Are you preparing for a nuclear exchange?

The title kind of says it; are you preparing for a limited or full nuclear exchange between the world powers? How much so? What type of preparations have you made specific to this threat?

Thanks for sharing.

P.S. Personally, our household does, if for no other reason that it sets the bar very high in terms of preps. We do have some nuclear-specific equipment (e.g., radiation detectors, dosimeters, faraday cage, etc.) and we, deliberately, chose to make our homestead away from any primary, secondary, or tertiary target.

 

I wouldn't say I prepare for a nuclear exchange but I do think it's a risky situation, I just don't trust the big countries when it comes to the thirst of power. I'm sure countries like Russia or USA will do anything to show that they are more powerful by any means possible. A nuclear exchange isn't off the books.

 

At some indefinite time in future there'll be nuclear war. And there are places which are most likely to be targeted. Densely populated cities, places where there's lots of military installations, barracks, etc. I live as far away from these place as I can. That doesn't guarantee anything but I have a firm belief that small towns will survive the initial nuclear blasts. The radioactive fallout however could kill everyone. There's little anyone can do to protect themselves from it.

p.s By the way the Russians were calling for the nuking of Yellowstone. It would probably trigger a volcanic eruption that would wipe out America.

 

I don't think it's really worth preparing for. What can you even hope to do? Best case scenario, you have some sort of fallout shelter. If, and only if, your shelter does save you, you're still screwed. You basically have to live out the rest of your days, pretty much alone, and your cause of death will probably be painful. (Starvation, or dehydration). I guess you can take your chances, and maybe, someday, you or your future generations will be able to walk the Earth again.

 

That is who I would survive for. My children may only inherit a blasted wasteland, but they'll be alive to continue on our family. And, perhaps, in time, they can restore our Republic. Some people will survive and those that do will be faced with the daunting task of rebuilding the nation.

 

Good for you are going all in for prepping to cope with those circumstances. But remember that in an eventual nuclear fallout, there is going to be places so highly radiated that even protection is rendered useless.

 

I do not have the resources to build such a bunker that will be able to sustain us for decades while the radioactivity subsides. If it does every happen, I'm a goner and so is everyone around me. This world will be let for those that could afford to have these long term bunkers built. The rest of us will perish. That is not a world that most of us don't want to survive to anyways.

 

I am much more concerned with EMG attack that could wipe out the electrical grid in the United States without having the side effects of severe radiation that would make the land all but uninhabitable. There is really no viable way for a middle-class family to survive a nuclear attack since you are looking at decades, if not centuries where the radiation exposure would be lethal to humans. Preparing for an EMG attack is a much more pressing matter since it would be a far more likely occurrence and one that would be survivable with the proper preparation.

 

Decades? No. After two weeks, generally, radiation levels produced by fallout will drop to the point in which survivors can start to work outside.

From Nuclear War Survival Skills, by the late Dr. Cresson H. Kearny, of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory:

Within two weeks after an attack the occupants of most shelters could safely stop using them, or could work outside the shelters for an increasing number of hours each day. Exceptions would be in areas of extremely heavy fallout such as might occur downwind from important targets attacked with many weapons, especially missile sites and very large cities. To know when to come out safely, occupants either would need a reliable fallout meter to measure the changing radiation dangers, or must receive information based on measurements made nearby with a reliable instrument.
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From the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Nuclear Blast:

Time - fallout radiation loses its intensity fairly rapidly. In time, you will be able to leave the fallout shelter. Radioactive fallout poses the greatest threat to people during the first two weeks, by which time it has declined to about 1 percent of its initial radiation level.​

From In Time of Emergency: A Citizen's Handbook, section "Shelters," Office of Civil Defense:

To protect themselves from the radiation given off by fallout particles, people in affected areas would have to stay in fallout shelters from two or three days to as long as two weeks.​

From Fallout Protection: What to Know and Do About Atomic Attacks, Office of Civil Defense:

In the event of a nuclear attack, be prepared to live in a shelter as long as two weeks, coming out for short trips only if necessary.
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And many other scientific sources. The how-to of handling such a departure from a shelter is technical and outside the scope of this thread though.

 

Unless you are living in a very modern part of the world or you are very rich to have underground bunkers and a lot of food supply that could last for years then yeah most-likely.