DDAY_COVER 11/21/14 3:10 AM Page US_C1

FROM THE EDITORS OF AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE • DOOMSDAY • SPRING

FROM THE EDITORS OF AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE

DOOMSDAY • SPRING
U.S. $8.99 • DISPLAY UNTIL: 2/24/15

31

0 71486 01319 8
Engaged Media By Beckett
ASG-SIP-1412-BROCHURE 11/21/14 1:00 AM Page C2

Be Prepared! Get Informed!

Throughout the years, there has been no short-
age of information from official sources on how
to stay prepared for and avoid natural and
man-made disasters, specifically the atomic
bomb. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the Civil
Defense Department issued dozens of differ-
ent brochures and pamphlets designed to
educate the population about this new and
potentially deadly threat. Shown here are
not only a bevy of atomic-era brochures,
but additional doomsday brochures
regarding natural disasters.
ASG-SIP-1412-BROCHURE 11/21/14 1:01 AM Page 3
ASG-SIP-1412-TOC.qxp 11/24/14 2:11 AM Page 4

CONTENTS
8 EARTHQUAKE
Staying Alive When the Earth Quakes
13 Stories of Survival: Gail Gase
13 Stories of Survival: Xian Chapman
14 The Great Alaskan Quake, 1964
15 The New Madrid Earthquakes, 1811-12
16 Earthquake Survival Gear Guide

18 CHILL FACTOR
Surviving the Icy Grips of a Blizzard
22 Stories of Survival: Lauren Weinberg
23 Stories of Survival: Boyd Severson
24 The Great Blizzard of 1993
25 The Schoolhouse Blizzard
26 Blizzard Survival Gear Guide

28 A PERFECT STORM
Surviving the Terror of a Hurricane
33 The Saffir-Simpson Scale
34 Stories of Survival: Hurricane Andrew
34 Stories of Survival: Hurricane Mitch
35 Stoires of Survival: Hurricane Katrina
36 Hurricane Survival Gear Guide 84 TOXIC TERROR
How to Survive a Deadly Chemical Attack
38 MUSHROOM CLOUD 90 Stories of Survival: Tokyo Subway Attack, 1995
Surviving a Nuclear Attack 91 Stories of Survival: Halabja Massacre, 1988
47 The Atomic Bomb Over Hiroshima, 1945 92 Chemical Attack Survival Gear Guide

48 TORNADOES 94 WAVES OF DEATH

Surviving the Terror of the Twisters
52 Stories of Survival: Michael Naruta
53 Stories of Survival: Wilma Nelson
54 The Tri-State Tornado of 1925
55 Joplin Tornado of 211
56 Tornado Survival Gear Guide
Surviving a Relentless Wall of Water: The Tsunami
98 Stories of Survival: Paul Landgraver
99 Stories of Survival: Maria Belon
100 Japanese Tsunami of 2011
100 Valdivia Tsunami of 1960
102 Tsunami Survival Gear Guide

58 FOUNTAINS OF FIRE 104 PLANET KILLERS

Surviving the Lava of a Volcano’s Eruption
62 Stories of Survival: The Moore Family
63 Stories of Survival: August Cyparis
64 Mount Saint Helens Eruption of 1980
65 Mount Ontake Eruption of 2014
66 Volcano Survival Gear Guide
68 FLYING LEAD
Surviving an Active Shooter Senario
71 Stories of Survival: Shari Thornberg
72 Columbine High School, 1999
72 Aurora, Colorado, Shooting, 2012
Surviving the Catastrophe of an Asteroid Impact
108 Asteroid Dangers, 1908-2029
110 BECOMING SELF-AWARE
How to Survive When the Machines Rise
116 CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
How to Survive an Alien Invasion
120 Stories of Survival
121 Alien Invasion: Roswell, N.M., 1947
122 Alien Invasion Survival Gear Guide

74 GLOBAL SICKNESS
124 THE INVISIBLE JOLT
Surviving the Devastation of an Electromagnetic Pulse DEPARTMENTS
How to Survive a World-Wide Pandemic 129 The Carrington Event, 1859
2 Preparation Literature
82 Ebola Pandemic of 2014 129 Starfish Prime, 1962
6 Editorial
83 Ultimate Pandemic Survival Kit 130 EMP Survival Gear Guide
7 Doomsday Clock
ASG-SIP-1412-TOC.qxp 11/24/14 2:12 AM Page 5

DOOMSDAY
FROM THE EDITORS OF AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE

“One of the illusions of life is that EDITORIAL

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CONTRIBUTORS
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ASG-SIP-1412-EDIT 11/24/14 12:59 AM Page 6
6 EDITORIAL
DOOMSDAY
The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse
The apocalypse is as inevitable
as the setting sun; at some point in the future,
the Earth and all life on it, will come to an end.
Eight or nine billion years from now, our sun will
start to get warmer, and it will begin to grow
larger. It will slowly engulf Mercury, then Venus,
then Earth, as it turns into a Red Giant. The mil-
lions of years preceding this event, life on Earth
will be, to put it gently, uncomfortable. This is
scientific fact.
The Earth was born of fire and it will die of
fire, and that will be the end of it. The end of it
all, forever.
Geologists and archeologists have found
evidence of many prehistoric events that
spelled doom for life on earth: The Tamu Massif
volcano that caused the Jurassic extinction or
the deep-ocean anoxia (lack of oxygen) events
in the Silurian Period nearly 2.3 million years
ago, for example.
But we don’t have to go very far into history
to find a relevant instance: In 1883, in the Sunda
Strait between Java and Sumatra, the island
volcano of Krakatoa erupted, killing 36,500
people and dumping so much ash into the
atmosphere that it lowered the temperature of
the earth by 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit, while con-
cussion waves from the blast circled the globe
several times. That was one volcano, erupting
one time. Imagine a hundred volcanos erupting
a hundred times, and it isn’t too difficult to
understand how fragile this planet really is.
The cause of our demise won’t be limited to
just volcanoes, as there are countless other
doomsday scenarios to consider: floods, earth-
quakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. The 1931
China floods killed nearly 4,000,000 people in
one of the greatest natural disasters in
recorded history. Fifty years earlier, the Yellow
River slipped its banks and wiped out nearly
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
2,000,000 people. In 1556, the Shaanxi earth-
quake killed 830,000 people, and in 1976,
655,000 people died in the Tangshan earth-
quake. The Ancash earthquake in 1970 caused
an avalanche that killed 20,000 people in
Peru, while two years later, 4,000 people died “I looked,
in the 1972 Iran blizzard. If you were to add up
the casualties of the top 50 deadliest earth-
and there
quakes in recorded history, they have claimed before me
6.7 million lives. was a pale
But the apocalypse isn’t contained to the
whims of Mother Nature, as man is quite capa- horse. Its
ble of destroying the planet and all who inhabit rider was
it many times over. Currently, there are 17,300
nuclear warheads on the planet, divided among
named
nine nations (including Pakistan and North Death,
Korea). Russia developed the “Emperor Bomb,”
the largest single doomsday devise humanity
and Hell
has ever concocted. A mere 16,000 is needed to followed
destroy every square inch of land on the planet.
The Earth may not be destroyed in one giant
close behind
fireball, but with a million silent whispers with him.”
toxic gases or plagues of infectious diseases.
Revelations 6:8
Maybe Ebola can be a weapon, used like Small
Pox was in during Pontiac’s Rebellion against
the British in Pittsburg in 1736. VX gas, Sarin
gas, and Mustard gas have all been used, Sarin
most recently during the Syrian civil war and in
Iraq against the Kurds in 1988.
[TOP]
Some claim humankind hasn’t the motiva- After the eruption of
tion to destroy the planet, and Mother Nature Krakatau decimated
the island, the volcano
doesn’t possess the capabilities. Either way, it got busy rebuilding
has been proven time and again that we have no itself. Called Anak
control over what the future may hold, and Krakatau (meaning
“Child of Krakatoa”), it
meanwhile, the sun is slowly getting larger, prov- grows approximately
ing that one thing is for sure: the end is inevitable. 20 inches a year.
Ryan Lee Price
Editor, American Survival Guide
ASG-SIP-1412-CLOCK 11/24/14 12:30 AM Page 7

THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK:

Five Minutes to Midnight
Earlier this year, the Science and
Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scien-
tists announced an ominous warning regarding
our proximity to ultimate doom: “As always,
new technologies hold the promise of doing
great good, supplying new sources of clean
energy, curing disease, and otherwise enhanc-
ing our lives. From experience, however, we also
know that new technologies can be used to
diminish humanity and destroy societies,” the
board wrote. “We can manage our technology,
or become victims of it. The choice is ours, and
the Clock is ticking.”
The Atomic Age started in late 1945 after
atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki and began an era of fear that gripped
the world. A group of 11 researchers in the Met-
allurgical Laboratory of the University of
Chicago met to address the moral and social
responsibilities of scientists regarding the use
of nuclear energy, its possible consequences
and potential impact on the planet. Calling
themselves the Chicago Atomic Scientists, they
began publishing their discussions in mimeo-
graph form in December 1945.
As threat of nuclear war increased, the
Chicago Atomic Scientists used a clock as an
analogy to represent the threat. The closer
the minute hand gets to midnight—it was
originally set at seven minutes to midnight in
1947—the closer the world is to annihilation.
Originally, the clock only represented a
nuclear threat, but in 2007, the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists announced they would
include climate change in their assessments.
One of the original founders of the Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists explained in 1984: “The
Bulletin’s clock is not a gauge to register the
ups and downs of the international power
struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes
in the level of continuous danger in which
mankind lives in the nuclear age...”

DOOMSDAY CLOCK HIGHLIGHTS

YEAR MINUTES LEFT REASON
1947 7 The initial setting of the Doomsday Clock.
1949 3 The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb.
1953 2 The United States and the Soviet Union test thermonuclear devices.
1963 12 The United States and Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, limiting atmospheric nuclear testing.
1972 12 The United States and the Soviet Union sign the SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
1974 9 India tests a nuclear device (Smiling Buddha), SALT II talks stall. Both the United States and the Soviet Union modernize MIRVs.
1981 4 Soviet war in Afghanistan toughens the U.S. nuclear posture. Reagan argues that the only way to end the Cold War is to win it.
1983 3 The clock is adjusted in December 1983, since the ongoing Afghanistan war heats the Cold War. U.S. Pershing II medium-range
ballistic missile and cruise missiles are deployed in Western Europe.
1990 10 Fall of the Berlin Wall, dissolution of Iron Curtain sealing off Eastern Europe, Cold War nearing an end.
1991 17 United States and Soviet Union sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Soviet Union dissolves.
DOOMSDAY

2007 5 North Korea’s test of a nuclear weapon and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
2012 5 Lack of global political action to address nuclear weapons stockpiles, the potential for regional nuclear conflict, nuclear power
safety, and global climate change.

7
ASG-SIP-1412-EARTHQUAKE 11/24/14 12:27 AM Page 8

8 EARTHQUAKE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

Earthquake
STAYING ALIVE WHEN YOUR WORLD QUAKES > Story by Scott Fisher

You’re in the middle of an otherwise ordinary day, filled with

ordinary daily preoccupations: making coffee, getting your kids ready for school,
being stuck in traffic, hoping you can make it home at a decent hour. Without
warning, there’s a sound like the sudden passing of a high-speed train — not quite
an explosion, sharper than a roar or rumble, and then you’re thrown violently, first
one way and then another, slamming into furniture or walls or anything near.
The sound, the vibration, the wild uncontrolled motion keeps on for half a
minute, a minute, an eternity, and then there’s a crashing, tearing noise and things
around you start collapsing, ripping into dusty shards of wood, masonry, and
glass. Chunks of walls, the contents of shelves and cupboards, and razor-edged
pieces of your windows litter the floor. The tang of ozone and the musk of natural
gas begin to spread, and the initial shock turns to dread as you realize fire may be
next. What happened?
You’ve just experienced an earthquake, one of nature’s most frightening
demonstrations of power. And while most people associate earthquakes with
coastal areas (especially California and Japan), the truth is that earthquakes can
occur nearly anywhere, and almost always do so without warning. And as with
most other life-threatening catastrophes, it isn’t enough to survive the event
itself—you need a plan to survive the after-effects. In the case of earthquakes,
these nearly always include more earthquakes, which can be devastating to an
area already damaged and weakened by the initial shock.

