FIRST STEPS TOWARD RECOVERY
The world and your community would be shattered by a nuclear war. Normal services would be disrupted; essential skills could be in short supply; equipment you had taken for granted might not be available. You would face the aftermath of a catastrophe, but if there had been previous planning, you need not face it alone.
Using community resources
As in the case of natural disasters, community action is by far the best way to do all that must be done to recover from a nuclear attack. Local governments have at hand many organized units, such as the police and fire departments, the county road commission and the health department, whose survivors can serve as a hard core for organized recovery actions immediately after people can emerge from shelters. Government agencies, military units, and other organizations, such as construction companies and the repairmen of the public utilities, would help to repair damage and restore service as soon as possible – as they have in past natural disasters. But many more helpers would be needed. Wherever you might be, in a community or family shelter, your help would be needed. If your community is lucky and receives little fallout, you may be needed to help a neighboring community.
The communities that are well organized and have planned their recovery actions would be able to return to tolerable living conditions in the shortest time. The first job in this would be to clean up pre-selected areas to make them safe for living outside of shelters. The initial action may well originate with organized units in community shelters – from the basement of the city hall, from a shelter at a school – or it could come from groups in several shelters working together. As groups, they would have more of the manpower, equipment, and communications needed to start the job.
Getting rid of fallout
The process of removing fallout particles from exposed surfaces and disposing of the particles in places where they cannot harm people is called radiological decontamination. Paved areas could be decontaminated with firehoses or street flushers, using high-pressure nozzles, and with motorized street sweepers. Roofs could be decontaminated with fire hoses. Unpaved areas could be decontaminated by scraping off or plowing under a thin top layer of soil. This could be done with large earth-moving equipment – such as motorized scrapers and motor graders – on large open areas, and with bulldozers, tractor scrapers, shovels and wheelbarrows on smaller areas around houses and trees. Another method would be to cover a contaminated area with clean earth.
In decontaminating paved areas, crews could flush the particles into storm drains or into ditches, where the particles could be covered with clean earth or picked up and hauled to a dumping area. The scrapings from the unpaved areas could be dumped in a pile about 100 feet from occupied areas, or hauled away. The dumping area might be a gully, refuse area, or even a vacant lot roped off at a safe distance.
Since the most effective and rapid methods of decontamination would involve the use of crews and equipment working in large areas, the best places to start the decontamination are likely to be at schools, shopping centers and downtown areas, and at parks and open fields where large equipment can operate.
It is vital that communities set aside in advance many rallying points where people can meet to start work after an attack. If you are in a home shelter and have a ratemeter, you should wait until the radiation level has fallen to a point where you can go out for about an hour without receiving more than a few roentgens. You could use this time to go to your local school, shopping area or other designated gathering place and join with your neighbors in community decontamination efforts.
If you do not have a radiation instrument, stay in shelter until you are assured, by radio, by contact from local authorities, or by other means, that clean areas are established near you and that it is safe to proceed there.
In areas of heavy fallout where the first decontamination actions can be started, if well organized, within the second week after attack, there is relatively little danger from fallout particles getting on people doing cleanup work – especially if normal habits of personal cleanliness are maintained. The most likely articles of clothing to pick up fallout particles are shoes, so keep them brushed clean.
On a farm
If you live on a farm, your pre-fallout preparations will have a lot to do with your cleaning up afterward.
You should place as much of your livestock and produce in barns as you can. A normally filled hayloft affords some shielding from fallout radiation for animals below. Farm machinery, troughs, wells, and any produce you cannot get into barns should be covered with tarpaulins. You should store as much water in covered containers as you can, taking the precautions already outlined.
Afterward, any livestock exposed to fallout could be washed or brushed to remove fallout particles. Water from wells and streams would be safe for animal use. Even water standing in a pond could be used since fallout particles would settle to the bottom. Pond water could be made even safer by stirring up a clay bottom and then letting it settle out. Feed and fodder stored under cover should be used first. If no other feed is available, animals could be turned out to pasture after a few days when the radioactivity has decreased.
Farm animals and poultry would be an important source of human food and they should not be allowed to sicken and die from thirst and starvation. Animals which have been exposed to early fallout or which have fed on contaminated pastures could be slaughtered and the muscle meat would be fit for human consumption. Internal organs. however, such as the liver and spleen, should not be eaten unless no other food is available. It would be easier to preserve meat on the hoof than on the hook. Hogs and steers could be kept alive even with water and feed containing early fallout particles.
Animals, like humans, can have radiation sickness. If the radiation level in your area indicates that animal sickness may be widespread, you probably will be told and given instructions on slaughtering. Care must be taken in slaughtering to prevent contamination of the carcasses by fallout particles from the hides and digestive tracts.
Chicken and eggs would be a particularly important direct food resource because they are relatively resistant to radiation, especially if they are raised under cover using safe packaged feeds.
Milk from cows that have grazed on contaminated pastures would be radioactive, but in the absence of other food in an emergency, it could be used.
Potatoes, corn, and other field crops exposed to early fallout would be safe to eat after cleaning. grain that has been covered, as in elevators, would be safe. Threshing would reduce the amount of fallout particles in the grain. Threshed grain exposed to fallout could be made safer by washing.
If county agents are available, they can help you decide what crops, pasturage, and methods will be best and safest to use. Seeds of all sorts are quite resistant to radiation and do not require any special protection.
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