Surviving a nuclear attack Irwin Redlener

so a big question that we’re facing now

and have been for quite a number of

years now are we at risk of a nuclear

attack now there’s a bigger question

that’s probably actually more important

than that is the notion of permanently

eliminating the possibility of a nuclear

attack eliminating the threat altogether

and I would like to make a case to you

that over the years since we first

develop atomic weaponry until this very

moment we’ve actually lived in a

dangerous nuclear world that’s

characterized by two phases which I’m

going to go through with you right now

first of all we started off the nuclear

age in 1945 the United States had

developed a couple of atomic weapons

through the Manhattan Project and the

idea was very straightforward we would

use the power of the atom to end the

atrocities in the horror of this

unending world war two that we’ve been

involved in in Europe and in the Pacific

and 1945 we were the only nuclear power

we had a few nuclear weapons two of

which we dropped on Japan and Hiroshima

few days later in Nagasaki in August in

1945 killing about 250,000 people

between those two and for a few years we

were the only nuclear power on earth but

by 1949 the Soviet Union had decided it

was unacceptable to have us as the only

nuclear power and they began to match

what the United States had developed and

from 1949 to 1985 was an extraordinary

time of a buildup of a nuclear arsenal

that no one could possibly have imagined

back in the 1940s

so by 1985 each of those red bombs up

here is equivalent of a thousand

warheads the world had 65,000 nuclear

warheads and seven members of something

that came to be known as the nuclear

Club and it was an extraordinary time

and I’m going to go through some of the

mentality that we that Americans and the

rest of the world were experiencing but

I want to just point out to you that 95%

of

nuclear weapons at any particular time

since 1985 going forward of course were

a part of the Arsenal’s of the United

States and the Soviet Union after 1985

and before the breakup of the Soviet

Union we began to disarm from a nuclear

point of view we began to counter

proliferate and we dropped the number of

nuclear warheads in the world to about a

total of 21,000 it’s a very difficult

number to deal with because what we’ve

done is we Quantico decommissioned some

of the warheads they’re still probably

usable they could be recommissioned but

the way they count things which is very

complicated we think that we think we

have about a third of the nuclear

weapons we had before but we also in

that period of time added two more

members to the nuclear club Pakistan and

North Korea so we stand today when they

still fully armed nuclear arsenal among

many countries around the world but a

very different set of circumstances so

I’m going to talk about a nuclear threat

story in two chapters chapter one is

1949 to 1991 when the Soviet Union broke

up and what we were dealing with at that

point through those years was a

superpowers nuclear arms race it was

characterized by a nation versus nation

very fragile standoff and basically we

lived for all those years and some might

argue that we still do in a situation of

being on the brink literally of an

apocalyptic planetary calamity

it’s incredible that we actually lived

through all that we were totally

dependent during those years on this

amazing acronym which is mad stands for

mutually assured destruction so it meant

if you if you attacked us we would

attack you virtually simultaneously and

the end result would be a destruction of

your country and mine so the threat of

my own destruction kept me from

launching a nuclear attack on you that’s

the way we live and the danger that of

course is that a misreading of a radar

screen could actually cause a counter

launch even though the first country had

not actually launched anything during

this chapter one there was a high level

of public awareness of

out the potential of nuclear catastrophe

and an indelible image was implanted in

our collective minds that in fact

nuclear holocaust would be absolutely

globally destructive and could in some

ways mean the end of civilization as we

know it so this was chapter 1 now the

odd thing is that even though we knew

that there would be that kind of

civilization obliteration we engaged in

America in a series in fact in the

Soviet Union in a series of response

planning it was it was absolutely

incredible

so premise one is we’d be destroying the

world and then premise 2 is why don’t we

get prepared for it so what we what we

offered ourselves was a collection of

things I’m just going to go skim through

a few things just to the jogger members

if you were born after 1950 this is just

considered this entertainment otherwise

its memory lane this was these children

are practicing to Duck and Cover just as

you do in your school this was basically

an attempt to teach our school children

that if we did get engaged in a nuclear

confrontation and atomic war then we

wanted our school children to kind of

basically Duck and Cover that was the

principle you you there would be a

nuclear conflagration about to hit us

and if you get under your desk things

would be okay

I didn’t do all that well in psychiatry

and medical school but I was interested

in I think this was seriously delusional

secondly we told people to go down in

their basements and build a fallout

shelter maybe it’d be a study when we

weren’t having an atomic war or you

could use it at the TV room or as many

teenagers found at a very very safe

place for a little privacy with your

girlfriend and and actually so there are

multiple uses of the bomb shelters or

you could buy a prefabricated bomb

shelter you can simply bury in the

ground now

the bomb shelters at that point let’s

say you bought a prefab one every a few

hundred dollars maybe up to five hundred

