01-14-2018, 05:34 AM
I didn't get an alert on my phone, was not watching TV or listening to the radio. I read about the whole event here on Punaweb sometime after 9pm. Not sure what I would have done if I had heard about it in real time. Called family I suppose. Since I am in Kapolei on Oahu for a few days, having recently returned from visiting parents on the mainland, I would have been sorely tempted to drive to my brother and his family in Honolulu just to be near them. That would have been wrong on many levels but it is what our innate nature tells us to do. I don't want to live forever in a nuclear wasteland. I do want to have some measure of control over how I go out. I definitely want that for my loved ones.
I have read some stuff in the news that FEMA has some recommendations but there are the dual concerns that pushing the information out could cause panic or at least unease, plus there is a certain fatalism about nuclear threats being so great that there is no point. That fatalism is on the part of the general public not FEMA. People don't want to hear it. However an example was given of a threat scenario for a small suitcase sized bomb detonated at ground level somewhere in LA. There were 285,000 estimated casualties if people did nothing but it was estimated that 240,000 of those casualties could survive if people aggressively and successfully sought shelter. It makes a huge difference if you can get out of the open atmosphere and avoid airborne fallout. There is lots of stuff on the internet about taping gaps around doors and windows, etc.
To that end it seems to me that having an in home shelter would be the way to go, not because it can withstand the blast or direct radiation (it won't), but because in anything short of an exchange between two major nuclear powers the majority of the population won't be in the blast zone but will have to contend with fallout. Taping around doors and windows, never mind all the cracks in the average Puna shack, all the while crying hysterically and wondering whether your loved ones are still alive, doesn't seem the way to go compared to spending weeks or months at your leisure outfitting a kick-ass mancave/womancave that just happens to be airtight and waddayaknow is a nice place to hang out to boot, air-conditioned too because after all climate control is what this is all about anyway.
I have read some stuff in the news that FEMA has some recommendations but there are the dual concerns that pushing the information out could cause panic or at least unease, plus there is a certain fatalism about nuclear threats being so great that there is no point. That fatalism is on the part of the general public not FEMA. People don't want to hear it. However an example was given of a threat scenario for a small suitcase sized bomb detonated at ground level somewhere in LA. There were 285,000 estimated casualties if people did nothing but it was estimated that 240,000 of those casualties could survive if people aggressively and successfully sought shelter. It makes a huge difference if you can get out of the open atmosphere and avoid airborne fallout. There is lots of stuff on the internet about taping gaps around doors and windows, etc.
To that end it seems to me that having an in home shelter would be the way to go, not because it can withstand the blast or direct radiation (it won't), but because in anything short of an exchange between two major nuclear powers the majority of the population won't be in the blast zone but will have to contend with fallout. Taping around doors and windows, never mind all the cracks in the average Puna shack, all the while crying hysterically and wondering whether your loved ones are still alive, doesn't seem the way to go compared to spending weeks or months at your leisure outfitting a kick-ass mancave/womancave that just happens to be airtight and waddayaknow is a nice place to hang out to boot, air-conditioned too because after all climate control is what this is all about anyway.