I wonder, what would you all buy, learn, and/or do if you KNEW for certain that Russia would launch in just 30 days, say July 1 ? Of course, I have no inside knowledge or even belief that they would, but I just got to thinking, what would I buy, learn, or do... ? I got confused, so I stopped (thinking that is). ???

By the way, the 'glass parking lot' of the title is for humorous effect, I realize that large areas of the country would remain habitable... (especially if you a cockroach or rat!!)

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), May 28, 1999

Answers

If you remember the book "On the Beach" by Neville Schute, far more than large areas of the country may be uninhabitable... The potential for nuclear winter would really wreak havoc in a Y2K impaired world, wouldn't it? And drifting clouds of radiation could eventually cross the entire planet. At least we probably wouldn't contaminate other planets.

But back to your question, I would try to dig out my bunker a bit more, and continue to store food and beverages. I would try to acquire a geiger counter. Finally, I would bring in all of my kids and grand kids... In other words, about an 11 on the Y2K scale...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), May 28, 1999.

I would spend all my time with my family and really make our last days worthwhile. We already have plenty of food and water (thanks to Y2K) to last for 30 days, so why spend that valuable time at work? I love my family dearly and I can't bear thinking of losing precious quality time with them. LOVE IS ALL THAT MATTERS. I'd like to say I'd do my best not to worry about what was to come, but that is almost inevitable. It is only human to have such strong emotions in a case like that. How many people can say they know WHEN they will die? The anxiety alone would probably kill me. Maybe I have no clue what I'd really do until I found out. All I can say is, I'd probably do whatever is important to me at the time, day by day.

-- Julie Stansbery (Flyer@Primenet.Com), May 28, 1999.

Celebrate! Pray, meditate, camp out together going to all the beautiful places, watch sunrises, sunsets, stars, and waterfalls. And NOT work! And NOT worry! And NOT plan! And be filled with mounting excitement and glee that a quick flashing end was very soon and finally we're outta here! WheeHeee!

Of course that presupposes we're at Ground Zero. Otherwise, more work, planning, worrying -- forget it!

xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), May 28, 1999.

"On the Beach" by Neville Shute...

Recently rented the movie and read the book - very very sad, very powerful in it's time and just as powerful now...

eat, drink and be merry!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 28, 1999.

Good answers, I've thought about it also. Love really IS all that matters. We'd fish and play and be grateful for each other. I buried my first husband when I was 22. I know where he went and I'd know where we'd be headed. We'd talk alot about that and ease any fears. I'm truely not afraid to die, unless I've wasted my life, I've cherished every day (even the bad ones). People (especially children) fear the process, so I'd pray for the ground zero scenerio. I would pray that my children wouldn't "see" us die. The mother on the bunk with her two toddlers, in Titanic, comes to mind. That's why I prepare. Why would anyone be willing to risk finding themselves in that position? WHY? What sort of soul would risk that in order to proove they are right? Why would someone refuse to even think about the possibility? How on earth can some people not be willing to contemplate even the remotest possibility that they could find themselves in the position of not being able to provide the most basic of needs for thier children? I've seen starving children, in the eyes. There is a smell. They've touched me as I passed by. This country is in a comma. I just shake my head. It's time to tuck my 9 year old son into bed. Thank you, Lord.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), May 28, 1999.

When I initially learned of Y2K, I thought I could acquire a few bags of beans, rice and flour and together with our immediate family, weather it out for a few months. After all, we live in the country somewhere amidst the pucker brush, with running water and critters on the hoof to fill the stew pot, and we are used to and equipped for power outages which sometime last for up to a week. We are all ready prepared I told myself. If anyone could survive this Y2K thing, I knew it had to be us.

Then with the passing of time and a lot more research, I decided I needed a few other things and started making more in-depth plans for our welfare. I also expanded my circle of preparation to include more people in the group. I considered the number of things I now take for granted that might not be available, and I realized this was going to be a BIG job to undertake. There were times when I thought (and still think) this was (and is) a daunting, almost unsurmountable task. I had concern for an older, single female in Los Angeles that I've never met and don't even know, and I invited her to join us. She belittled the Y2K problem and told my daughter who is her neighbor, "Your Mother worries too much!" Not only that, but half the people around here think I'm a little off in the head and have subjected me to a certain amount of ridicule. It doen't bother me to be ridiculed-I just mentioned it to show the lack of concern amongst my associates. I frequently hear the refrain, "I don't think anything will happen, but if it does, we'll just go over to Sharon's". But even though I am 60 and female, I accepted the role of leader of the group, seeking to find the best ways to save us all from this terrible threat of Y2K.

Now after learning that, here in California in particular, we may be on the verge of going up in nuclear smoke, I think I'll just take the family and all our friends to Disneyland, and with any kind of luck at all, we'll be right at ground zero in the beautiful L.A. basin and will no longer be faced with the terrible things happening on this earth. I don't want to live with geiger counters and in small concrete boxes underground in a state of constant fear or suffering. We have a mine shaft on our property which could probably be modified in such a way that we might survive, but I don't want my children and grand-children to live in a world like that.

What I'm really going to do is pray that the Lord Jesus returns and takes those of us who accept and believe in Him home before a nuclear holocaust occurs.

By the way, Old Git, if you happen to read this, could you send me your real e-mail address. I'd like to ask you something if you would be willing to communicate with me.

