Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military
From: fiddler@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Nuclear Devastation
Message-ID: <7296@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 9 Jun 89 03:28:33 GMT
References: <6958@cbnews.ATT.COM> <7203@cbnews.ATT.COM> <7251@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: fiddler@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)

In article <7251@cbnews.ATT.COM>, smb@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Steven M. Bellovin) writes:
> The two feet of earth is mostly going to be useful against prompt
> radiation; the fallout will persist for years to come.  I don't recall

But after a few weeks the background level will have dropped low
enough that you could get away with traveling to an area outside
the local fallout plume.

> the half-lives of all the ``interesting'' isotopes, but strontium-90
> and cobalt-60 are short-lived enough to be hazardous, and long-lived
> enough to hang around for long after you can hide in a shelter.  And

Which is why they're such a problem.  The really hot stuff will have
decayed down below normal background pretty quickly.  The other will
get you with (most likely) cancer a few years down the road.

> iodine-131, though much shorter-lived, would be dangerous to those
> without very well-stocked shelters.  (Note that iodine and strontium
> are especially bad because of how easily they're absorbed.)

You can deal with that problem (mostly) by taking iodine supplements
during the period of exposure.  (Taking large doses of calcium
should also slow down uptake of strontium.)

I'm hoping information like this forever remains trivia, but the
point is that there is more to do than just sit down and wait to
die.