How to Survive a Nuclear War

(End of the American Dream)—I understand that the topic of this article is not too cheery, but this is important information.  Someday, it could save your life and the lives of your family members.  We live at a time when the potential for conflict between major powers that possess nuclear weapons is constantly in the headlines, and it is just a matter of time before someone crosses a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.  When that day arrives, it is imperative that you have a plan.

Entire books have been written about how to survive a nuclear war, and so I will only be able to cover some of the most essential information in this article.

If you plan to keep on living once a nuclear war erupts, the first thing that you will need to do is to be located somewhere that is at low risk of being attacked. That means that you won’t want to be located anywhere near any military installations.  If you are not sure if there is a military base close to you, you can find a list of military bases in the United States right here.

In addition, population centers that are of strategic importance such as Washington D.C. and New York City will also be targeted during an all-out nuclear conflict.

For those that are considering relocating, experts suggest looking “in remote and rural areas with warm climate and access to water and farmland”…

Real estate experts have concluded that the places in America that are best suited for nuclear war survival are in remote and rural areas with warm climate and access to water and farmland.

They have recommended against densely populated urban cities and places with mass transportation, shopping centers and other convenient amenities that are traditionally desirable for living.

I think that is very good advice.

Once a nuclear war starts, you will not have any time to evacuate.  In fact, if the Russians launch missiles from subs parked just off our coastlines, it would only be a matter of minutes before major coastal cities started getting hit…

If Russia launched a weapon from international waters just off the East Coast, people in cities like New York, Boston, and Washington, DC, might have just 10 to 15 minutes to prepare.

“You wouldn’t even have time to go get your kids from school,” Irwin Redlener, a public-health expert at Columbia University who specializes in disaster preparedness, told Insider last year.

If I was the Russians, I would conduct such a first strike in the middle of the night.

So the good news is that when it happens you will probably be at home sleeping in your own bed.

But if you do find yourself outside when it happens, you will want to get inside as soon as possible.

When an impact occurs, a fireball that is almost as hot as the core of the sun is created.

Whatever you do, it is imperative that you do not look at the explosion, because the brightness of the fireball can cause blindness…

The best course of action is simply to avert your eyes. When a nuclear bomb strikes, it sets off a flash of light and a giant orange fireball. A 1-megaton bomb (about 80 times larger than the “Little Boy” atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan) could temporarily blind people up to 13 miles away on a clear day and up to 53 miles away on a clear night.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends dropping to the ground with your face down and your hands tucked under your body to protect from flying debris or sweltering heat that could burn your skin. If you have a scarf or handkerchief, cover your nose and mouth.

But make sure to keep your mouth open, so your eardrums don’t burst from pressure. Research also suggests that if you’re in an above-ground building, avoid narrow hallways and doorways, which can act like a windtunnel, accelerating the detonation’s shockwaves to dangerous, bone-crushing pressures. Instead, seek shelter along walls in large, open spaces and avoid rooms with windows, if you can.

Following the explosion, radioactive particles known as nuclear fallout will start raining down from the sky…

If the detonation was a surface blast or the bomb hits the earth, large amounts of fallout are produced. The dust and debris kicked into the atmosphere rains down, bringing with it dangerous amounts of radiation. The fallout may rain down as contaminated black soot known as “black rain,” which is very fatal and may be of extreme temperature. Fallout will contaminate anything it touches.

It may take more than a week for all of the nuclear fallout from an explosion to return to the ground.

So it is really important for you to stay inside during this time.

Even if you are nowhere near the initial explosion, you need to understand that those living “hundreds of miles downwind from the burst point” are potentially in danger…

It has been estimated that a weapon with a fission yield of 1 million tons TNT equivalent power (1 megaton) exploded at ground level in a 15 miles-per-hour wind would produce fallout in an ellipse extending hundreds of miles downwind from the burst point. At a distance of 20-25 miles downwind, a lethal radiation dose (600 rads) would be accumulated by a person who did not find shelter within 25 minutes after the time the fallout began. At a distance of 40-45 miles, a person would have at most 3 hours after the fallout began to find shelter. Considerably smaller radiation doses will make people seriously ill. Thus, the survival prospects of persons immediately downwind of the burst point would be slim unless they could be sheltered or evacuated.

I found a pretty good map that shows what areas of the U.S. will be in most danger from nuclear fallout in the aftermath of an all-out nuclear war, and you can view that map right here.  If you live in an area that is likely to experience “severe fallout”, you will want to stay inside for at least 3 weeks.

While you are sheltering inside, I would highly recommend not drinking or using tap water even if it is still available.

Your water source may have been contaminated, and you do not want to ingest radioactive particles. So I would suggest having plenty of water stored up ahead of time.

Those that survive the nuclear fallout will find that they are now living in a society that has no electricity, no economy and no supply chains.

In addition, it will be almost impossible to grow food outdoors because of the nuclear winter that has begun…

This makes Earth freezing cold even during the summer, with farmland in Kansas cooling by about 20 degrees centigrade (about 40 degrees Fahrenheit), and other regions cooling almost twice as much. A recent scientific paper estimates that over 5 billion people could starve to death, including around 99% of those in the US, Europe, Russia, and China – because most black carbon smoke stays in the Northern hemisphere where it’s produced, and because temperature drops harm agriculture more at high latitudes.

So if you plan to survive a nuclear war, you will want to have enough food and supplies for yourself and for everyone that will be depending upon you for as long as you plan to stay alive.

I apologize for being blunt. I am just trying to be straight with you.

We live at a time when the risk of nuclear war is greater than ever, and I believe that nuclear weapons will eventually be used during the period of tremendous global chaos that is ahead of us.

I am trying to do my best to sound the alarm, and many others are too. But most of the population seems to think that it is party time, and so they aren’t even paying attention as our leaders drag us ever closer to the brink of nuclear conflict.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.