Why Does the Earth Quake?

An earthquake occurs when two plates of the Earth’s crust, which have been
pressing against one another for years, decades, or centuries, suddenly reach the
point at which the pressure can no longer be contained. The plates move sud-
denly—either by slipping alongside each other, by sliding over and under, by buck-
ling, or by simply fracturing—releasing astounding amounts of energy.
How much energy? An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.5 on the Richter
scale, which is roughly the point at which humans can feel the motion, has an
energy yield equivalent to 2.7 metric tons of TNT. (And a short note on the Richter
scale: each increase of one point on the Richter scale releases ten times as much
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK

energy as the lower of the two. So an earthquake of 4.0 releases ten times what a
3.0 quake releases; a 5.0 releases 100 times what the 3.0, and a 6.0 releases
1,000 times, or roughly the yield of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.)
ASG-SIP-1412-EARTHQUAKE 11/24/14 12:27 AM Page 9

DOOMSDAY

9
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10 EARTHQUAKE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Unlike the air blast of a nuclear explosion,
however, much of the energy from an earth-
quake is released into the ground, and the
sheer mass of the earth absorbs a lot of the
energy. (Think of the difference between a
compact car hitting a pedestrian versus a
compact car hitting a cement truck.) But that
doesn’t mean the damage isn’t serious. The
release of energy in an earthquake causes
shock waves, some of which travel through the
ground, others of which travel on the surface.
While both are powerful, it’s the surface waves
that cause the most damage, because they
impart their energy into objects on the sur-
face—such as homes, office buildings, roads,
and other structures.
Unlike the single blast of an explosion
(nuclear or otherwise), earthquakes nearly
always come with a cluster of aftershocks—
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
minor adjustments made by those plates in
the earth as a result of the initial point of frac-
ture, called the epicenter. Like ice cracking on
the surface of a frozen pond, that first break
 ASG-SIP-1412-EARTHQUAKE 11/24/14 12:28 AM Page 11
“AT ABOUT 6 A.M., I WAS AWOKEN BY WHAT I THOUGHT,
IN MY HALF-ASLEEP STATE, WAS A HYDROGEN BOMB…”
puts a strain on other weak spots near the epi-
center, and this strain, in the days and weeks
following the quake, can cause those weak
spots to slip as well. Normally, aftershocks are
less powerful than the initial quake, but the
largest can still reach about 80 percent of the
original release. Occasionally, an aftershock
can exceed the earthquake itself (as happened
in the 1987 Whittier quake near Los Angeles).
And because those aftershocks hit an area
that’s already experienced potentially massive
structural damage from the initial quake, they
can occasionally be far more devastating than
the first shock.
Make it Through the First Quake
The first rule, as in any disaster, is “don’t
panic.” Because earthquakes happen without
warning signs, the fear response from the sud-
den violent movement of the ground beneath
your feet can be terrifying. (How terrifying? In
the 1971 Sylmar quake in Southern California,
stories circulated about people who, awakened
from a deep sleep at about 6 a.m., leapt from
their beds and ran down the street naked—only
to realize a block or so later.)
More practically, if you’re inside during a
quake, stay close to an interior wall, preferably
under some sturdy object (solid table or desk).
Most important, stay away from objects that
can fall on you—as I did, if inadvertently, in the
February, 1971 Sylmar quake (magnitude: 6.6),
while I was in high school.
At about 6 a.m., I was awoken by what I
thought, in my half-asleep state, was a hydro-
gen bomb: my bed shook, seeming to throw me
back and forth while the world roared and
thundered for about a minute. I thought I saw
the wall-mounted heater torn off the wall (it
turned out not to be damaged). Because I was
still in bed, I curled up into a ball in the center of
the bed and pulled my two pillows and blan-
kets over me to provide some cushion in the
event of debris.
After the shaking ended, I saw that a large
combat knife (even at that age I had an interest-
ing collection of weapons) that I’d hung over my
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
bed was no longer on the wall. I checked later
and found it had fallen between my bed and the
wall. Which suggests a bonus survival tip: don’t
hang heavy, edged objects over the bed.
If you’re outside, stay clear of trees, poles,
buildings (especially glass storefronts, as glass
shattering during an earthquake can travel
some distance) and especially power lines. My
own experience with the 1989 Loma Prieta
quake happened while I was in my front yard; I
quickly estimated the height of the nearest
light post and put myself a safe distance from
both the post and from the glass that framed
the entry way of my house. It was unnerving to
feel the ground bounce and sway beneath me;
it felt as though I was standing in a moving bus
driving over a rutted dirt field. I rode it out, and
was fortunate that the glass did not break.
If you’re in your vehicle, pull over to a clear
location and stop. Avoid bridges and under-
passes—sadly, the Loma Prieta quake proved
how dangerous they can be in a major shaker. If
a power line falls on your car, the Red Cross rec-
ommends that you stay in the car until emer-
gency personnel arrive to remove it. As contrary
as that may sound to the nature of our reader-
ship, the science behind it is clear: the tires of
your car insulate you from any electrical current
that makes contact with the car’s body, but if
you step out of the car the current can flow
through you to ground and electrocute you. So
prepare to survive by stopping as far as possi-
ble from overhead wires.
Survive the Collateral Damage
We’ve already discussed electrical wires,
but gas lines and water mains often break in a
major earthquake. Much of the damage in the
1906 San Francisco earthquake came about
due to fires that spread in the wake of the
tremors; some estimates claim that 90 percent
of the damage was due to post-quake fires.
Your job at this point, then, is to assess
immediate risks to yourself and your family.
Which means that the first thing you do after
the shaking stops: make sure you’re wearing
sturdy shoes. If there is broken glass, wood or
masonry debris, or some other hazards, a pair
of shoes can make the difference between
being able to protect yourself or being a casu-
alty. (If you’re a parent, your first instinct of
course will be to run and check on the kids, but
DOOMSDAY
slip on a pair of shoes first. I always keep at
least one pair of shoes by my bed, but then I’ve
lived through three of the four major California
11
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12 EARTHQUAKE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
earthquakes of the last 40 years. I recommend
it, especially compared to the alternative.)
If you’re at home, it’s best at this point to do
two simultaneous inventories: locate your fam-
ily members while looking for damage that can
kill or injure you. If you’re not at home, assess
the risks around you, again focusing on fire,
electrical wires, broken glass and other debris.
If you are inside a building, chances are good
the power is out, but not necessarily: in the
1987 Whittier quake, we had full electricity and
cable TV, so we were able to monitor the status
of the city. However, in the 1971 and 1989
quakes, electricity was out for several days in
our area and for longer in the places hit even
harder. We’ll discuss that more in the Gear sec-
tion, later in this article.
Once you’ve located family and identified
immediate threats, it’s time to concentrate on
surviving the aftershocks. This starts with basic
triage: is anyone injured? Are your gas or water
lines ruptured? Find and distribute the items in
your emergency kit and refer to your plan
(again, we’ll go over both of these in the Gear
section). You should know exactly where to go
to turn off the gas or water, and exactly what
tools to use (it’s a 17mm open-ended wrench in
my house, and it’s in the third drawer of my tool
chest — where is yours?)
Other threats may not be as obvious. Brian
Falstaff rode out the initial Loma Prieta shaker,
but while assessing damage to his Ben Lomond
home—less than a mile from the epicenter—he
noticed that his chimney had major gaps, and
then realized that the upper eight to 10 feet of it
had actually been broken off from the base and
rotated 90 degrees. This meant that another
aftershock might cause the chimney—remem-
ber, eight to 10 feet of bricks—to fall through
the roof, into the house.
So Brian looped a section of rope around the
upper, detached section of the chimney, hooked
the other end to the trailer hitch on his truck,
and—from a safe distance—pulled the chimney
down into the open space at the side of the
house. One of Brian’s neighbors noticed him
doing this, and together they pulled down the
similarly detached chimney on his house. By
mid-afternoon, they had worked with a number
of neighbors with similar problems, preventing
further injuries and property damage.
But a final risk from a major earthquake can
be flood, especially if a reservoir is threatened
or damaged by the tremors. In the 1971 quake,
damage was detected to the Van Norman Dam,
an old earthenware dam that formed the
retaining wall for a huge reservoir at the north
end of the Valley (near the epicenter). There
was serious concern that if the retaining wall
was breached, the Valley would be flooded
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
with huge damage to property and potential
loss of life. For this, you want to be sure to
monitor local news and first-responder com-
munication.
 ASG-SIP-1412-EARTHQUAKE 11/24/14 12:28 AM Page 13

|EARTHQUAKE
PERSONAL ACCOUNT

STORIES OF SURVIVAL

Gail Case
If positioning yourself in a safe
place like a doorjamb or beside a
bed is not possible, then at least
choose somewhere with soft
objects, as did Gail Case in the
October, 1987 Loma Prieta earth-
quake (magnitude: 6.9). Gail had
been shopping in a Sunnyvale
Babies ‘R Us at the moment the
earthquake hit, and found herself
in the middle of the store. The
aisle to one side of her held cribs,
changing tables, and shelves; to
the other side, large packages of
disposable diapers. Gail quickly
reasoned that she stood a better
chance of survival with the soft
packs of diapers than with hard
wooden furniture, so she rode out
the quake being battered by
packs of Pampers.

Xian Chapman
The most important thing to
know in an earthquake survival
situation is to stay away from
windows. Xian Chapman of
Reseda, Calif., had been feeling
the effects of a winter case of the
flu in January, 1994, so she
dragged her pillow and blanket
out to the couch in her living
room to fall asleep watching TV
instead of in her bed. A few hours
before dawn, the San Fernando
Valley suffered an earthquake
with a magnitude of 6.7—shatter-
ing her window and dropping all
the glass onto her bed. The sight
of long shards of razor-sharp
glass embedded into her mat-
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

tress haunt her to this day.

