During the height of the Cold War, citizens went about their daily lives as normal, all the while conscious of the fact that a nuclear warhead could turn their bodies to dust at any moment. They had every reason to believe this was not an "if it happens", but rather a "when it happens" scenario. Rather than crawl into a dark corner somewhere in the fetal position and spend your final days weeping and gnashing teeth, Americans lived life as normally as possible - as if the total annihilation of the human race was not just around the corner. They say that while a fourth of the European population was being wiped out by the Black Death, very little was written about it - Boccaccio's Decameron makes mention of it, but it very rarely made its way into paintings and poetry. Like the people of the plague, the people of the Cold War carried on as it had before the threat of complete planetary extinction.
However, they did take precautions. They built bomb shelters, had drills, stockpiled food, and so forth. Looking through this old comic book, If an A-Bomb Falls from 1951, is an interesting glimpse into the Cold War mindset. Much like another comic book on nuclear war preparation I posted on earlier, the advice seems to border on insanity. For instance, if an atomic bomb is about to drop on your city, make sure you pull the drapes, turn off the stove, and take the trash out (?)
Imagine being in elementary school and seeing this disturbing image. It had to occur to even the youngest readers that covering up with a handkerchief or newspaper might not provide adequate protection from a 1.2 megaton nuclear blast.
The Chernobyl disaster took place about 25 years ago, and chromosomal aberrations still occur - the impact is still being felt via cancer and various birth defects. Something tells me that a hot shower and Ivory soap ain't gonna wash away the radiation.
Don't use the clothes again until advised by the authorities? How about NEVER wearing these clothes again! They estimate the Chernobyl area will not be safe for human habitation for the next 20,000 years - so, trust me, you need to go buy another pair of blue jeans!
I don't want to sound overly cynical - I mean, it's okay to practice disaster preparedness. However, it's also important to inject a little reality into the equation. For instance, your bunker may protect you from the initial blast - but what awaits you when you arise from your shelter? Probably immediate radiation poisoning, or an unsurvivable nuclear winter. You will probably wish you'd been vaporized.
So, by all means, take a shower after you've been exposed, but don't kid yourself that you're now safe from long term (generational even) health problems.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with Glenn Beck - he's the nut-job that keeps insisting that Armageddon is just a few days away, and he knows exactly how to be prepared. There's a lot of survivalist radio guys like him that seem to think that you can somehow avoid certain death by following a set of simple steps. Unfortunately, reality isn't that simple.
Prepare for floods, hurricanes, and long term power outages all you want. But in the event of global thermonuclear war, there's simply nothing you can do. I'm not trying to be a pessimistic killjoy, but that's the harsh reality, Glenn.