you got a fancy one yet what percentage

of Americans do you think ever had a

bomb shelter in their house what

percentage lived in a house with a bomb

shelter less than 2% about 1.4 percent

of the population as far as anyone knows

did anything either making a space in

their basement or actually building a

bomb shelter many buildings public

buildings around the country this is New

York City had these little civil defense

signs and the idea was that you would

run into one of these shelters and be

safe from the nuclear weaponry and one

of the greatest governmental delusions

of all time was something that happened

in the early days of the Federal

Emergency Management Agency FEMA as we

now know and are well aware of their

behaviors from Katrina here is their

first big public announcement they would

propose and they actually there were

about six volumes written on this a

crisis relocation plan that was

dependent upon the United States having

three to four days warning that the

Soviets were going to attack us so the

goal was to evacuate the target cities

we would move people out of the target

cities into the countryside and I’m

telling you I actually testified at the

Senate about the absolute ludicrous idea

that we would actually evacuate and

actually have three or four days warning

which is completely off the wall turns

out that they had another idea behind it

even though this is they’ve telling the

public is to save us the idea was that

we would force the Soviets to retarget

their nuclear weapons very expensive and

potentially double their arsenal Dena

only take out the original site but take

out sites where people were going this

was this is what currently as it turns

out was behind all this was just really

really frightening the main point here

is we were dealing with a complete

disconnect from reality the civil

defense programs were disconnected from

the reality of what we’d see in an

all-out nuclear war so organizations

like physicians for social social

responsibility around 1979 started

saying this a lot publicly they would do

a bombing run they’d go to your city and

they’d say here’s a map of your city

here’s what’s going to happen if we get

a nuclear hit so no possibility of

medical response to or meaningful

preparedness for all-out nuclear war so

we had to prevent nuclear war if we

expected to survive this disconnect was

never actually resolved and what

happened was when we get into chapter 2

of the nuclear threat era which started

back in 1945 chapter 2 starts in 1991

when the Soviet Union broke up we

effectively lost that adversary as a

potential attacker of the United States

for the most part it’s not completely

gone I’m going to come back to that but

from 1991 through the present time

emphasized by the attacks of 2001 the

idea of a all-out nuclear war has

diminished and the idea of a single

event active nuclear terrorism is what

we have instead although the scenario

has changed very considerably the fact

is that we haven’t changed our mental

image of what a nuclear war means I’m

going to tell you what the implications

that are just a second so what is a

nuclear terror threat and there’s four

key ingredients to describing it first

thing is that the global nuclear weapons

in the stockpiles that I showed you in

those original maps happens to be not

uniformly secured and it’s particularly

not secure in the former Soviet Union

now in Russia there are many many sites

where warheads are stored and in fact

lots of sites were fissionable materials

like highly enriched uranium and

plutonium are absolutely not safe they

are available to be bought stolen

whatever they are acquirable let me put

it that way from 1993 to 2006 the

National Atomic Energy Agency documented

175 cases of nuclear theft 18 of which

involved highly enriched uranium or

plutonium the key ingredients to make a

nuclear weapon the global stockpile of

highly enriched uranium is about 1,300

at the low end to about 2100 metric tons

more than 100 megatons of this is stored

in particularly insecure Russian

facilities how much of that do you think

it would take to actually build a pen

kiloton bomb well you need about 75

pounds of it so what I’d like to show

you is what it would take to hold 75

pounds of highly enriched uranium this

is not a product placement it’s just

fact if I was going to call I’d be

pretty distressed about this but but but

basically this is it this is what you

would need to steal or buy out of that

100 metric tonne stockpile that’s

relatively insecure to create the type

of bomb that was used in Hiroshima now

you might want to look at plutonium as

another fishable material that you might

use in a bomb that you’d need 10 to 13

pounds of plutonium

now plutonium 10 to 13 pounds this this

is enough plutonium to create a Nagasaki

size atomic weapon now this situation

already I you know I don’t really like

thinking about this although somehow got

myself a job where I have to think about

it so the point is that we’re very very

insecure in terms of developing this

material the second thing is what about

the know-how and there’s a lot of

controversy about whether terror

organizations have the know-how to

actually make a nuclear weapon

well there’s a lot of know-how out there

there’s an unbelievable amount of

know-how out there there’s detailed

information how to assemble a nuclear

weapon from parts there’s books about

how to build a nuclear bomb there are

plans for how to create a terror farm

where you could actually man you

a cure and develop all the components

and assemble it all of this information

is relatively available if you have an

undergraduate degree in physics I would

suggest although I don’t so maybe it’s

not even true but something close to

that would allow you with the

information that’s currently available

to actually build a nuclear weapon

the third element of the nuclear terror