DOOMSDAY

13
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14 EARTHQUAKE|IN THE PAST
DOOMSDAY
The Great Alaska Quake, 1964
The highest magnitude of any earthquake
measured on U.S. soil and the second largest
ever recorded (9.2), the Alaska quake of March
27, 1964 killed 131 people—nine in the earth-
quake itself and 122 in the resulting tsunami.
Anchorage, located only about 120 miles from
the epicenter, sustained the most damage and
five of the deaths, with damage to or outright
destruction of buildings within a 30-block area.
The three-minute shock destroyed many
schools, either through demolition in the initial
quake or through landslide activity.
Landslides were responsible for much of the
damage. The Turnagain Heights area of
Anchorage experienced the worst of these
landslides, resulting in three fatalities; further-
more, an area of approximately 130 acres suf-
fered displacement, in which the ground breaks
into blocks that lift, collapse, tilt and separate
from one another. In other areas, vertical dis-
placements lifted blocks of ground as much as
35 feet, or dropped as much as seven.
In the city of Seward, a 1,000-foot section of
the waterfront slid into Resurrection Bay. As if
the local tsunami wasn’t bad enough, the col-
lapse of buildings and industry on the water-
front caused burning oil to be poured into the
bay, and the tsunami carried the flaming oil
across the surface of the water—followed by
the main tsunami 20 minutes later. Seward suf-
fered 13 fatalities as a result.
Because of Alaska’s coastline, the tsunami
that resulted from this massive upheaval of the
earth peaked in a wave recorded at more than
200 feet high. 106 people on the Alaska coast
died from the tsunami; four campers on the
beach at Newport, Oregon lost their lives, as did
13 Californians, while the property damage in
Alaska, Oregon and California topped $95 mil-
lion. The city of San Rafael, in San Francisco
Bay rather than on the open ocean, sustained
$600,000 in damage to the harbor and boats.
(Amazingly, the estimated 10,000 people in
San Francisco who lined up to see the tidal
wave suffered zero fatalities.)
The earthquake and tsunami deaths from
the 1964 quake resulted in the establishment,
in 1967, of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami
Warning Center in Palmer, Alas.
(http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov) While the Cen-
ter’s primary goal is to provide tsunami warn-
ings to Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California,
and British Columbia in Canada (which had
suffered $10 million in damage, though no loss
of life, in the 1964 quake), it also provides
earthquake data to anyone interested.
ASG-SIP-1412-EARTHQUAKE 11/24/14 12:28 AM Page 15
The New Madrid Earthquakes, 1811-12
Over the course of three months (December
1811 to February 1812), the community of New
Madrid, Mo. was hit by three massive earth-
quakes: one at 7.5 and two at 7.7. But what is
most significant about this earthquake (or
cluster of earthquakes, if you will) is its loca-
tion: more or less in the center of the continent,
a long way from the coastlines and young-fold
mountains normally associated with earth-
quakes. The New Madrid quakes remain the
most powerful earthquakes to affect the east-
ern United States in recorded history.
At 2:15 a.m. local time, on the morning of
December 16, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake shook
the northeast Arkansas/Missouri area. Reports
of ground motion described as “most alarming
and frightening” came from as far away as
Nashville, Tennessee and Louisville, Kentucky;
the shaking was sufficient to wake people in
New York, Washington, D.C., and Charleston, S.C.
Houses were shaken, chimneys destroyed, and
near the epicenter, dirt and water were thrown
tens of feet into the air through liquefaction.
In New Bourbon, Mo., boatman John Brad-
bury, who was moored to a small island, later
reported that “the perpendicular banks, both
above us and below us, began to fall into the
river in such vast masses, as to nearly sink our
boat by the swell they occasioned.” Some five
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS
hours later, an aftershock of 7.0 rocked the area
again, and again the East Coast felt the
tremors. By daylight, Bradbury had totted up 27
separate shocks.
Then, at 9:15 on the morning of January 23,
1812, a 7.3-magnitude quake again shook the
New Madrid area. For this event, the Ohio River
was iced over, so there was little river traffic
and few people to record the event, but those
who were present reported warping of the
ground, soil and rock being ejected, cracks
and fissures forming, and landslides including
caving in of stream and river banks.
The final event in this cluster struck at 3:45
a.m. on February 7, 1812, a 7.5-magnitude quake
that occurred in several shocks. Contemporary
reports put the last of these shocks as equal to
the initial event the previous December; the
town of New Madrid was leveled, and houses
as far away as St. Louis were damaged severely,
typically losing chimneys from the swaying of
the earth. The Mississippi River even bore wit-
ness to the effect, with uplift along the fault
resulting in the creation of temporary waterfalls
at Kentucky Bend, and waves were observed
traveling upstream. Finally, the creation of
Reelfoot Lake when streams, in what is now
Lake County, Tenn., were obstructed by the
seismic activity.
One of the worst earthquakes in U.S. history was the San Francisco
earthquake in 1906 as well as the devastating fires that followed.
DOOMSDAY
15
ASG-SIP-1412-EARTHQUAKE 11/24/14 12:28 AM Page 16
16 EARTHQUAKE|GEAR GUIDE
DOOMSDAY
Much of this gear is com-
mon to any emergency, and
are probably already set up
for your survival plan: food,
water, light, communica-
tion, protection from expo-
sure. But there are a few lit-
tle tips I’ve picked up from
decades in California. In
order of importance:
First-aid kit. You
should at a minimum be
prepared to dress small
wounds, both laceration
and punctures, as well as
fractures and sprains. It’s
like buying a motorcycle
helmet: you can get by with
a $50 helmet if your head is
only worth $50. But your kit
needs to contain, as a bare
minimum, disinfectant
(alcohol, peroxide, hand
sanitizer), gauze for making
bandages, tape for sealing
them, self-adhering tape
for wrapping injured joints,
tweezers, scissors, scalpel,
and pain relief. If you can
print out instructions on
basic first aid techniques—
how to make a butterfly
bandage, and so forth—
keep that in the first-aid kit.
In addition, if you live in
an area where a reservoir
might burst and flood your
surroundings, groundwater
may be contaminated so if
you use a well, be prepared
to use disinfectant tablets
(or better yet boil any water
you draw). If your water
reserves are stored in
sealed bottles (5-gallon
jugs or equivalent), you
won’t need this for drinking
water, but it’s still a good
idea to keep
disinfectant/sanitizing
chemicals on hand for
other uses (washing
clothes, dishes, and general
cleanup).
Battery-operated
radio (with spare batter-
ies). Chances are your
power will go out within
seconds of the first tremor,
and a battery-powered
radio will let you follow
announcements of the
aftermath of the quake.
Though power may not go
out: after the initial shock
of the 1987 Whittier quake,
we still had power and were
watching television when
the first aftershock hit. We
were treated to the eerie
sensation of seeing the
aftershock hit the news
studio, located about
halfway between the epi-
center and our home. We
saw the news casters
scream and dive under the
desk as their set fell apart
on camera, lights falling
and exploding as walls
swayed and collapsed. I
thought it must be akin to
standing on the deck of a
ship and watching a tor-
pedo coming at me, know-
ing it would hit but not
knowing how much dam-
age it would do when it got
there. You should also con-
sider a battery-operated
cell phone recharger, not
only to make calls to
communicate with
other family members,
but for other reasons
listed below.
Flashlights
(plus spare bat-
teries), matches,
candles and
camp stove.
Never light a
match until
you’re certain
you do not
have a gas
leak! But if you’ve
done your triage from the
previous section, you
should know that you’re
safe. One tip, especially if
you have children: arrange
for everyone in your house-
hold to have a keychain-
style mini-flashlight, with a
switch that allows it to stay
on until turned off, and
hang these from lanyards.
We’re big fans of the Pho-
ton Micro-Light (available
for around $10 from
sources such as the Knife
Center of the Internet; start
your search at
KnifeCenter.com/knifecen-
ter/lights/ and look for Key
Ring Flashlights), and try to
have one on each keychain,
plus extras in the emer-
gency kit to put on lanyards.
The first advantage is that a
mini-light on a lanyard puts
a pool of light right where
you need it: in front of your
feet, so you can look out for
debris, steps, or other dan-
gers—and of course, so you
can see your family mem-
bers in the dark and dam-
aged house. And second,
many of these lights are
available in multiple colors;
if you color-code the lights,
you’ll know who is coming
down the hall or around the
side of the house.
A diagram of where
to turn off water, gas,
and electricity to the
house (that is, your
master breaker box).
Broken water mains can
cause serious problems as
water either undermines
the foundation of your
house or damages the
structure itself. You should
definitely have some pipe
repair tape on hand, made
to seal leaks and breaks in
wet situations, for all kinds
ASG-SIP-1412-EARTHQUAKE 11/24/14 12:28 AM Page 17
of home emergencies. The
Fernco Pow-r-Wrap brand
(Fernco.com/plumbing/po
w-r-repair/pow-r-wrap)
can be used under water,
according to the instruc-
tions; I used it on a split
pipe after a hard winter
freeze and it’s effective and
permanent when installed
properly. This product is
epoxy-impregnated tape
packaged in a kit that
includes the epoxy catalyst
and plastic gloves for get-
ting a tight seal with the
tape. It sets in a few min-
utes and can make the dif-
ference between an
uncomfortable mess and
potentially terminal water
damage on walls, floors
and foundation. And
remember, in an after-
shock, weakened walls,
floors and foundation may
well mean injuries that
could be prevented.
Again, if you have chil-
dren: be sure to have some
form of entertainment that
does not involve electricity.
In the 1989 Loma Prieta
quake, our oldest daughter
(about two at the time)
wasn’t too afraid of the
earth’s shaking and shud-
dering, but as her mom and
I sat by the battery-pow-
ered radio listening to the
early reports of collapsed
bridges and freeway over-
passes, our daughter got
bored and kept bringing us
entertainment: video cas-
settes, records (remember,
it was 1989 and vinyl was
still a thing). Books, card
games, and other
traditional activ-
ities will keep
them enter-
tained safely
while you con-
centrate on tracking the
external situation, securing
the house and protecting
your family.
Probably the most
important thing, especially
if you have children: know
where the safety gear is,
and make sure they under-
stand its importance. We
recently had our grandchil-
dren staying with us for a
month, and like all six-year-
olds, Jack loved playing
with our flashlights in the
backyard at dusk. Early in
the visit, I impressed on him
the importance of keeping
the flashlight in the same
place, and made a “teach-
able moment” to get him to
understand: we put his sis-
ter and grandmother in the
kitchen, then after I showed
Jack how to count drawers
to where the flashlight is
stored, I turned off all the
lights. Jack counted the
drawers, opened the right
one, and took out the flash-
light, to the cheers of his
sister and grandmother.
Jack enjoyed the attention,
but the pride of accom-
plishment of having found
the emergency light made
the point that it has to be
where it’s supposed to be.
An emergency scan-
ner, or at least an app for
your smartphone that acts
as an emergency scanner,
for listening to your local
police, fire and rescue orga-
nization’s communications.
This can provide you far
more information about
local conditions than the
radio news, because you
can listen in directly on
first-responder radio trans-
missions.
I use a free app for
Android called Scanner
Radio, which has a number
of settings including the
ability to program in notifi-
cations so that if something
new occurs, my phone will
let me know. (It’s also use-
ful when you
hear sirens in
your neigh-
borhood and
want to know
whether or not
the event they’re
responding to is a risk to
you or your family.) Of
course, this all assumes
that the cell towers aren’t
taken out by the earth-
quake; portable handheld
scanners are available for
about $100 or slightly less,
and don’t rely on cell sig-
nals or wifi which can be
disrupted by a major earth-
quake event.
All this, of course, is on
top of what you no doubt
have stockpiled for a
generic emergency: water,
food, camping gear, and
any protection you feel is
necessary for the situation.
Experience shows that in
earthquakes, it’s generally
the better part of human
nature that comes to the
surface, and neighbors help
each other recover and pro-
tect themselves, as demon-
strated my friends who
eliminated the risk of falling
chimneys. But either way,
preparing for some of the
specific risks presented by
earthquakes (and their
unpredictable aftershocks)
DOOMSDAY
can help you and yours
come out in one piece … if
not unshaken.
17
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18 BLIZZARD|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

Chill Factor
SURVIVING THE ICY GRIPS OF A BLIZZARD > Story by Graham Towers

Wind whips around you, shooting ice and snow into your face. You’re
colder than you’ve ever been, colder than you imagined was possible. The wind finds any
vulnerable place in your clothing and fills it with snow. You can’t see the horizon, you can’t
see five feet in front of you: it’s a perfect whiteout. If you stand still for more than a second,
you can reach down and feel your boots already covered in powder, with more accumulat-
ing every second. If you take too long to get inside, you may find yourself buried alive.
Once the winds die down, if you were lucky enough to find shelter, you can get to a sec-
ond (or third) floor window and look out on a changed landscape. Streets, cars, even
houses are totally covered in a still, white blanket. Everything is completely still, and
there’s no telling how many people are outside, trapped under the snow.

