New York’s “Nuclear Preparedness” PSA
Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War
(July 15, 2022) — On July 11, New York City’s Emergency Management office released a Public Service Announcement that pretended to share important advice on steps New Yorkers could take to survive a nuclear attack. Here’s the PSA:
Re that “Don’t ask me how or why” PSA:
This updated version of the government’s misleading “duck-and-cover” nuclear war survival campaign from the 1950s begins by instructing New Yorkers to get away from the windows and huddle together “in the middle” of their building.
But, unlike a single-family suburban home, a typical New York high-rise apartment building can house thousands of individuals—so the “middle of the building” would get crowded pretty quickly.
While the PSA’s advice might help to survive a guided missile strike, it would be useless for a nuclear detonation. (All the more reason why there should be a nation-wide rebroadcast of ABC’s 1983 nuclear-strike enactment, “The Day After.”)
What Nuclear Scientists Say Would Happen
The New York PSA was so misleading that it prompted Steven Starr (a senior scientists with Physicians for Social Responsibility) to repost a 2015 research paper he co-authored with two other scientists. The article, which appeared in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, addressed “the consequences of the detonation of a single [800 kiloton] warhead over midtown Manhattan.” Here are some sobering details:
- “Within a few tenths of millionths of a second after detonation, the center of the warhead would reach a temperature of roughly 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun.”
- “[T]he enormous heat and light from the fireball would almost instantly ignite fires over a total area of about 100 square miles.”
- “The mass fire, or firestorm, would quickly increase in intensity, heating enormous volumes of air that would rise at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour.”
- “The fireball would vaporize the structures directly below it and produce an immense blast wave and high-speed winds, crushing even heavily built concrete structures within a couple miles of ground zero. The blast would tear apart high-rise buildings and expose their contents to the solar temperatures; it would spread fires by exposing ignitable surfaces, releasing flammable materials, and dispersing burning materials.”
- “Two miles from ground zero, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with all its magnificent historical treasures, would be obliterated. Two and half miles from ground zero, in Lower Manhattan, the East Village, and Stuyvesant Town, the fireball would appear 2,700 times brighter than a desert sun at noon.”
- “Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately five to seven miles of Midtown Manhattan would be engulfed by a gigantic firestorm. The fire zone would cover a total area of 90 to 152 square miles. The firestorm would rage for three to six hours. Air temperatures in the fire zone would likely average 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Why Are They Telling Us To Prep For A Nuclear Attack??
Ellsberg on Nuclear Abolition or Annihilation
The following two short videos were released on July 11 by Defuse Nuclear War with the following introduction: Directed by Oscar-nominee Judith Ehrlich, this series explores the dangers of nuclear weapons and the politics that drive their existence. Hear firsthand accounts from Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about his time as a nuclear war planner for the US military and learn hidden truth about realities of nuclear weapons.
The Most Evil War Planning
ICBMs: Hair-Trigger Annihilation
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
