I live no more than 3 miles from the White House and the Capitol. If someone nukes DC, I figure I have about a 0% chance of surviving, so I'm kind of fatalistic about the whole thing.
The biggest surprize to the greatest number of people will be that they actually did survive the inital blast. But, they will then need to know what to do next, and quickly, or they risk not surviving for too long. Ideally, they need to have found out well beforehand, figured out their sheltering/evacuation best options and already acquired some minimum preps, mostly stuff they can someday use anyways even if nothing bad ever does get unleashed. Read the guide linked above, and discover how many more families could survive than currently think so.
-Shane
Actually your chances of dying at 3 miles out are fairly close to zero, with shards of glass from a blown out window the biggest hazard.