What is a Blizzard?
A blizzard: A powerful, often devastating, natural phenomenon, it is a severe snow-
storm with strong, sustained winds. It can last for hours or days. A peculiarly American
phenomenon (or at least an American word), the blizzard is made possible by the inter-
mingling of cold, dry air from Canada, warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, and cold
moist air from the West Coast. When all three air currents meet, the conditions are right for
heavy wind and snow.
Some of these storms, the ones called “ground blizzards,” don’t even require that it be
snowing. If there’s snow on the ground and the winds are high enough, snow will whip into
the air and have a similar effect.
While blizzard-like events can and do happen in other places on the globe (history’s
deadliest was in Iran in 1972), the U.S. is particularly prone to them. Blizzards occur most
often in the Great Plains states, coastal states in the north east, and states surrounding
the Great Lakes.
The damage that blizzards can cause is vast, as these storms combine all the dangers
of snowstorms with the violence of hurricanes. Livestock and other animals are vulnerable.
Cars and even houses can be completely buried beneath huge snow drifts. If roofs aren’t
ripped off by the terrible winds, then they can collapse under the weight of the snow. And
of course, once the winds die down, all of that snow is now stuck on the ground. Depend-
ing on what time of year the blizzard struck, it may be on the ground for a long time, block-
ing roads and restricting travel. If the blizzard struck at an unseasonable time of year, as
they sometimes do, crops may not have been fully harvested and end up destroyed.
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:57 AM Page 19

PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK

DOOMSDAY

19
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:57 AM Page 20
20 BLIZZARD|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Human life is also greatly endangered by
blizzards. In a condition called “whiteout,” there
is so much ambient snow being blown through
the air that a person can totally lose sight of the
horizon and general visibility can be reduced to
practically nothing (to be considered a blizzard,
visibility is no more than a quarter of a mile.)
There is no shortage of stories of people who
sought shelter in whiteout conditions, as close
as a few dozen yards away in areas they knew
well—like their own backyards—only to become
disoriented and lose their way.
Due to the chilling effect of the high winds
(which can often reach hurricane-level
speeds), frostbite and hypothermia can occur
much more quickly than in normal snowstorm
conditions.
Blizzards can range in size from the local all
the way to country spanning. The Storm of the
Century stretched all the way from Canada to
Cuba. By the end of the 1972 blizzard in Iran, a
section of the country the size of Wisconsin had
been totally blanketed in up to 26 feet of snow.
These were largely rural areas that were
affected the most, with entire villages buried
and no high ground to get to. All told, 4,000
people died, making it the world’s deadliest
blizzard by nearly a factor of 10.
Surviving a Blizzard
Like any disaster, the best way to survive a
blizzard is to be prepared for it. Even if you’re
outside and the blizzard strikes without warn-
ing, knowing a few basic rules can save your life.
If the blizzard hits when you’re at home (or
you’re close enough to safely get back to your
home), you can run your heater or build a fire as
long as any heat source can safely vent to the
outside. Death by carbon monoxide poisoning
is highly preventable with proper practices and
monitoring.
Stay fed, keeping in mind that your food
supply may need to last up to four days. Even
once the storm has dissipated, the roads likely
will be impassable for some time, particularly in
areas where blizzards are rare. Drinking water is
also important: it’s easy to get dehydrated
when the cold temperatures fool one’s body
into not feeling thirsty. Complicating matters
further, it’s easy for pipes to freeze and burst
when the temperature drops precipitously. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency rec-
ommends keeping your faucets at a steady
drip, as even a tiny amount of moving water can
help prevent pipes from freezing.
Just as it’s easier to weather a blizzard at
home when there’s an adequate supply of
emergency supplies, being trapped in your car
is made much safer by taking a few precau-
tions. In addition to a standard emergency kit
(and a few road flares), people in areas where
snow is common should keep a small supply of
non-perishable food, bottles of water, and
warm clothes. A fully charged cell phone and
keeping at least a half tank of gas at all times
are some other common-sense measures that
are too often neglected.
In terms of procedure, should the blizzard
strike when you’re in your car and too far from
shelter to safely get indoors, pull to the side of
the road and flip on your hazards—your situa-
tion is bad enough without getting rear-ended
by somebody who’s driving blind. Never leave
your car during a blizzard; it’s much easier to
find a car or truck on a road than it is to locate
one lone person walking through a snowstorm.
If you have a brightly colored piece of cloth
or plastic, you should tie it to the top of your
antenna or place it in a window for greater visi-
bility. If you decide to run your car, do so only for
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:57 AM Page 21
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
10 minutes every hour, and ensuring that the
tailpipe is clear and a window is cracked (again,
it is essential to be careful about that carbon
monoxide.) The National Oceanic and Atmos-
pheric Administration recommends leaving the
car’s interior dome lights on at night. These will
help rescuers find your vehicle even if the car’s
headlights have been covered by the rising
snow. Plus, the dome lights will drain the car’s
battery much more slowly than keeping the
headlights on all night.
Even though one naturally has less mobility
when trapped in a car, it is recommended that
you should exercise and change position regu-
larly for warmth and to keep blood circulating.
And, of course, staying calm is the best thing
you can do, both for your over-taxed body and
your state of mind. You’re less likely to make
potentially life-endangering mistakes if you’re
cool and calm.
Once the snow has stopped falling, get out
of car and raise the hood for increased visibility
and wait for rescue. People have survived more
than a week trapped in their cars in the snow.
Historically, when families have been trapped
together in the car, it’s almost always the brave
soul who leaves the car to find help that per-
ishes, while the rest of the family is eventually
discovered and rescued.
Of course, there’s a world of difference
between being stuck in a blizzard in the com-
fort of your home or car and being stuck out in
the elements with just the clothes on your
back. In this situation, time is the most impor-
tant factor. Even if it’s not super-cold out, the
wind chill can lower your body temperature
almost as quickly as if you were in an ice bath.
Thus, your number one priority is getting some
kind of shelter from the wind. If you’re lucky
enough to be near trees or any other tall, semi-
broad structure, this is where you’ll want to
regroup and likely where you’ll build your lean-
to or a snow cave.
Any shelter is better than none, but some
shelters are better than others. The likelihood
that someone trapped in a blizzard has the
opportunity and ability to build an emergency
snow cave while the wind rages is slim. How-
ever, should you find yourself trapped in the
elements and you’re foresighted enough to
have brought along a camp shovel, a snow cave
might be your only option, particularly if there
are no visible trees, boulders, or other natural
wind breaks.
Ernest Wilkinson, author of Snow Caves for
Fun and Survival, long ago stopped taking tents
“PEOPLE
HAVE
with him when he would go camping in the Col-
orado mountains in the dead of winter. With
SURVIVED
just a shovel, he’d build his snow caves, learning
along the way that the conventional wisdom
(finding a snow bank and bending down and
digging into it from the side) was a waste of MORE
time and effort. Rather, he suggests digging
down into a snow bank that’s at least four feet THAN A
deep before tunneling horizontally. This little
WEEK
TRAPPED
hole should already provide some relief from
the worst of the wind. Once the hole is dug,
IN THEIR
then it’s time to tunnel horizontally.
Engineers have known for thousands of
CARS IN
years how strong domes can be, and your
emergency snow cave is no exception. The
rounded roof will be able to sustain far more
weight than a flat roof, which over time will sag THE
and collapse. Once the cave is large enough for
your body, the most important thing is remain- SNOW.”
ing dry, or, if you’re wet already, getting dry. Any-
one who’s read Jack London’s, To Build a Fire,
remembers that being wet is what kills in the
cold. A small emergency candle should provide
adequate warmth in a small cave, though if you
find yourself becoming dizzy or drowsy you
must vent your cave. Lighting any kind of sub-
stantial fire or camp stove inside the cave is a
recipe for disaster: you’ll likely succumb to the
effects of poisoning long before the heat can
affect the integrity of the cave.
Lastly, don’t forget to mark your cave some-
DOOMSDAY
how, both for rescuers to be able to find you
and also to prevent anybody from trampling in
your cave.
21
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:57 AM Page 22
22 BLIZZARD|PERSONAL ACCOUNT
DOOMSDAY
STORIES OF SURVIVAL
Lauren Weinberg
Lauren Weinberg is a good example of how
shelter is the single most factor in surviving a
blizzard. She spent nine days trapped in her car
in the Flagstaff, Arizona area during the winter
of 2011. During her ordeal, the nightly tempera-
ture reached near zero. She survived despite
not having any blankets or heavy coat. When
she was discovered by employees of the U.S.
Forest Service, she was covering her legs with
her car’s floor mats.
For sustenance, she had nothing but two
candy bars. For water, she took snow in from
the outside and waited for it to melt on the
dashboard before drinking it. That simple act is
what saved her life, and, other than not losing
hope, was arguably her only good decision. Eat-
ing snow is always the worst option, as it lowers
the body temperature dramatically. When not
in a car or other shelter, melting snow with indi-
rect body heat is the best option. For example,
a snow-filled water bottle in a coat pocket is a
good idea, a snow-filled water bottle placed
directly against the skin is a bad idea.
“I COULD NOT EVEN BEGIN
TO PREDICT HOW SHE
COULD (SURVIVE)… YOU
CAN SAY SURVIVAL
SKILLS OR A MIRACLE,
EITHER WAY.”
Weinberg’s story also demonstrates the
importance of even rudimentary preparedness.
She managed to survive with no creature com-
forts, but the danger and discomfort of her
ordeal would have been considerably lessened
if she’d had a jacket (or even better, a sleeping
bag) in her trunk.
Bob McDonald, one of the workers who res-
cued Weinberg, stated, “I could not even begin
to predict how she could (survive)…” Police offi-
cer James Holmes said, “You can say survival
skills or a miracle, either way.” Weinberg’s story
is not one of planning and cunning overcoming
a freak disaster. It’s one of extraordinary luck.
Before she left (during her university’s finals
week), she failed to tell anyone where she was
going and indeed, had no destination in mind,
planning on just going for an aimless drive.
Authorities traced her via her purchases at con-
venience stores, but were unable to ascertain
where she’d gone after.
There are plenty of lessons in Weinberg’s
story, the most important one being to stay
with whatever shelter is available no matter
what. Starvation and dehydration will almost
certainly not be what kills someone; it will
always be exposure. The other lesson is that
even the most basic precautions can be life-
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
savers. Had Weinberg sent so much as a text
message to a friend or family member, her nine
nights alone in the cold could have been
reduced to one.
 ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:57 AM Page 23

STORIES OF SURVIVAL

Boyd Severson
Boyd Severson’s story is proof that even an
experienced outdoorsman in a familiar area
can make a series of small mistakes that add
up to a life-threatening situation. It was a
beautiful September day in 2007, seemingly
perfect weather for a nice hike up Mummy
Mountain in gorgeous Rocky Mountain
National Park in Colorado.
Despite being unable to find a partner, he
decided to make a go of it anyway. However, he
very prudently sent messages to a friend as he
went along, though once the weather got
rougher, his phone and his Blackberry refused
to connect.
Severson reached the summit early in the
afternoon, and from there he was able to see
bad weather moving in. He began his descent,
realizing too late that he’d gone the wrong
direction. Visibility decreased as the weather
worsened and he tried to head back to find
where he’d deviated from his path. Darkness
fell, the snow increased and soon he found
himself in a whiteout.
With such limited visibility, the best shelter
he could find was a small crevice among a few
large boulders. It was here that he spent a long
night. Of his experience, he says, “When my
water bottles froze solid before 10 p.m., I knew
not to fall asleep.”
The wind chill brought the temperature
down to 60 degrees below freezing. Severson
claims he never believed he was going to die,
though he was worried about developing frost-
bite. To maximize warmth, he put on every
piece of clothing he’d brought, including cover-
ing his neck and ankles with Ace bandages. He I was going to spend another night out.” Even-
says, “I generally carry too much clothing and tually he encountered rescuers on a trail and
emergency gear, but this time I wished I’d had was saved. Severson’s two mistakes were going
even more.” For warmth and to keep his blood solo (which is never the best-case scenario but
circulating, he flexed his muscles. still something that experienced hikers do every
A search had begun the night before when day) and getting lost, which he blames on his
he’d failed to return from his day hike. Rescue reliance on his Blackberry instead of his GPS
dogs, helicopters, and ground searchers were device. Once it was clear he was spending the
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

mobilized. After day broke, Severson stayed night outdoors, however, Severson mitigated
DOOMSDAY

put, as he knew a search would be underway. his mistakes with solid survival procedures:
As the day wore on, though, he decided to finding shelter and preventing frostbite by exer-
begin moving, knowing that “There was no way cising his muscle groups.

