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Comment on New Advice On How to Survive Nuclear Attack

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From the practical point of view:

wouldn't it be the easiest to make a TV entertainment series that would play in a nuclear apocalyptic scenario and include 60-ish style warnings of what to do when you see a mushroom?

Maybe something fallout style? This would not make anyone panic, as it's entertainment, but the message would go into subconsciousness to most.

> include 60-ish style warnings of what to do when you see a mushroom?

Before the mushroom too. Like when the tide goes out before a tsunami.

I remember watching the 'Day After' a long time ago and in one scene is everyone on a highway - and all of their cars suddenly die/stall. I assume this is EMP blast related?

It was EMP related. IIRC, it was explained previously in the film and I believe that there was some special effect to suggest an explosion had taken place in the stratosphere.

By the way, Jason Robard's character did one educational thing: bending (I hope that's the right word) as much as he can behind the dashboard.

Also the movie featured prominently a white noodle-like dust rain that had that charming effect of making people bald.

There was another film with William Hart (can anybody remember the title?) about a post-apocalyptic world where most electronics are fried due to EMP.

Read the article, do some blast physics Googling (especially for kinetic and EMP cones). If you are in EMP range (which applies to H-Bombs and N-Bombs mostly, the later you're very unlikely to see in a terrorist attack, just too damn difficult to build), then you are probably screwed anyway.

In the case you survive that, don't leave the car.. and pray!

Jericho was a fantastic TV series about this very thing. It only lasted a season and a half, however.

It wasn't completely realistic, but most of the shows were about things the survivors had to do afterward to deal with contamination, breakdown of government, etc.

From the BBC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game

Threads is probably the bleakest thing ever shown on TV - all the more so when you realize that the attack on the UK used as the basis for the program was actually fairly optimistic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg

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