Via NYT: U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable

  Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb. What should people there do? The government has a surprising new message: Do not flee. Get inside any stable building and don’t come out till officials say it’s safe. 

George Alexanderson/The New York Times

Employees entered a sub-basement shelter during a Port Authority Civilian Defense Drill in 1951. 

Sal Veder/Associated Press

A mother and her children made a practice run for their $5,000 steel backyard fallout shelter in Sacramento, Calif., in 1961. 

The advice is based on recent scientific analyses showing that a nuclear attack is much more survivable if you immediately shield yourself from the lethal radiation that follows a blast, a simple tactic seen as saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Even staying in a car, the studies show, would reduce casualties by more than 50 percent; hunkering down in a basement would be better by far.

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