23
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:58 AM Page 24

24 BLIZZARD|IN THE PAST

DOOMSDAY

The Great Blizzard of 1993

The Great Blizzard of 1993, more commonly known as “The Storm of
the Century,” was a super-storm that ravaged the East Coast of the United
States. In every metric, this storm was extreme: its size and intensity were
unheard of. The cyclonic storm that formed in the Gulf of Mexico reached
all the way up to Canada during its peak. This storm had something for
everybody: it created tornadoes, churned up the seas and induced flood-
ing, blanketed half the country in snow, and shut down highways from the
Southeast to Canada.
Southeastern states where snow was almost a foreign concept (espe-
cially in mid-March, when the storm struck) reported shocking amounts
of snow. Alabama, Georgia, and Florida all received unprecedented
amounts of snow, along with hurricane-force winds that cost billions in
damages and left dozens dead in Florida alone.
The storm was almost unimaginably widespread: a total of 26 states
were affected, as well as Cuba and Canada. An enormous swath of the
country stretching from Texas all the way to Pennsylvania suffered the
terrifying phenomenon called “thundersnow,” electrical storms where the
precipitation is snow instead of rain. White-out conditions were reported
across half the country for the three days that the storm lasted.
From Atlanta all the way up to Canada, every single airport was shut
down for at least some time, stranding countless travelers.
Regions that were totally unused to snow found themselves sub-
merged under giant drifts. Roofs and decks collapsed under the weight of
the snow, the total weight of which was estimated to be between 5.4 and
27 billion metric tons.
While other storms in individual regions had been more severe, the
Southeastern states hadn’t experienced anything remotely similar since
the Great Blizzard of 1899 nearly a hundred years previous. These states
saw record levels of snowfall and record temperature lows: Birmingham,
Alabama recorded a low of two degrees Fahrenheit, unheard of for mid-
March, when the storm struck.
It was one of the deadliest storms of the century, killing a total of 318
people. Some were crushed by collapsing roofs, some drowned at sea in
extraordinarily rough conditions. Amazingly, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued
a total of 235 people at sea. The storm caused the ocean to surge danger-
ously, Gulf waters flooding into Florida homes. Many people drowned in
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

the storm, more than in Hurricanes Andrew and Hugo combined. Eighteen
thousand homes in Florida alone were affected, either damaged or out-
right annihilated.
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:58 AM Page 25

“THIS STORM GETS ITS GRIM NAME

FROM THE FACT THAT MANY OF THE
VICTIMS WERE CHILDREN WHO GOT
LOST IN THE WHITEOUTS ON THEIR
WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL.”

The Schoolhouse Blizzard

One of the most tragic blizzards to ever strike America was the School-
house Blizzard, also known as the Children’s Blizzard. It hit the plains
states, particularly Nebraska and South Dakota, on January 12th, 1888.
This storm gets its grim name from the fact that many of the victims
were children who got lost in the whiteouts on their way home from
school. The weeks leading up to the blizzard had seen snowstorms and
bitter cold visited on the Midwest. The day the blizzard struck, though, had
been unusually warm. As a result, people were out and about, taking care
of business that’d been suspended during the recent cold snap. Students
went to school with either light jackets or no coats at all.
The blizzard descended while children were in school and adults were
at work. Many of those who perished were trying to make their way home.
In the town of Plainview, Neb., a teacher found herself out of heating fuel
in her little, one-room schoolhouse. The teacher, Lois Royce, decided to
lead her three students to her boarding house which was closer than a
football field away. Conditions were so poor, and visibility so bad, that
they got lost, and all three students tragically froze to death. Royce was
the only survivor, though her feet developed frostbite and had to be
amputated.
Seymour Dopp, a teacher in Pawnee City, Neb., kept his 17 students
overnight in the schoolhouse, using stockpiled fuel to warm the building
through the duration of the blizzard. The next morning, all his students
were still safe and sound. Dopp returned home, only to discover his own
daughter had suffered frostbite on her one-block journey home. Her
teacher, like many others, had released the students in a panic, hoping
they’d find their way home before the storm grew too severe.
There were only a few instances reported of people who ventured out
into the cold and survived. The most celebrated case was that of Minnie
Freeman, a teacher who led her 17 students a half-mile through the bliz-
zard to her boarding house. The story goes that, with holes being blown in
the roof and the front door repeatedly being blown open, she decided that
spending the night in the schoolhouse would be disastrous. She tied her
students together with rope (this was later disputed by one of the stu-
dents) and led them single-file through the storm to safety.
DOOMSDAY

Freeman was celebrated across the country, and it’s claimed some 80
hopeful suitors mailed her letters bearing marriage proposals.

25
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:58 AM Page 26
26 BLIZZARD|GEAR GUIDE
DOOMSDAY
Snow Shoes
If you have to be mobile outside during a blizzard, you’ll
want to have these on your feet. They won’t make you any
warmer, but they’ll sure get you where you’re going faster.
MSR Ascent snowshoes cost a pretty penny (more than
$200), but they’re highly reviewed and solidly built.
OMCGear.com
ACR PLB-375
ResQLink+ Personal
Locating Beacon
Hit a button and a distress signal
bearing your GPS coordinates is sent
to Search and Rescue services. A
built-in strobe makes it easier for
rescuers to find you. You hope you
never need it, but if you find yourself
trapped in a blizzard, you can stay
put in whatever shelter you can find
with the peace of mind that you’ll
soon be found.
ACRartex.com
Goretex Bivy Cover
and Carry Sack
Another Military-issue stand-by, this
four-piece Bivy sack can be used in
the summer or winter, keeping you
toasty all the way down to negative
20 Fahrenheit. Be careful ordering
online, though, some people who
paid full price for new apparently
received used gear, if Amazon
reviews are to be believed.
REI.com
ASG-SIP-1412-BLIZZARD 11/21/14 1:58 AM Page 27

Nalgene Bottle Sleeve

Staying hydrated in a blizzard is not UCO Stormproof
the first concern on most people’s Match Kit
minds, and thus it is easy to forget Don’t even mess with flint
how important it is. While this bottle and steel Boy Scout-style
sleeve is designed to keep water fire-starters. These storm-
cold, if you need to melt snow for proof matches, sometimes
water, the sleeve will insulate the called Hurricane matches,
bottle so you can warm it with your are what you want if you
body heat without having to worry need to start a fire in less
about an uninsulated bottle lowering than ideal conditions. You
your core temperature. can dunk the matches in
REI.com water and then light them
on the included strikers the
very next second.
IndustrialRev.com

The North Face

Steep Saiku
This glove means business. It’s
bulk means you won’t be able
to do fine-motor projects
(good luck lighting a match
while wearing these bad
boys), but that bulk also
means you won’t need a fire,
at least not to keep your hands
warm. Heavily insulated and
lined with Gore-Tex, it’s well
worth its $180 price tag.
BackCountry.com

E-Tool Entrenching Shovel

Everyone who’s been in a camping store has seen the rinky-dink folding shovels that
you can pick for a few bucks. Odds are if you’ve used one of those cheaper shovels,
you’ve had them bend or outright snap. The E-Tool Entrenching Shovel is not one of
those. For starters, it folds up tighter and is far stronger than its brethren. Like the name
DOOMSDAY

says, this is the tool issued by the U.S. military. If you ever find yourself forced to build a
snow cave quickly, you’ll be glad you paid the 50 bucks or so that this beast costs.
AmesTrueTemper.com

27
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28 HURRICANE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

A Perfect Storm
SURVIVING THE TERROR OF A HURRICANE > Story by Christopher Nyerges

I love storms and I love to be outside, but when I watched

the formation of Hurricane Katrina from my television, far away in Cal-
ifornia, it was one of the rare times that I felt glad to be in front of my
TV. The news meteorologists talked about the various levels of hurri-
canes on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and how each greater level meant
more devastation. As the huge storm moved on a trajectory to
Louisiana, newscasters showed pictures of long stretches of highways
filled bumper to bumper with cars full of people trying to get out. The
rain was falling and pictures showed boarded-up stores and trees
swaying deeply in the increasing wind. Despite the very dire warnings,
some people chose to not get out. After all, there have been other
“false alarms” where the hurricane dwindled away, or changed course.
For those who chose to stay, or who had no choice but to stay, the
high winds and heavy rains took down electrical lines, destroyed
buildings, and moved through the area like a giant 175 mph eraser. If
you survived the days of horror, your misery had just begun. Your home
could be underwater, and there would be nothing to go back to.
Destroyed. Help was slow in coming, and “law and order” was non-
existent. Welcome to post-hurricane chaos.
ASG-SIP-1412-HURRICANE 11/21/14 2:07 AM Page 29

