“Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb. What should people there do?”
What SHOULD they do? Will it matter? Won’t they be dead?
Actually many people would be able to survive one of the main things is to try and shelter yourself from the immediate exposure. When I was young we practiced in school for nuclear fallout and many American’s had Shelters built in their back yards.
Nuclear Attack ‘More Survivable Than Most People Think,’ Say Government Officials
Well, ya see, that’s the thing: most people WOULD survive a nuclear attack. Sure, those within a certain range are certain goners, but cities are much bigger than the effective range of a small nuke. Detonation on the ground instead of airborne limits the effect further.
Nukes make a huge bang, but they’re not the TEOTWAKI doomsday super weapon we’ve been programmed to think of them as.
No. A small bomb that terrorists might use may not do much more damage than the attack on the twin towers.
Their goal would be to use a "dirty bomb" to spread radiation everywhere and watch people die off over the next several weeks.
Dying from radiation exposure is not pretty.