-- Sharon L (sharonl@volcano.net), May 28, 1999.

Of course I would get a cash advance on all my credit cards. Then I would buy food, medicine, guns and ammo, etc.

Nuclear war has been overated. The world would not blow up. Russia will attack the USA and only the USA. Most of the radiation will be gone in a month. It is survivable.

-- Joe O (ozarkjoe@yahoo.com), May 28, 1999.

1) Nuclear destruction rules have changed since On the Beach. The classic Nuclear Winter was predicated on LARGE, Ground Burst weapons. current weapons, and in particularthe ones "Stolen/sold/given" to China are small, tactical, and are designed as air burst weapons. Much less fallout, much smaller area than even H and N lost.

2) Uninhabitability depends on how dirty the explosion is, and whether it is an air burst or ground burst. H and N are now (55 years later) thriving metropolises. They were resettled by 1955 (10 years).

3) The targeting strategies of the Soviet and Chinese are only slightly different.

4) UNLESS you are within a few miles of a militarily apropriate target, and therefor the detonation, you will probably survive. Suicide would be a waste.

C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 28, 1999.

For Sharon:

Although your concerns about a post-nuke L.A. are certainly valid, the fact that you have a "mine shaft" on your property might be a pretty clear sign that you are supposed to do something with it :)....and I'd suspect your children and grandchildren might be more eager to live through the experience than you are. Young people are very adaptable, and often don't have the need to hang onto "old structures", such as the day-to-day of our current culture.

It helps me to remember that our ancestors, all of them, lived through heroic problems, starvation, horror, plague -- and I bless them for their struggles. Because if they didn't take up the challenge, I wouldn't be here either....

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), May 29, 1999.

Oh dear. Time to get the shovel and hipwaders out again.

Mad Monk - On The Beach is fiction. That's a polite way of saying bullshit. Fallout radiation follows the t-1.2 law which states that for every sevenfold increase in time after detonation there is a tenfold drop in radiation output. For the details on this go to http://home.earthlink.net/~kenseger/surv/FALLFUND.TXT if you want facts, not fiction. There is no potential for nuclear winter what so ever. The majority of the members of the T.A.P.P.S. report have admitted it was bogus. The S. (Carl Sagen) stated that if Saddam Heussien ignited the oil wells of Kuwait, that nuclear winter would happen, it didn't. The "scientists" of the TAPPS report left a few things out of their global weather model, oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, clouds, topography, and wind. They also spent more money hiring a public relations firm than they did on the research. They originally claimed nuclear winter would occur with only 100 bombs. Questions were asked and they raised the ante to 1,000 bombs. More questions were asked and the re-raised the ante to 10,000 bombs to make nuclear winter possible. The TAPPS is filled with mathematical errors but every single error supports the thesis, think about that one for a bit. I could on for another 50 sentences or so pointing out errors big and small, but I think you get the idea. If a person is going to worry about One The Beach and Nuclear Winter scenarios they might as well worry about mutated 40 foot tall fire breathing racoons that have x-ray vision and fart nerve gas.

Sharon L - if you have water, a mine shaft, etc. you might consider that the devil likes to trick people into sin. Suicide is a sin.

Joe O - Yeah! A lone voice shouting the truth in a wilderness of ignorance. To others note I did NOT say stupidity, but just mere ignorance which can be remedied through knowledge.

Chuck - 1. Well, I'll just say it was not true then, its even more not true now. Also, zero effective fallout from airburst. 2. Not setled by 55 but thriving, they were occupied shortly after the bombing. 3. Yep. 4. Double yep and darn few.

Folks, the uncertianties of life are bad enough for your mental health, there is no need to worry about things that don't exist. Granted we've replaced trolls with ozone holes, but both are mythical bullshit. You might want to read the following threads if you want an education befiting the last part of the 20th century.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000oYq

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000puv

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000q7O

BH - To answer your question, I would but some more supplies, preposition all of my tools, books, musical items, and supplies, move out there, and prepare to wait out the 2 days or 2 weeks required to stay in a fallout shelter.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), May 29, 1999.

you should live every day as if it were your last....

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), May 29, 1999.

I am sorry that some of you felt I was going to commit suicide. Not a chance! I would never deliberately take my own life or any one else's. I live 400 miles north of Los Angeles and am in more danger of fallout from the bay area than the Southland. I just wouldn't be thrilled with the prospects of having to live underground in a dark, water filled cave. But if you knew me, you would understand that I am very tenacious and scrappy and ready to take on almost any challenge. Remember early in my comments I said I was the one that took on the job of saving an extended family. It consists of some twenty-five or thirty people!

-- Sharon L (Sharonl@volcano.net), May 29, 1999.

Sharon L - "nuclear smoke, I think I'll just take the family and all our friends to Disneyland, and with any kind of luck at all, we'll be right at ground zero in the beautiful L.A. basin and will no longer be faced with the terrible things happening on this earth. I don't want to live with geiger counters and in small concrete boxes underground in a state of constant fear or suffering"

That's where I misunderstood about suicide, the idea being that one would only need to stay in that mine shaft for 2 days to 2 weeks or so. After that you go to about your business, perhaps just sleeping in the mine for another couple of weeks. All the myths about radioactive uptake into foods etc. are just that, myths. Anybody interested in me posting an old article of mine about anti-radiation nutrient supplimentation?

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), May 30, 1999.