DOOMSDAY

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30 HURRICANE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Anatomy of a Hurricane
What exactly is a hurricane? For one thing,
there is no other storm on earth quite like a hur-
ricane. From a satellite, the hurricane is a pow-
erful and tightly coiled weather system.
According to meteorologists, it is the most
powerful of the tropical cyclones, which is a
general term for all of the circulating weather
systems over tropical waters.
There is the tropical depression, which will
have maximum sustained winds up to 38 mph
(or less). Then there is the tropical storm, a bit
stronger, with maximum sustained winds of 39
to 73 mph. Then there is the hurricane. This is
an intense system with maximum sustained
winds of 74 mph or higher.
“…ENTIRE The most vulnerable area for the creation of
hurricanes in the ocean is the area between lati-
SWATHS OF tudes 8 degrees and 20 degrees north and
CITIES AND south. High humidity, light winds, and a warm
sea surface temperature set the stage for the
NEIGHBOR- creation of the hurricane. As the storm develops,
HOODS the Coriolis effect causes the winds to rotate
WERE RIPPED
counterclockwise (in the Northern Hemisphere),
as the winds and thunderstorms increase.
APART AND Hurricanes are powered by the heat from
LEFT IN
the sea, and are steered along by easterly trade
winds and the temperate westerly winds, as
RUBBLE IN well as their own incredible energy that they
AN EVENT
create. Winds are howling at the core of the
hurricane, and the seas are violent. As the huge
THAT LASTED system moves ashore, tornadoes, torrential
DAYS.” rains, and floods result.
The term “hurricane” (from an Arawak word
meaning “storm”) is used for tropical storms in
the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific. In the western
Pacific and China Sea, these storms are called
“typhoons” (from the Cantonese word “tai-
fung” meaning “great wind”). Down in Aus-
tralia, these storms are called “cyclones.”
In order to further categorize hurricanes,
these intense storms over 74 mph., consulting
engineer Herbert Saffir and meteorologist
Robert Simpson developed the “Saffir-Simp-
son Scale” in the 1970s. Hurricanes are delin-
eated into 5 categories, depending on strength.
• Category One means the winds are from 74 to
95 mph, storm surges from 4 to 5 feet, and
generally minimal damage.
• Category Two has winds from 96 to 110 mph,
6 to 8 feet storm surges, and moderate
damage.
• Category Three has winds from 111 to 130
mph., storm surges from 9 to 12 feet, and
extensive damage.
• Category Four has winds from 131 to 155 mph,
storm surges from 13 to 18 feet, and extreme
damage.
• Category Five, the strongest, has a wind speed
of more than 155, storm surges more than 18
feet (no time for surfing!), and the damage
is typically catastrophic. [see chart on page
33]
How are People Affected?
Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Katrina
were both Category Five. This means that entire
swaths of cities and neighborhoods were
ripped apart and left in rubble in an event that
lasted days. Thousands were left homeless,
and many died.
Though a category one hurricane could be
experienced as a temporary inconvenience, it
should be clear that the hurricane is like no
other storm. Like it or not, once the hurricane is
on a collision path with you and your neighbor-
hood and your city, normal life is disrupted, and
sometimes totally ripped apart. The storm can
be two miles across and winds (in the highest
category) can be 180 mph, something that sur-
vivors describe as “unfathomable, indescrib-
able.” All of the normal functioning of daily life
comes to a halt as the hurricane roars through
the terrain. That means you’re not going to your
job, or to school, or to the farm.
The electricity will fail, and communication
will become spotty. As people try to move to
higher ground, the roads and highways get
crowded, and some become unusable. Your
entire focus becomes securing your home in
case you try to hole up there for the duration, or
doing whatever it takes to get out of Dodge City
as rapidly as possibly. Oh, and then there are
young children, and sick people, and they will
need assistance.
As the hurricane threatens, and moves over
your city, your life is reduced to bare essentials,
and anything that isn’t absolutely necessary
will not be done. You are in survival mode.
ASG-SIP-1412-HURRICANE 11/21/14 2:08 AM Page 31
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
What You Can Do to Survive
Many have survived lesser level hurricanes
simply by taking common sense precautions.
We’ve had discussions with families who
stocked up their home, closed and boarded
everything up, and stayed home for a week or
so of a semi-frightening event. They experi-
enced blackouts, and some damage to their
home, some flooding in their vicinities, and they
were able to carry on when the storm passed
with limited impact to their daily lives.
But that is not always the case.
The details of how you can survive a hurri-
cane, the skills needed, and the supplies you
should have will vary from case to case. But
let’s start from the beginning: your home, and
your location.
One of the easy ways to more-or-less pre-
dict the future is to study what has happened in
the past. United States hurricanes mostly occur
in the Gulf coast, and some on the Atlantic
seaboard. Get a map and look at the paths of
all the major hurricanes. You live right in a
path? It’s not always possible to simply move
somewhere else. Millions of people live there,
right in the path of hurricanes past and hurri-
canes to come. So it is very important to realize
that some specific areas are ticking time
bombs when it comes to hurricanes.
New Orleans, for example, is a city under
water—literally, not figuratively. Not everyone
realized that before Katrina, but the city was
only kept dry by dikes that kept out a wall of up
to nearly 20 feet of water. When Hurricane Kat-
rina struck into New Orleans, in addition to the
intense winds and the pounding rain, the dikes
that held back the ocean broke open, pouring
water into the Lower Ninth Ward.
Try to move to higher ground. If fact, there
are potential hazards wherever you live. And if
hurricanes are your concern, you should relo-
cate to a higher ground. Get a topographical
map of your area, and talk with local geogra-
phers and real estate agents and do whatever
you can to find the best possible areas to reside
for some natural protection from a hurricane.
That may be hard, but in many cases, the lay of
the land dictates the way a storm moves
through the landscape. Location matters.
Next, there are numerous ways to beef up
your home to make it a few notches more
resistant to storms. There was a time where a
full basement was built before the house was
built. Yes, this cost more, and especially in the
heat of summer, and during tornadoes, this
DOOMSDAY
provided some means of protection. That’s an
idea that builders should serious consider
returning to as “normal.”
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32 HURRICANE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
In Your Home
If you live in hurricane-prone zones, keep
abreast of news reports when hurricanes are
forming. When the hurricane is on its way, your
job is to begin squaring away things that need
to be secured, closing up windows or boarding
them up, as appropriate.
Since a hurricane may very well mean evac-
uation, you need to have an evacuation plan. At
what point do you decide to leave? Is your vehi-
cle packed? Is it gassed up? What are you
bringing along for the next few days or weeks?
Do you have animals to attend to? Do you have
a good idea of where to go? Have you been
there before? Do you have a friend or relative
somewhere out of the hurricane path where
you can go? Have you established networks
among your closest neighbors so you all help
each other when things get serious?
If you live in some of the most vulnerable
hurricane zones in the Gulf Coast, and you have
no desire to move elsewhere, you should do
everything you can to beef up your house with
whatever extra money you have. And since
you’ll probably want to stay in your home if you
can, you should constantly stock up on all the
supplies that you just won’t get if there’s a seri-
ous hurricane that disrupts travel and normal
commerce.
Stay Afloat
Not commonly seen on the list of items to
buy is the inflatable raft or canoe. Yet, after an
area is flooded, that’s the only way you’re going
to get around what was once your neighbor-
hood. And rescues are only going to take place
via helicopter or boats.
If you live in a hurricane or tornado zone, you
may already take a lot of this for granted. Neigh-
bors or relatives may have homes that have been
damaged or destroyed before, and you know
many who have survived the disaster; in some
cases, depending on your level of preparedness,
the hurricane was a major or minor inconve-
nience, and eventually, your life got back on
track. In some cases, everything you knew was
destroyed and you had to work hard to get back
on your feet. Being prepared in advance means
that you’ll be able to survive the emergency, and
get back on your feet as soon as possible.
You need to be prepared with very basic
supplies in your home, and you should have a
basement room or windowless shelter where
you can hide out when the very worst of the
storm passes through.
Leave Home?
A big part of surviving a hurricane is the
judgement call that you must make: Do I stay or
do I evacuate? Naturally, people would rather
stay home. But sometimes that just isn’t possi-
ble. And if you wait a bit too long, getting out
becomes all that more difficult due to long traf-
fic lines that are not moving, and pools of water
that grow larger. In fact, as occurred in Hurri-
cane Katrina, though 80 percent of the resi-
dents of New Orleans managed to evacuate,
that still left 20 percent of the residents in their
homes—mostly elderly, infirm, or too poor to
even find a way to get out.
Part of making the decision to evacuate
involves listening to what meteorologists and
local officials are saying. In the case of Hurri-
cane Katrina, there were many ordering people
to evacuate, though the Mayor of New Orleans
only suggested that people leave. When Mayor
Ray Nagin finally ordered people to evacuate, it
was a bit too late for many. Officials tried to use
school buses to evacuate residents, but drivers
were short supply and as the heavy rains
increased, there was quickly no way to get out.
The lesson is that it is far better to be incon-
venienced by a weeklong evacuation than to be
stuck in a disastrous situation.
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
Your evacuation plan should include having
a well-stocked car, and a pack in case you can-
not get away by vehicle. Also consider a bicycle
as a means of evacuation.
 ASG-SIP-1412-HURRICANE 11/21/14 2:08 AM Page 33

“BEING PREPARED IN ADVANCE MEANS THAT YOU’LL

BE ABLE TO SURVIVE THE EMERGENCY, AND GET BACK
ON YOUR FEET AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE FOR HURRICANES

Famous examples of the five categories of hurricanes.

CATEGORY WIND SPEEDS STORM SURGE HURRICANE

1 74-95 mph 4 to 5 feet Allison, 1995, No deaths

Floyd, 1999, 69 deaths

2 96 – 110 mph 6 to 8 feet Bonnie, 1998, 3 deaths

3 111 – 130 mph 9 to 12 feet Fran, 1996, 34 deaths

4 131 – 155 mph 13-18 feet Andrew, 1992, 65 deaths

Luis, 1995, 17 deaths
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

5 Greater than 155 mph Greater than 18 feet Hugo, 1989, 82 deaths
DOOMSDAY

Mitch, 1998, over 11,000 deaths

Katrina, 2005, 1,836 deaths

33
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34 HURRICANE|PERSONAL ACCOUNT
DOOMSDAY
STORIES OF SURVIVAL
Hurricane Andrew
Hurricane Andrew was one of the strongest
hurricanes in U.S. history. It developed in August
of 1992, and the tropical storm’s winds
increased to 140 mph within two days of its
forming. The majority of the damage of Andrew
was due to the high winds. Of the 65 people
killed, most were killed by being crushed by
debris as their homes were ripped apart right
around them. The cost of this storm was about
$25 billion in 1992.
After the storm, there were still people who
survived in the hardest hit area of Florida. Some
stayed with their homes in an attempt to
rebuild and stave off looters. The National
Guard told those who stayed that they would
not patrol the devastated areas at night, and
that those residents should evacuate.
Those who stayed were pictured in the news
reports cooking on little fires in their backyards,
while holding their rifles and shotguns.
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
Hurricane Mitch
In October of 1998, heavy rains fell and con-
tinued for days, and strong winds picked up. As
Hurricane Mitch picked up, the members of the
Isabel family climbed to the roof of their Hon-
duran home. As the water continued to rise, the
entire family—in fact, most of the villagers—
were swept away. Laura Isabel, the mother,
clung to a floating tree as debris was swirling
all around her. She eventually gathered buoy-
ant trash and managed to make-shift a small
raft, which she floated on for six days. Laura
Isabel was carried 50 miles out into the ocean
on her raft.
Isabel managed to sleep a little on the raft,
but not much. She said that she would dream
about her husband and three children, and she
sang and talked to them as if they were with her.
Finally, an airplane pilot spotted Isabel’s little
raft, and managed to get a helicopter to rescue
her. Isabel was taken to a hospital near her vil-
lage, which was devastated and changed forever.
Isabel never saw her husband or children again.
ASG-SIP-1412-HURRICANE 11/21/14 2:08 AM Page 35
Hurricane Katrina, 2005
Hurricane Katrina was the most costly nat-
ural disaster in U.S. history, with an estimated
$108 billion in damages. Hurricane Katrina was
the largest (up to 400 miles across), and the
third strongest, hurricane ever recorded to
make landfall in the United States.
Hurricane Katrina was first noticed on
satellite images on August 24, 2005, appearing
as a tropical storm over the Bahamas. By the
next day, it reached hurricane level with winds
of 74 miles per hour. Two days later, the storm
hit Florida, where Governor Bush declared a
state of emergency. Hurricane Katrina spent
seven hours over Florida with its 80 mph
winds, and dumped up to a foot of rain in some
areas. High winds and falling trees took out
power lines.
The hurricane moved west, increasing
speed and by August 27 became a Category 3 hurricane. By
the next day, Katrina doubled in size, and moved northwest
towards Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama as a Category
5 hurricane. President Bush declared a state of emergency
for the areas in the storm’s path, and local officials either
asked or ordered residents to depart.
The predicted landfall was New Orleans, and by the time
Mayor Nagin ordered everyone to leave the city, 80 percent
of the residents had already gotten out, and there were not
enough drivers to drive the school buses, which was part of
New Orlean’s emergency evacuation plan. Many people
were trapped.
Since New Orleans had been built on drained swamp-
land, the various levees surrounding it were designed to
keep out the ocean water. But as Katrina came ashore, the
rainfall exceeded up to an inch an hour in places, and the
storm surges were nearly as tall as a four-story building.
Even though Katrina “weakened” to a Category 3 hurri-
cane after midnight of August 29, there was still heavy rain,
high waves, and 140 mph winds. By morning, the rain alone
filled all the canals that were intended to drain water from
New Orleans. The storm surge in New Orleans was as high
as 19 feet, washing water into New Orleans. Over in Pass
Christian, Miss., there was a storm surge of 27.8 feet, the
highest ever recorded on a U.S. coast. Water flooded inland
six miles, carrying boats, washing out up to 31 oil rigs, and
taking out buildings, bridges, and highways.
By August 31, more than 80 percent of New Orleans was
under water as the levees alongside the 17th Street Canal,
and the London Avenue Canal were breached or blew out.
Water poured into New Orleans.
IN THE PAST |HURRICANE
Water rushed into the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans,
one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The city pumps
could not drain the water away fast enough, and many of
the building that housed the pumps were damaged. Rescue
workers were no better off than the stranded survivors, and
some of the rescue workers used boats to rescue the tens of
thousands of people stranded.
More than 25,000 people were taken to the Louisiana
Superdome in New Orleans, a facility that was not designed
to handle that many people. Rain poured through holes that
opened where the wind had blown off the roof, and such
things as toilet paper, clean water, and medical supplies
were quickly used up or non-existant. Additionally, if you
had a pet, you were not allowed to bring it with you. The
Superdome began to seem like a prison camp to those who
were holed up there.
Katrina tested the limits of emergency response to the
limit. Help was offered from all over, and in some cases
there was no practical way to take advantage of the early
help offered. It is believed that 1,836 deaths resulted from
Katrina with 705 people still officially “missing.”
For example, Chief of Police for the City of Los Angeles,
Chief Bratton, stated in a televised interview that he wanted
to send some of his officers to help with the crime that
resulted as of Katrina. But he declined to even send any offi-
cers into such an area because “if there is not even a place
for my officers to urinate and defecate, I will not send them
there.” Hurricane Katrina had rendered New Orleans into a
DOOMSDAY
wild west, with people dead in the streets, infrastructure
demolished, criminal elements roaming freely, and no place
to keep clean or maintain hygienic standards.
35
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36 HURRICANE|GEAR GUIDE
DOOMSDAY
Everyone has their own idea of what
should be carried if you absolutely
must evacuate. John McCann wrote
Build the Perfect Survival Kit, wherein
he describes the endless possibilities
of survival kits, and how you need to
determine the details of your own situ-
ation. McCann has followed up with a
more recent book, Bug-Out: Reality vs.
Hype where he attempts to share the
brutal reality of “bugging out” versus
staying at home where you have every-
thing you need.
Jason Deatherage, a survivalist
enthusiast and paramedic in rural
Canada, has insight into what some-
one should carry in an evacuation bag.
“If I were to be thrown on my own
devices for an unspecified amount of
time, I’d want to have an easily car-
ried pack that could provide for my
material needs, and allow me to be
as little a burden on others as possi-
ble. In the case of a natural disaster, if
I were required to evacuate, I might
be forced to travel on foot out of the
affected area, but even if I had the
luxury of a vehicle, I’d still want to be
able to carry my most essential gear
with me easily.
“To me, the benefit of being well
prepared is not just personal survival;
such preparation allows me to reduce
my own demands on what would be
overburdened emergency systems
and, perhaps even more importantly,
allows me to help others instead of
scrambling to live at the last minute.
The most important preparations you
can make, however, are to be as fit and
healthy as your situation allows, and to
practice and plan well ahead of time
so that you have the skills to use what-
ever equipment you have to hand.
“Plan also for extra people. You will
have yourself and your family, but
what if you have visitors or pick up
people along the way? Make sure
everyone in the family has what they
need, plus a bit extra.
“With that said, here is what I’d like
to have with me in such a scenario. My
main priority is to be able to be
healthy, warm and well-rested if possi-
ble, and have some basic items to
build and repair anything else I might
need. I can fit all of this into a 30-45
liter pack, generally with room to
spare, at a weight of around 25
pounds. Many or all of these items can
be replaced with DIY or found items,
so don’t feel that you have to have the
most expensive ultralight stuff.”
ASG-SIP-1412-HURRICANE 11/21/14 2:08 AM Page 37
Pack Items
There are several companies that pro-
vide comprehensive emergency packs that
include a great many things. For example,
emergency-storage.com has dozens of dif-
ferent packs for a wide range of situations
and needs. When buying an emergency kit,
consider including the following:
• Sil-nylon tarp, 10x12, with pre-attached small-
diameter cordage. (Big enough to fold over for
ground sheet, or to cover a few people)
• Rain jacket (and pants if you like)
• Warm shirt or jacket (fleece or wool)
• Flashlight, preferably a quality headlamp and
extra batteries.
• Smallest Thermarest pad one can afford
• Smallest, warmest sleeping bag one can
afford, with a waterproof bivy sack.
• A couple of mini-bic lighters and a ferro rod for
backup (practice firemaking now, not then)
• Water bottle and metal cup with lid, prefer-
ably all nesting together.
• Water filter or purification tablets (can boil in
the metal cup as well)
• Wide brimmed hat
• Bandanna or shemagh
• Swiss army knife and quality, pliers-based
multitool with saw.
• Small fixed blade such as a Mora Companion
(tastes may vary, take what ever your knife
addiction will allow)
• Pistol and two or three magazines
• Cash and ID
• Charging gear for phone
• Small sewing kit with several needles, strong
thread, buttons
• Toothbrush
• Maps of area
• Deck of cards
• Extra cordage
• Food: freeze dried is lightest, but allows for
hot meals; lifeboat rations are the most calori-
cally dense for their size but bland, energy
bars are handy; MREs are heavy and bulky.
Choose according to your needs.
Medical Kit
The contents of a medical kit will really be
dependent on your own knowledge and med-
ical training, so adjust accordingly. I have found
in over a decade as a paramedic that the
biggest consideration in longer-term outdoors
medical care is sustained small wound care,
not massive trauma and gun shot wounds, so
emphasize items that keep you clean and cov-
ered. I’ll leave quantities up to you, as that will
depend on what you keep your kit in. Source:
edisastersystems.com
Essential medications for you and your family
• Small flashlight
• EMT shears
• Tweezers
• Band aids (lots and lots)
• Sterile saline irrigation bulbs
• Alcohol wipes
• Iodine tincture (can be used to purify water in
a pinch)
• Triangular bandage (these can function as an
entire first aid kit themselves with a bit of
knowledge)
• Sterile non-stick gauze, roller gauze, and some
non sterile regular gauze
• Large gauze ABD pads
• Tourniquet
• Tape
• Benadryl
• Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Aspirin
• Clove oil (for toothache)
• Notebook and pen/pencil
DOOMSDAY
37
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38 NUCLEAR ATTACK|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