threat is that who would actually do

such a thing

well what we’re seeing now is a level of

terrorism that involves individuals who

are highly organized they are very

dedicated and committed they are

stateless somebody once said al Qaeda

does not have a return address so if

they attacked us with a nuclear weapon

what’s the response and to whom is the

response and their retaliation proof

since there is no real retribution

possible that would make any difference

since there are people willing to

actually give up their lives in order to

do a lot of damage to us it becomes

apparent that the whole notion of this

mutually assured destruction would not

work here is Sulaiman Abu Ghaith and

soon lead was a key lieutenant of Osama

bin Laden he wrote many many times

statements of this effect we have the

right to kill four million Americans two

million of whom should be children and

we don’t have to go overseas to find

people willing to do harm for whatever

their reasons McVeigh and Nichols and

the Oklahoma City attack in the 1990s

was a good example of homegrown

terrorists what if they had gotten their

hands on a nuclear weapon the fourth

element is that the high-value US

targets are accessible soft and

plentiful this would be a talk for

another day but the level of

preparedness that the United States has

achieved since 9/11 of oh one is

unbelievably inadequate what you saw

after Katrina is a very good indicator

of how little prepared the United States

is for any kind of major attack 7

million ship cargo containers come in to

the United States every year five to

seven percent only are inspected five to

seven percent this is Alexander Lebed

who was a general that worked with

Yeltsin who talked about and presented

to Congress this idea that the Russian

had developed these suitcase bombs they

are very low yield 0.12 1 kiloton

hiroshima was around 13 kilotons but

enough to do an unbelievable amount of

damage and Leavitt came to the United

States and told us that many many more

than 80 of the suitcase bombs were

actually not accountable and they look

like this they’re basically very simple

arrangements you put the elements into a

suitcase

it becomes very portable the suitcase

could be conveniently dropped in your

trunk of your car you take it wherever

you want to take it and you can detonate

it you don’t want to build a suitcase

bomb and you happen to get one of those

insecure nuclear warheads that exists

this is the size of the little boy bomb

that was dropped on Hiroshima

it was 9.8 feet long weight 80 800

pounds you go down to your local rent

the truck and for 50 bucks or so you

rent the truck that’s got the right

capacity and you take your bomb you put

it in the truck and you’re ready to go

it could happen but what it would mean

and who would survive you can’t get an

exact number for that kind of

probability but what I’m trying to say

is that we have all the elements of that

happening anybody who dismisses the

thought of a nuclear weapon being used

by a terrorist is kidding themselves I

think there’s a lot of people in the

intelligence community a lot of people

will deal with this work in general

think it’s almost inevitable unless we

do certain things to really to really

try to defuse the risk like better

interdiction better prevention better

fixing in a better screening of cargo

containers that are coming into the

country and so forth there’s a lot that

can be done to make us a lot safer at

this particular moment we actually could

end up seeing a nuclear detonation in

one of our cities I don’t think we would

see an all-out nuclear war anytime soon

although even that is not completely off

the table there’s still enough nuclear

weapons in the Arsenal’s of the

superpowers to destroy the earth many

many times over there are flashpoints in

India and Pakistan in the Middle East in

North Korea other places where the use

of nuclear weapons while initially

locally could very rapidly go into a

situation we would be facing all-out

down nuclear

or war it’s very unsettling here we go

okay I’m back in my truck and we drove

over the Brooklyn Bridge we’re coming

down and we bring that truck that you

just saw somewhere in here in the

financial district

this is a ten kiloton bomb slightly

smaller than was used in Hiroshima and I

want to just conclude this by just

giving you some information I think news

you can use kind of concept here so

first of all this would be horrific

beyond anything we can possibly imagine

this is the ultimate and if you’re in

the half mile radius of where this bomb

went off you have a 90% chance of not

making it if you’re right where the bomb

went off you will be vaporized and

that’s I’m just telling you this is this

is not good you assume that two mile

radius you have a 50% chance of being

killed and up to about eight miles away

that putting that killed instantly

somewhere between a 10 and 20 percent

chance of getting killed the thing about

this is that the experience of the

nuclear detonation is first of all tens

of millions of degrees Fahrenheit at the

core here where it goes off and an

extraordinary amount of energy in form

of heat acute radiation and blast

effects an enormous hurricane like wind

and destruction of buildings almost

totally within this yellow circle here

and what I’m going to focus on it as I

come to conclusion here is that what

happens to you if you’re in here well if

we’re talking about the old days of an

all-out nuclear attack you up here are

as dead as the people here so it was a

moot point my point now though is that

there’s a lot that we could do for you

who are in here if you’ve survived the

initial blast you have when the blast

goes off and by the way if it ever comes

up don’t look at it if you look at it

you’re going to be blind either

temporarily or permanently so if there’s

any way to avoid avert your eyes that

