DDP Newsletter, March 2014, Vol. XXXII, No. 2
At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Americans started digging in their back yard, and all attention was focused on the world situation.
The situation in the Ukraine is said by some to be more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, but most people are preoccupied with personal affairs (many, with loss of their health insurance). They are not depleting the thin inventories of radiation monitoring instruments, mobbing grocery stores, or stockpiling needed medications.
The situation is eerily reminiscent of that portrayed in the classic apocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, published in 1959. There were news reports of trouble, but people had grown used to them and they had become background noise. The military was aware of the threat level, but the government did not want to alarm the people. Only a few took action: the hero’s brother, high in the Strategic Air Command, sent his family from Omaha to safety in Fort Repose, Florida, just in time. When an error by a U.S. Navy pilot in the eastern Mediterranean set off the conflagration, the first warning many people had was a blinding flash followed by a blast wave.
While many things are different today, some things will be the same in a crisis:
- What you have when the crisis hits is all you will have.
- Certain essentials have no substitute: e.g. water, salt, medications, ammunition.
- Communication with the outside world depends on electricity, whether it is by telegraph as in 1959, or cell phone or internet. Ham radio or short-wave radio (that was protected against EMP) may be the only source of outside information.
- Survival depends on communities coming together and working together on essential tasks, such as protection against predators (including humans).
- If trust in banks, Treasury bonds, and other financial instruments is destroyed, the currency rapidly becomes worthless.
- The government has not provided civil defense for citizens. Fort Repose had a civil defense officer who had no knowledge, and not a single Geiger counter.
- There will probably be no outside help for a long time—especially if you are in a “Contaminated Zone.”
The protagonists in the story eventually learned that the United States won the war. “We really clobbered them! …Not that it matters.”
It did and does matter. There was no foreign occupation of Fort Repose.
LAWMAKERS BEGIN TO DISCUSS NEED FOR PREPAREDNESS
Arizona legislators are at least beginning to talk about the need to store enough supplies to last for weeks or months in the event of “electronic Armageddon.” A bill has been introduced (SB 1476) to require the Arizona Division of Emergency Management to develop a list for people to use in stocking their garage (Ariz Daily Star 2/13/14).
Concerns include a high-altitude nuclear explosion or a nearby ground explosion.
At a Feb 22 program presented by the Medical Reserve Corps of Southern Arizona (MRCSA, http://tinyurl.com/kxh4j4s), Tucsonans learned that telegraph lines sparked during the Carrington Event of 1859, a magnetic solar storm. Such an event today could shut down the electrical grid and cause trillions of dollars in damage. A report of a recent near miss was untrue, but the prospect remains (http://tinyurl.com/mczn773). If you have a home solar system, it will not work if it is connected to the grid.
ELECTRICAL GRID IS VULNERABLE, ATTACK SHOWS
Last April, a sophisticated, professionally coordinated attack with military weapons took down the Metcalf electrical substation in Silicon Valley. Gunmen, still unknown, temporarily knocked out telephone and 911 service, and shot up 17 transformers.
Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Jon Wellington called the attack terrorism, although the FBI repeatedly denies that it met their definition of terrorism (Martha Mendoza, AP 2/5/14). It clearly shows the vulnerability of the grid, as damage to enough of the 2,000 largest transformers at critical locations across the U.S. could cause extended blackouts. Only three or four U.S. companies make the high-voltage transformers thought to be most susceptible to attack. The shortest time to fill a rush order is 3 to 4 months, and delivery has taken 2 years. When the Salt River Project near Phoenix needed to transport a transformer from Austria, it had to rent the world’s largest cargo plane, a Russian Antonov-225, which was built to carry the Soviet space shuttle.
If utilities have to transport lots of transformers to end blackouts, Bill Westerman, police chief in Adams Township, Pa., recommends: “You’d better go buy yourself a portable generator” (Rebecca Smith, WSJ 3/4/14, http://tinyurl.com/kmvmx5o).
FALLOUT MONITORING STATION TRANSMITTING FROM TUCSON
The first-of-its-kind, automated, NukAlertER-based fallout monitoring station (http://tinyurl.com/k86zphu) has been installed on the roof of MRCSA headquarters in Tucson, and measurements can be viewed at the manufacturer’s test database site (http://tinyurl.com/lywl9tb). Physicians for Civil Defense provided part of the funding for the prototype model, which was contributed by Apogee Communications Group.
A nationwide system of such stations is needed because of inadequacies in the existing RadNet outlined in the September 2013 issue.
The station has a measurement range from low-level background to 1,000 R/hr. It can capture, hold, and measure fallout from a nuclear power plant failure, nuclear detonation, or radiological dispersal device. A videotape of the actual installation is available on request.
OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY TOUR SCHEDULED
The scene of much of our nation’s civil defense work, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), will be the tour site for our 32nd annual meeting. The tour is Friday, July 25, and the meeting July 26-27 in Knoxville, Tenn. A course on mass casualty management will follow on Monday, July 28. Nuclear War Survival Skills by the late Cresson Kearny, still the basis for our nation’s default self-help civil defense, was originally published by ORNL. Along with Kearny, the late Conrad Chester of ORNL provided many timeless lectures at our meetings (see http://tinyurl.com/kcz3z9c).
Civil defense will receive special emphasis at this year’s meeting. Speakers include Philip Smith, developer of the NukAlert, and Stephen Jones, who is focusing on training emergency managers and first responders, equipping as many as possible with SIRAD (Self-Indicating Instant Radiation Alert Dosimeter) technology to monitor for personal exposure to a dangerous level of radiation. [These monitors, which are the size of a credit card, work by instantly and permanently changing color as radiation is absorbed. Currently they are available at J.P. Labs, www.jplabs.com, for about $40. Like all radiation monitors, inventory is very limited. Also see www.ki4u.com for other technology.]