at least 50 years. Maybe longer. Some of the animals in the ocean around the atoll are showing signs of mutation. Not exactly drooling to try a piece of that meat. 50 years is an awful long time to go without food. And that's a minimum
And, of course, I muse about the mutations that will happen to my offspring, and their offspring, as we are also meat.
And if you think you can just remove the topsoil, ask a farmer what they think about that idea. Farmers are usually up for a good laugh, in between all the hard work they do.
When I was a kid, back in the eighties, we did this stupid thing in school where an alarm would go off, and we would all go out into the hallway, and squat down with our heads between our knees, and our hands over our heads in order to practice surviving a nuclear attack. It was a big deal when I was a kid. We were in a cold war, and everyone was thinking about how to prepare to survive in the event of a nuclear strike.
I was around 9 years old when me and all my friends started to realize how stupid this was, and we would make fun of the drills. Yes, that's right. Nine year old children could see the folly in nuclear preparedness.
When the reality of the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction really started to set in, the State scratched it's chin and said, "hmm. Why are we paying for this stupid preparedness program, if no one is going to survive M.A.D.?" And then we stopped doing that, because the funding stopped. Because the state is convinced that no one will survive global nuclear war.
And the state doesn't have a lot of money to just flush down the toilet.
You can trust the state on this one. No one will survive, in the event of a global nuclear war. No one. Not even people in 'fallout' shelters.
You will either die instantly, or you will die a slow, painful death.
Back in the eighties, I clearly remember this one woman asking her husband, "Well WHY is the government putting out pamphlets telling people to gather supplies and go in their basements in the event of a nuclear war then?" And he answered, "Well everybody will already be underground. Less graves to dig. Most people want to be underground when they die."
Which struck me as being kind of funny, but also kind of true. The government is very practical.
"But!" you say, "I'm going to the 'wilderness'! I have my bugout location all picked out in my local state/federal park/forest! I know how to hunt rabbits, and purify water!"
Yes. And the enemy likely knows that you know that, and that is your plan. They saw it on youtube, and the discovery channel. And they likely figure that rallying points are pretty good places to add to the target list.
If this fallout shelter mentioned in the O.P. is old, there's a good reason it's old.
If it's new . . . it's probably really just meant for other emergencies and disasters that are manageable, like hurricanes.
If someone is going to try to put politicians in there in the event of a global nuclear war, well, I guess it's up to them as to whether or not they will willingly climb into their graves, and pull the trigger, to boot.
As for me, I'm hoping for a quick end in the event that those in power are fool enough to engage in a global nuclear war. I live within 2 miles of 4 likely targets, on every side. Fingers crossed.
Peace.
21 Jul 2017, 9:18 am