would be a good thing if you find

yourself alive but you’re in the

vicinity of a nuclear weapon you have

that’s gone off you have 10 to 20

minutes depending on the size and

exactly where it went off to get out of

the way before a lethal amount of

radiation comes straight down from the

from the mushroom cloud that goes up in

that 10 to 15 minutes all you have to do

and I mean that seriously is go about a

my

away from the blast and what happens is

this is I’m going to show you now some

fallout plumes within 20 minutes come

straight down within 24 hours lethal

radiation is going out with prevailing

winds and it’s mostly in this particular

direction it’s going northeast and if

you’re in this vicinity

you’ve got to get away so you’re feeling

the wind and there’s tremendous wind now

that you’re going to be feeling and you

want to go perpendicular to the wind or

down wind if you are in fact able to see

where the blast was in front of you

you’ve got to get out of there if you

don’t get out of there you’re going to

be exposed to lethal radiation in very

short order if you can’t get out of

there we want you to go into a shelter

and stay there now in a shelter in an

urban area means you you have to be

either in a basement as deep as possible

or you have to be on a floor on a high

floor if it’s a ground burst explosion

which it would be higher than the ninth

floor so you have to be 10th floor or

higher or in the basement but basically

you got to get out of town as quickly as

possible and if you do that you actually

can survive a nuclear blast over the

next few days to a week there will be a

radiation cloud again going with the

wind and settling down for another 15 or

20 miles out in this case over Long

Island and if you’re in the direct

fallout zone here you really have to

either be sheltered or you have to get

out of there and that’s that’s clear but

if you are sheltered you can actually

survive the difference between knowing

information of what you’re going to do

personally and not knowing information

can save your life and it can mean the

difference between 150 to 200 thousand

fatalities from something like this and

half-a-million to 700 thousand

fatalities so response planning in the

21st century is both possible and is

essential but in 2008 there isn’t one

single American city that has done

effective plans to deal with a nuclear

detonation disaster part of the problem

is that the emergency planners

themselves personally are overwhelmed

psychologically by the thought of

nuclear catastrophe they are paralyzed

you say nuclear to them and they’re

thicken oh my god we’re all gone what’s

the point it’s futile

and we’re trying to tell them it’s not

futile we can change the survival rates

by doing some common sensical things so

the goal here is to minimize fatalities

and I just want to leave you with the

personal points I think you might be

interested in the key to surviving a

nuclear blast is getting out and not

going into harm’s way

that’s basically all we’re going to be

talking about here and the farther you

are away in distance the longer it is in

time from the initial blast and the more

separation between you and the outside

atmosphere the better so separation

hopefully the dirt or concrete or being

in a basement distance in time is what

will save you so here’s what you do

first of all and they said don’t stare

at the light flash if you get behind it

on how you could possibly resist doing

that but let’s assume theoretically you

want to do that you want to keep your

mouth open so your eardrums don’t burst

from the from the pressures if you’re

very close to what happened you actually

do have to Duck and Cover like Bert told

you Bert the turtle and you want to get

under something so that you’re not

injured or killed by objects if that’s

at all possible you want to get away

from the initial fallout mushroom cloud

I said in just a few minutes and shelter

in place you want to move down wind or

crosswind for 1.2 miles you know if you

if you’re out there you see buildings

horribly destroyed and down in that

direction let’s destroy here then you

know that it was over there the blast

and you’re going this way as long as

you’re going across crosswise to the

wind once you’re out and evacuating you

want to keep as much of your skin your

mouth and nose covered as long as that

covering doesn’t impede you moving and

getting out of there and finally you

want to get decontaminated as soon as

possible and if you’re wearing clothing

you take it off your clothing you’re

going to get showered down someplace and

remove the radiation that would be the

radioactive material that might be on

you and then you want to stay in shelter

for 48 to 72 hours minimum

but you’re going to wait hopefully

you’ll have your little wind-up

battery-less radio and you’ll be waiting

for people to tell you when it’s safe to

go outside that’s what you need to do in

conclusion nuclear war is less likely

than before but by no means out of the

question and it’s not survivable nuclear

terrorism is possible maybe probable but

is survivable and this is Jack Geiger

was one of the heroes

US public health community and Jack said

the only way to deal with nuclear

anything whether it’s war or terrorism

is abolition of nuclear weapons you want

something to work on once you fix global

warming I urge you to think about the

fact that we have to do something about

this unacceptable

inhumane reality of nuclear weapons in

our world now this is my favorite civil

defense slide and I don’t want to be

indelicate but this is no longer in

office we don’t really care of it this

was sent to me by somebody who is at a

fixie annatto of the civil defense

procedures but the fact that matter is

that America has gone through a very

hard time we’ve not been focused we’ve

not done we had to do and now we’re

facing the potential of bad hell on

earth thank you