If your city were nuked, what would you attempt to do before the shockwave hit you?

Answer 1

tell my family that I love them

Answer 2

Well, the radiation would hit you immediately probably fatally unless you were on the outskirts. Once you see the nuke explode, it's already too late to avoid the radiation.

For the shockwave, it would probably hit you too fast to do much. But vthe best thing to do would be to get as far away from the shockwave as quickly as possible, sinec energy dissipates in a sphere approximately, or a circle in 2 dimensions. So you either have an inverse cubic function or an inverse square function, or somethign in the middle, to deal with. The further you get away, the less energy will hit your specific point on the shockwave. You may not be able to outrun it, but you can race against its force or run down its force by the time it hits you by getting further away.

Of course realistically, one would probably tend to have the "ohh ****" reaction, followed by the "panicked" reaction, followed by the "stumbling over yourself and not thinking clearly reaction" and possibly the "evacuation (a really bad case of the runs)" reaction, at that point you've already wasted a bunch of time without much productive work being done.

Of course you could try to find shelter in any reinforced underground structures. But if you're proximal to the blast, you're pretty screwed anyway.

I've heard the best thing to do is actually to find a ditch or a river or something, and like face down, with your feet toward the blast, to minimize your expose to it on your most sensitive areas. Thus you might get soem blistered feet, some massive scoring/scars on your back, but you'd continue living and go on to fight another day. Or possibly just die a horrible death of radiation poisoning...

Answer 3

You have to understand the problem. The shockwave isnt the killer... its the flash. Lotsa light, sets all sorts of fires, causes burns, then the shockwave hits.

Hollywood loves shockwaves, because they are powerful visual effects. In term of the destructive power of the bomb, shockwaves will destroy buildings.. but in terms of killing people the flash has more power.

The terrain affects how effective the bomb is. If you live in a rough/hilly area the effects of a shockwave are going to be much less. If you live on a flat plate, the shock will hurt more.

The best way to survive a nuclear attack: know ahead of time... that means stealth mirvs or late detected launches are a bad thing.

When the sirens go off get down.. get to or below the ground floor of a building, get in an area of structural integrity, get to a place with some air-filtration that will last you for 3 days, get to a place with water that will last for 3 days.

The bomb goes off. If you arent shaded from the flash, and arent very close to the epicenter, then you live through the initial explosion. If you dont have water.. wait for 3 days.. In 3 days the majority of the radioactive dust has settled, and its safe to carefully get out and go to a safer place, somewhere where longer term food, water, and shelter are, and where there is less radioactive (toxic, cancer-causing, tissue-cooking) dust.

Answer 4

It depends on how close I am to the city and the size of the warhead that hit it.
A smaller tactical nuke would hit a military installation or a radar site or a missle silo. A larger 50 megaton warhead would be designed to take out cities and infrastructure. So, let's say that dear old Seattle were hit with a 50 megaton warhead.
I live 20 miles away from Seattle, so even though the initial shockwave hit me, I wouldn't be touched by the 300 mph winds (burning everything in its path)
So, lets break this down.
50 magaton warhead:
1 mile radius - crater - massive radioactive fallout
10 mile radius - searing hot, 300MPH winds traveling out from the blast zone and then reversing direction back toward the blast zone.
30 mile radius - shock wave and blinding flash.
100 mile + depending on prevailing winds - radioactive fallout for weeks.
So, being 20 miles away, I would see the flash. Knowing the shockwave was coming, I would close my eyes tight and plug my ears and nose with my hands. The shockwave will increase the ambient air pressire by 3 psi and then reduce it again by 3 psi. This will make your nose, eyes and ears bleed and possibly burst your eardrums. After the shockwave passed (if my ear/nose plugging trick worked) I would get in my car and race in the opposite direction, hoping to avoid the uncontrollable fires burning in every direction and the fallout that was on the way.

Let's put me within the 10 mile radius.
The flash doesn't blind me, but the wall in my livingroom has been instantly bleached pure white. As I begin to comprehend what just happened, I didn't have the time to plug my orifices and my eardrums burst and blood spurts out my nose and eyes, as I fall to my knees in agonizing pain.
Gasping for breath, I hear an enormous crash as the 300 mph winds lift my car and slam it into the side of the house taking out both bedrooms. Just as I draw in my last breath of superheated air and glimpse at the open yard throguh blood soaked eyes, the walls colapse on top of me and begin to disintegrate in the heat and rush of wind. If somehow I survived this, the reverse direction of the wind lifts the debris off of me and I become exposed to the full force of the wind. What is left of my burning body is lifted into the air and carried downtown. If I could open my eyes I would be able to get a good look at the crater from above, but I am completely emersed in flames and I pass out from the pain.
So, to answer your question, none of us would have time to think - only to run. And how far you can run depends on how close you were to ground zero.
:-)

Answer 5

Well. I dont live in a city, but there are some nearby, so I may have some warning, I would get into my truck and camper, which I always keep ready to go, full of Gas, propane, water, etc, and head up to an old abandoned mine I know about, and hang out for a while, I have a few months of food in my camper, and water filters, and things I need to survive, So maybe I could, If that would be a good thing at that point.

Answer 6

Go into my prepacked bomb-shelter, with food, water, and radiation detector...enough to last for months if necessary. Then read books until it is safe to come out again. An underground Borders or Barnes and Nobles would be even better. Hey, isn't there underground shopping in Atlanta? : )

I would need weapons to stave off half-mutant survivors who ran out of food. (Oh, maybe that was the last bad science fiction movie I watched.)

But seriously, most people have the mistaken notion that a nuclear war is not survivable. With enough preparation and knowledge anything is survivable. Mankind has the ingenious ability to adapt to almost any circumstances, even the worst imaginable.

Answer 7

Well the nuclear shockwave occurs in a fraction of a second. So perhaps I would breath a few ml of air and perhaps think "where did that lightning come from?"

Now if I knew the missles were launched and I had 30 minutes to ponder my fate...I'd probably just start running to burn off the nervous pre-death energy.

Answer 8

If my city were nuked I would most likely be dead by the time I can finish thinking about what to do. How would I know in the first place my city was nuked given I wasn't instantly killed.

Answer 9

I would hope that doesn't happen first off. Who wants to nuke fabulous Las Vegas? And if someone did for some odd reason, I'd attempt to not live there anymore. Probably steal one of Nellis's jet fighters and get the hell out of there.

Answer 10

Well, i dont know that much about citys geting blown up, but i think i would try to find an underground area like a basement and hide there (not really hide, more like take cover).

Answer 11

Drugs