Local officials restore long-abandoned fallout shelters, train for WMD emergency
Pastor Dale Morgan
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Local officials restore long-abandoned fallout shelters, train for WMD
emergency*
Posted: April 13, 2007
Emergency Management News
WASHINGTON – With the nation facing an increased threat from nuclear
terrorism, at least one community is rebuilding a public fallout shelter
program like those abandoned in the 1970s when Americans began believing
surviving a nuclear event was not possible or not worthwhile.
In Alabama, the Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency,
in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, local schools
and hospitals and businesses, has identified facilities suitable for
public shelters against nuclear and radiological attacks for nearly half
of the area's 300,000 people.
Spending only tens of thousands of dollars, the agency has successfully
trained 78 shelter managers and is in the process of attempting to
identify and secure more facilities to protect the public from the
effects of radiation following a nuclear event.
"Beyond identifying usable shelters, the community must be properly
trained for operating a shelter," says Kirk Paradise, plans coordinator
for the Huntsville/Madison County Emergency Management Agency. "In our
study, we outline a command and support organizational chart vital to
successful shelter operation. This training can easily be implemented
into a citizen emergency response training course."
The agency also is awaiting grants for the installation of the
once-familiar fallout shelter signs that would guide the public to the
nearest facility in the event of a nuclear accident or attack.
Paradise and his boss, John Russell, offered a presentation to other
emergency planners at a nuclear event symposium in Richmond, Va., last
month.
"What happens if Osama bin Laden fulfills his promised American
Hiroshima?" they asked in their power-point program.
Bin Laden has plans for a nuclear terrorist attack on multiple cities in
the U.S.
"This is not re-fighting the Cold War, but adapting to the threat of
global terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons to nations who will
use them if they get them," said Paradise.
Sample radioactive fallout
He explained the initiative in Huntsville to take action came in
response to a mandate from the Department of Homeland Security for major
population centers to create a "Metropolitan Medical Response System" –
a plan of defense against a small-yield nuclear weapon or dirty bomb attack.
Without a shelter system, such an attack would result in 7,500 immediate
deaths, 25,000 contamination victims and some 100,000 displaced people
in the Huntsville area alone, according to projections.
Paradise and Russell say those numbers can be greatly reduced with
minimal and inexpensive preparations.
Madison County now has more than 150 federally surveyed and approved
public fallout shelters. Work began last year to revitalize the shelter
program.
While the shelters in Huntsville are not stocked with food, water and
other supplies like many were in the 1960s, their availability should
such an emergency arise at least provides the opportunity for civilians
to bring their own food and water. The Huntsville team is also working
on grants for stockpiling supplies.
"Members of our EMA staff have a tremendous amount of expertise which
serves our community well in times of emergencies," said Mayor Loretta
Spencer. "They are continually recognized on the national, state and
regional level for their emergency preparedness training programs."
The International Association of Emergency Managers Bulletin recently
published a paper written by Paradise, "Protection frrom the Ultimate
WMD: Attack with Nuclear or Radiological Weapons," which analyzes and
deatils the need for evacuation plans and fallout shelters in the event
of a nucledar or radiological attack.
Besides state and local government buildings, the potential shelters in
Huntsville include private schools, shopping malls, churches, industrial
buildings, professional buildings, banks, apartment buildings and caves.
"If a nuclear weapon is detonated by terrorists, fallout shelters and
the ability to use them will be the difference as to whether we are just
victims or survivors, ready to rebuild our society," said Paradise.
Some abandoned shelters from the '70s and '80s can be reclaimed, say
Paradise and Russell. New potential shelter sites require permission
from owners. The capacity and protective ability of all facilities need
to be calculated. All of it takes work and planning by local authorities.
Asked if they were aware of any other communities in the country that
have taken these steps to date – even since the mandate from the
Department of Homeland Security – Paradise said he was not.
The history of civil defense in the U.S. is long and complicated. While
fear of nuclear war grew throughout the 1950s, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower resisted building an extensive national shelter program as
the Soviet Union and other countries did.
In the 1960s, following the Berlin airlift and the Cuban Missile Crisis,
America stepped up its shelter program. At the time, surveys showed most
Americans believed a nuclear World War III would begin within five
years. As many as 200,000 homeowners began building their own shelters
as well.
In the 1960s, governments surveyed tens of thousands of buildings around
the country and designated them as shelters, stocking them with canned
water and food.
In the 1970s, a new ethos, which suggested it was ridiculous to attempt
to survive a nuclear war contributed to a sense a decline in interest in
shelters. Most public shelters were stripped of food and water in the
late 1970s and early 1980s.
Today, most government agencies seem more focused on improving
communication and formulating evacuation plans than on preparing to send
the nation underground. But evacuation scenarios of most major cities in
a time of crisis are fraught with trouble. Some fear those efforts will
result in more casualties rather than fewer.
But shelters offer protection even from foreign nuclear events – wars
and accidents that could pose radiation hazards around the world. Yet,
there is no national system in place.
"If you call your local Emergency Management Office today, as the
Federal Emergency Management Agency directs, to ask them where their
fallout shelter is that your family should go to in a nuclear disaster,
you'll discover they don't have one for you anymore," says Shane Connor,
author of "What To Do If A Nuclear Disaster Is Imminent!" "Clearly,
until rectified, every family is on their own and needs to prepare a
fallout shelter at home. Good news is, most all can, but only if they
learn how to beforehand."
Phil Smith, developer of the keychain-size radiation detector Nukalert,
emphasizes the importance of education.
"Sam Nunn asked: 'The day after an attack, what would we wish we had
done? Why aren't we doing it now?' Clearly, we would wish we had taught
the public basic civil defense," he says.
The largest and most recent study of the effects of nuclear detonations
in major U.S. cities showed that, while millions will die, millions of
others can be saved with some practical preparations and education.
The three-year study by researchers at the Center for Mass Destruction
Defense at the University of Georgia found a concerted effort to teach
civilians what to do in the event of a nuclear attack is the best –
perhaps only – thing that could save an untold number of lives that will
otherwise be needlessly lost.
"If a nuclear detonation were to occur in a downtown area, the picture
would be bleak there," said Cham Dallas, director of the program and
professor in the college of pharmacy. "But in urban areas farther from
the detonation, there actually is quite a bit that we can do. In certain
areas, it may be possible to turn the death rate from 90 percent in some
burn populations to probably 20 or 30 percent – and those are very big
differences – simply by being prepared well in advance."
The government's own National Planning Scenario projects even a small,
improvised 10-kiloton nuclear bomb would likely kill hundreds of
thousands in a medium-sized city. The carnage was estimated at 204,600
dead in Washington, D.C. – with another 90,800 injured or sickened.
Another 24,580 would likely die of thyroid cancer later because the
simple compound potassium iodide, which can prevent it, was not made
available to civilians in advance of the disaster.
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the 9/11 commission have
all concluded a nuclear terrorist attack is not only the nation's No. 1
nightmare but also something of an inevitability at some time in the future.
The University of Georgia study calls for a public awareness campaign to
teach civilians what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Even simple
measures, the researchers point out, can save many lives. For instance,
since radioactive clouds move downwind, a person can determine which way
the wind is blowing and flee in a perpendicular direction to the wind.
Even on foot, moving one to five miles can be the difference between
life and death. On the other hand, though, people in areas upwind from
the detonation site are better off staying put.