It’s 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, and you can’t wait to

get your weekend started. The office staff is pretty much non-existent, so you
decide to bug out a few minutes early. You’re dreading that constantly ridicu-
lous Los Angeles traffic as you make your way to the parking structure but the
only important thing on your mind is getting your weekend started with a cold
one in your hands. Seems everyone has the same idea. The parking structure is
hive of activity. You race for the road knowing all the back street shortcuts as
you begin to imagine the sun at your back with your feet in the sand. Your
weekend has finally begun, or at least that’s what you’re telling yourself.
As you inch further away from the office you hope you’ll never see again, a
blinding light sears across the sky from behind you. It’s so bright it hurts your
eyes even while looking away and with them tightly closed. For a few seconds,
it’s brighter than the sun. Then an unspeakable crack of worlds colliding over-
whelms you. It’s deafening. In less than 10 seconds, you’re hit with a thunder-
ous shockwave followed by an intense heat. The mighty wind and fire inciner-

Mushroom
ates everything as it approaches you.

SURVIVING A NUCLEAR ATTACK > Story by John Galletta

Asphalt, rocks, trees, shards of glass, and just about everything above sur-
face level has been hurled at you is thrust into the air and is consumed by a
giant mushroom cloud. If you survive at all, you’re most likely injured and
assuredly bewildered and confused. You do what everyone else in your general
vicinity does. You stumble from the remains of your vehicle, if you’re not com-
pletely blown out of it, and try to make sense of what’s just happened. With
hundreds of fires around you and the sky now growing darker and darker, you
begin to wander aimlessly as shock sets in. Thankfully, you’re outside the ring
of complete decimation and you’re left with a fighting chance.
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
ASG-SIP-1412-NUCLEAR 11/21/14 2:12 AM Page 39

Cloud DOOMSDAY

39
ASG-SIP-1412-NUCLEAR 11/21/14 2:12 AM Page 40
40 NUCLEAR ATTACK|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
A Terrorist’s Bomb
A terrorist’s crude, but effective, 10 kiloton
Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU), Improvised
Nuclear Device, or “IND”, was just detonated on
street level in a major metropolitan city at the
site of a major transportation hub. With the
force of 10,000 tons of dynamite, more than
40,000 people are killed in an instant and more
than 100,000 injured. Inside the blast area are
four hospitals/medical facilities. They include
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
County – USC Medical Center, and UCLA Chil-
dren’s Hospital and are some of L.A.’s largest
medical facilities. This will certainly affect the
number of persons able to receive immediate
medical attention.
There are also 19 schools and education
facilities, nine places of worship, and one fire
station inside the blast radius. Dodger Stadium
and Sunset Boulevard are also in the outer
fringes of the blast and are still well inside the
area where injury can occur. The number is sure
to grow as this was the result of the thermal
blast only. Running abreast of the thermal
blast, is what many fear.
Potential Casualties
Extremely high doses of radiation in the
form of gamma, neutron, and x-rays will pro-
duce even more casualties over a larger area
within the next several minutes, hours and
weeks. Alpha particles, which can be released
at the time of burst, or delayed as fallout, are
harmful if internalized but can easily be
shielded by paper or dead layers of skin and
can be brushed away without harm. Beta parti-
cles, which can be shielded by plastic or alu-
minum, may cause skin burns and can also be
harmful if ingested. Gamma rays destroy living
cells and are harmful when exposed to them.
They can be shielded by lead and concrete.
Neutrons, emitted only during the detonation,
are 20 times more harmful than gamma rays
ASG-SIP-1412-NUCLEAR 11/21/14 2:12 AM Page 41

and can pass through several feet of concrete.
Although your body is equipped to naturally
repair cells exposed to radiation, these mas-
sively high amounts of radiation will overpower
that healing process and destroy the cells
before repair can take place.
The Damage of a Nuclear Blast
The blast leaves a crater 100 feet deep and
more than 500 feet in diameter. The cityscape
as far out as two miles in all directions is
absolutely decimated. The surface of the earth
at ground zero has essentially been scraped
clean and vaporized. Five hundred feet from the
blast, the overpressure is 20 psi, which causes
incredible death and the complete destruction
of most buildings. What was on the surface has
been consumed by the intense fireball and
mushroom cloud and spewed into the sky,
reaching an altitude of at least 27,000 feet.
When the cloud begins to settle, it will
deposit radioactive particles, a phenomenon
called “fallout,” over large portions of the city
and beyond. There are no bodies, vehicles or
buildings, just a gaping hole where the train
station used to be. Just outside the three-mile
radius and as far out as seven miles of the
blast, there is still a great amount of carnage.
The air pressure is 5 psi, enough to crush resi-
dential homes. It’s in this area that you begin
to see a bleak landscape never before seen
outside the movie theaters. Alien in nature,
the sights alone are enough to evoke shock
and disbelief.
Everything around is on fire. Signs of what
used to be a bustling city full of life are com-
pletely non-existent. Although much of what
you see is undiscernible, it’s clear that nothing
has survived nor is anything salvageable. On
the fringes of this ring is where the walking
dead are. The term walking dead describes just
that. Zombie-like in appearance with horrific
burns and traumatic injuries, these are the peo-
ple that death hasn’t caught up with yet but is
certain to drop in for a visit momentarily. Just
outside the seven-mile perimeter, the probabil-
ity of third degree burns is still 100 percent.
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
up to 17 miles away, you may still experience
severe blast effects.
Those inside fortified buildings and away
from windows and doors may survive the heat
and blast effects. At a 1.5-psi overpressure,
glass windows can be expected to break. Those
rushing to the windows to see what caused the
bright light was will be met by the impending
blast (which travels faster than the pressure
wave). Windows will explode, hurling shards of
glass and other items at speeds up to 600
miles per hour and causing even more wide-
spread carnage.
The successful detonation of the HEU IND
has occurred close to Union Station in down-
town Los Angeles. It detonated at a time when
the train station is at its busiest; Friday after-
noon at around 4:30pm. Although relatively
small by today’s standard, it still packs a wal-
lop. It’s the same size as the bomb dropped on
Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945.
Being a surface detonation, the amount of
radioactive fallout will be much greater as the
blast consumed everything on the ground and
sucked it up into its giant mushroom cloud. The
jet black cloud, now full of irradiated particles is
expected to grow to an altitude of 27,000 feet
or more and will cover the city like a blanket.
With the trade winds blowing from the west at
approximately 6 miles per hour, the cloud will

There will be many whose death is imminent,

DOOMSDAY

severely burned, amputees, and in shock. Noth-

ing can be done for them. If you’re lucky enough
to be outside the eight- to nine-mile radius and

