NYT: U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable

[TomClash]

Why is this article being written now? "Recent scientific analyses?" "Educate the public?" Classic fear mongering or are we being prepared for another "event?" Or both?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/science/16terror.html?_r=1&hp

U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: December 15, 2010


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.

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.

But a problem for the Obama administration is how to spread the word without seeming alarmist about a subject that few politicians care to consider, let alone discuss. So officials are proceeding gingerly in a campaign to educate the public.

“We have to get past the mental block that says it’s too terrible to think about,” W. Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in an interview. “We have to be ready to deal with it” and help people learn how to “best protect themselves.”

[montanacowboy]

1. Duck & Cover?

OMG

[ladjf]

3. Just remember, the ones who are stealing our money aren't dumb

enough to believe this silly crap. This is just for "our" consumption. Their propagandists are hardened professional mind warpers. The American public doesn't have a chance. They are so bombarded with the stuff, they begin to believe.

[damntexdem]

8. The quacks are back with their duck and cover.

If a "terrorist" set off a bomb in any city, all of this "advice" would be useless.

[ladjf]

2. Its "duct tape time" again. Remember when we were being told

by the head of homeland sec., duct tape one of the rooms in your house to protect against terrorist attack.

[TomClash]

4. Near Ground Zero

A month or so after 9/11, an Israeli company opened a storefront selling "disaster equipment" like gas masks, first aid kits and so on. It closed a few months later.

[AlabamaLibrul]

These are the same people who told me to hide under my desk in case of nuclear attack

I've basically written off any instructions I have ever been given in regards to proper actions in case of an issue like this.

[ladjf]

6. If about 15 to 20% of the right wingers could move to your style

of objective thinking, instead of their current method, politics in America would begin a recovery.

[slackmaster]

5. Life Jackets Issued To All Americans For Some Reason

[no_hypocrisy]

7. My cousin can dust off his bomb shelter in the backyard . . . .

[zigzagzed]

9. They would have used it already

If al-Qa'ida had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it already. If they don't have one by now, it is unlikely they will get one. Nevertheless, I think the planning guidance represents a reasoned response to a low probability, high risk threat. It is a far cry from backyard bomb shelters and Duck and Cover drills, and represents modern computer modeling instead of the Red Scare fear-mongering of the 1950s.