41
ASG-SIP-1412-NUCLEAR 11/21/14 2:13 AM Page 42
42 NUCLEAR ATTACK|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
produce fallout as it begins to settle. It will rain
down on potentially hundreds of miles of popu-
lated areas from the blast site and the outer
fringes where death and injury has already
taken place.
Just how did this happen? A group of radi-
calized terrorists, perhaps a faction of Hamas
or ISIS, has successfully smuggled the HEU in
through the L.A. Harbor aboard the only pri-
vately owned ferry systems allowed to dock
there. From the former Soviet Union through
Georgia and then on to Iran or Iraq, this special
nuclear material, or “SNM,” traveled to South
America, into Costa Rica, and then to Mexico on
the same route that most of the drugs and
other illegal contraband entering this country
routinely travels. From Baja California, it is
transported in the dead of night by panga boat
into United States waters. Piloted by a two-
man crew and accompanied by a large ship-
ment of marijuana, the panga boat arrives on
the quiet backside of Catalina Island.
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
A Source of Danger
Dubbed “smugglers’ paradise” in the 1950s,
Catalina Island sits just 26 miles from the Los
Angeles coastline. Daily ferries can take you
across from three different locations in just
under two hours. Already on U.S. soil, making it
into L.A. Harbor is the most daunting part of the
trip for the smugglers. With more radiation
detection portals around the L.A. Port than on
any other leg of the journey, this is nail-biting
time. Unlike other more easily detectible
radioactive isotopes like Cesium 137 (Cs-137), a
man-made isotope with both medical and
industrial uses, the HEU has a very small
radioactive signature or “activity.”
Virtually impossible to detect due to its low
radioactivity and 3 billion year half-life, (half-
life is the amount of time required for a quan-
tity to fall to half its value as measured at the
beginning of the time period), the HEU is trans-
ported to the L.A. Harbor aboard that ferry. This
 ASG-SIP-1412-NUCLEAR 11/21/14 2:13 AM Page 43
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
characteristic is what makes it so hard for radi-
ation detection equipment to detect. To be sure
it gets across undetected, the terrorists take
extra measures and encase the material in lead
pipe to shield it from possible detection and
hide it in a scuba tank that has been modified
to accommodate it.
At an undisclosed location, the other com-
ponents are gathered, construction is carried
out, and the weapon is assembled. Their objec-
tive is to kill about 4 million men, women, and
children. No amount of planes crashing into
high rise skyscrapers or truck bombs would
accomplish this so their plan is to carry out the
slaughter with the use of a nuclear device. They
arrived at that number by totaling the casual-
ties in the many wars in the Middle East.
Although crudely constructed, the weapon has
enough material to produce a larger device but
because of its inefficient design, a greater yield
will be averted.
Difficult to Plan
This attack has been in the planning stages
since well before 9/11. The only thing prevent-
ing this attack from taking place sooner is the
fact that the material needed for the device is
extremely hard to get. There are really only
three ways to acquire a nuclear weapon. You
can steal a bomb. You could buy a bomb, or you
could build a bomb. The hardest part of making
a bomb is getting the highly enriched uranium
or plutonium. Many countries have these mate-
rials and often they are poorly guarded. Proba-
bly the best places to look are the countries of
the former Soviet Union.
The easiest corridor from Russia is through
Georgia, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump
from Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan.
Over the years, there have been many reported
cases of theft of highly enriched uranium and
plutonium. Every time there has been a black
market seizure and the material recovered, it
could be tracked back to Russia. But these
were only the ones caught. How many actually
made it through?
At the Luch Uranium Enrichment Facility in
Russia, a worker there discovered that as long
as the output of the material made was within
a certain amount of the input, the supervisors
attributed that difference to normal loss. So
every day over a long period of time, he stole
small quantities of the highly enriched uranium
or HEU. Since his salary couldn’t keep up with
inflation, he wanted to use the HEU to buy
much-needed items for his family, like a refrig-
erator and a stove. Over a period of time he had
amassed a kilogram and a half of 90 percent
enriched, highly enriched uranium. He raised no
alarms and not a single soul knew until he was
caught trying to sell the HEU to a group of
thieves that were in the business of selling
stolen car batteries.
“THEIR OBJECTIVE IS TO
KILL ABOUT 4 MILLION MEN,
WOMEN, AND CHILDREN.”
Had special nuclear material been available
to the terrorists who carried out attacks in Lon-
don, Madrid, Bali, Kenya, Riyadh, Buenos Aries,
Mumbai, and here on U.S. soil, they certainly
would have used it. Many terrorist organizations
have sought the use of nuclear weapons to
bring death, in great numbers, to the West. Just
prior to 9/11, Osama Bin Laden met with two
Pakistani scientists and discussed nuclear
weapons. Certainly, it would have changed the
outcome to the World Trade Center attack.
Due to the current world climate, economic
downfall, and the destabilization of several
countries that possess this material, many have
loosened control of the “magic material.” It’s
possible that military members or those in the
position of safeguarding the materials for those
countries in distress could profit from stealing
and selling this material. We already know
there are plenty of capable buyers. In almost all
the cases involving theft of this special nuclear
material, it was almost never known that the
material was even missing until the items were
seized. It is estimated that there is approxi-
mately 1,700 tons of highly enriched uranium in
DOOMSDAY
the world today. It’s a staggering amount, an
amount that can be used to make 50 to
100,000 nuclear weapons.
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44 NUCLEAR ATTACK|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
How a Nuclear Device Works
The nuclear device delivers its destruction in
stages. First is the intense 200-meter diameter
fireball. It delivers a burning heat to areas of
exposed skin and incinerates anything com-
bustible. A fraction of a second later it’s fol-
lowed by an immense shockwave moving at
the speed of sound, a wave comprised of ther-
mal radiation (heat), nuclear radiation, and bal-
listic debris due to surface or shallow sub-sur-
face bursts. From the site of the blast, which
leaves the large crater, everything is instanta-
neously vaporized. People are reduced to car-
bon ash in a split second. Just beyond,
“THAT’S THE at approximately 1,530 yards, build-
ings are completely demolished and
EQUIVALENT OF those that aren’t, sustain severe dam-
age. Those inside buildings close to
RECEIVING 2.5 the detonation are killed from the
MILLION CHEST
blast, which results in the
buildings’collapse.
X-RAYS IN
Out to approximately 2.2 miles, an
estimated lethal radiation dose of
LESS THAN A
5,000 REM. REM is a unit of radia-
tion dosage (such as from X rays)
MINUTE. DEATH applied to humans. Derived from the
phrase Roentgen equivalent man,
WILL OCCUR (pronounced RONKEN). It will be 100
percent fatal to anything inside that
ALMOST circle. That’s the equivalent of receiv-
INSTANTLY.”
ing 2.5 million chest x-rays in less
than a minute. Death will occur
almost instantly. Out to approxi-
mately 4.2 miles, you can expect the
radiation dose to be 1,000 REM. This
dose will cause a 95 percent mortality
rate, even with immediate medical attention.
Death will occur within a matter of hours to a
few weeks. At approximately six miles from the
blast site, the radiation level will have dropped
to approximately 500 REM. Without immediate
medical attention, you can expect a mortality
rate of 50 to 90 percent from acute effects,
alone. Death will occur within several hours to a
few weeks.
To put these dose rates into perspective, I
used a dose calculator to calculate an average
dose based on where I live. I live in Southern
California at an altitude of 564 feet, and I’m
approximately 50 miles from the now-closed,
San Onofre nuclear power plant. For that, I will
incur 28.01MREM or “millirem.” One millirem is
1/1000 of a REM. Twenty-eight MREM is attrib-
uted to cosmic radiation, a radiation that every-
one gets by being out in the sun. Harmless until
you get sunburned and 0.01 MREM for being
close to San Onofre.
From food containing Carbon-14 and Potas-
sium-40, I get 40 MREM and from the air I
breathe, I get 228 MREM. I’ve traveled approxi-
mately 60 jet hours in the last year, for which I
received 0.5 MREM per hour for a total of 30
MREM. I’ve gone past luggage x-ray inspection
at the airport (0.002 MREM each time) about
10 times, so there’s another .02 MREM. I have a
porcelain crown, 0.07 MREM, a smoke detector
at my house, 0.008 MREM, and I’ve had one
chest x-ray, which gets me 10 MREM for a grand
total of 366.9 MREM over the entire year. That’s
just .366 of 1 REM. You would need 5,000,000
MREM to equal 5,000 REM.
The state-recommended EPA dose limit to
perform lifesaving is 25 REM. That’s only 25
percent of 100 REM. Neither is a lethal dose
and they’re a far cry from the radiation doses
we can expect from a detonation like this. It’s
also the total dose a first responder can receive
over the period of a lifetime. Although not
enough to kill, the only way you can exceed this
dose is if you are a willing volunteer. This
means you are made aware of the dose and the
dangers of exceeding it, but continue to per-
form lifesaving voluntarily.
The Effect of Nuclear Radiation
So exactly what effects do these high doses
of ionizing radiation have on you? The radiation
will begin to destroy the cells in the body that
divide rapidly. These include blood, GI tract,
reproductive and hair cells; additionally, radia-
tion harms the DNA and RNA of surviving cells.
For starters, you can expect to lose your hair
quickly and in clumps with radiation exposure
at 200 REM or higher. Since brain cells do not
reproduce, they won’t be damaged directly
unless the exposure is 5,000 REM or greater.
Like with the brain, radiation kills nerve cells
and small blood vessels around the heart,
which can cause seizures and immediate
death. Certain body parts are more specifically
affected by exposure to different types of radi-
ation sources.
ASG-SIP-1412-NUCLEAR 11/21/14 2:13 AM Page 45

The thyroid gland is susceptible to radioac-

PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK

tive iodine. In sufficient amounts, radioactive

iodine can destroy all or part of the thyroid. By
taking potassium iodide, one can reduce the
effects of exposure; however, having them
around with you at all times might be a little
presumptuous. When a person is exposed to
around 100 REM, the blood’s lymphocyte cell
count will be reduced, leaving the victim more
susceptible to infection. This is often referred to
as mild radiation sickness. Early symptoms of
radiation sickness mimic those of flu and may
go unnoticed unless a blood count is done.
According to data from Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, symptoms may persist for up to 10
years and may also have an increased long-
term risk for leukemia and lymphoma. Intense
exposure to radioactive material at 1,000 to
5,000 REM would do immediate damage to
small blood vessels and most certainly cause
heart failure and immediate death.
You can expect to get nauseous, have diar- Since a detonation like this will occur with-
rhea, and begin to vomit blood. Radiation dam- out warning, your first action should be to
age to the intestinal tract lining will cause these immediately drop to the ground in a prone posi-
violent effects. This is occurs when you’re expo- tion. Tightly cover your face with both hands.
sure is 200 REM or more. Because reproductive Do not move until the initial blast wave and any
tract cells divide rapidly, these areas of the reflected blast waves have passed. Shelter in
body can be damaged at REM levels as low as place if the building you’re in is safe to remain
200. Long-term, some radiation sickness vic- in. Otherwise, seek shelter in a fortified con-
tims may become sterile. crete structure if possible. Stay indoors as long
If you’re lucky enough to dodge the radiation as you can, avoiding time spent around win-
effects because you’re at least seven miles away, dows and doorways. Close and seal doors and
don’t count your lucky stars just yet. The thermal windows to retain the safer area. Use window
blast still has enough energy to cause third barriers such as blinds, curtains or other cover-
degree burns. Third degree burns extend ings to improve protection.
throughout the layers of skin, and are often pain- Moving to the center of a building may be
less because they destroy the pain nerves. They more advantageous, provided the building is
will cause scarring or disablement, and can intact and is made of concrete. Make sure to
require amputation. Without immediate medical turn off the HVAC, any fans and exhaust fans,
attention, death can occur due to shock, rapid combustion heaters. If you were outside and
blood loss, and easily susceptible infection. you’re seeking shelter, decontaminate yourself
before you enter a shelter. Brush dust/fallout
Surviving a Nuclear Blast off your clothing away from your eyes, nose and
Survival inside the critical rings is highly mouth. If you’re able to, rinse any exposed skin.
unlikely, however, as in Hiroshima, it’s possible. If you’re in an unsafe area, make your way out
Exposed and unshielded, the effects of the ther- with as much protective clothing on as you can
mal blast and the severely high radiation doses possibly collect.
will cause certain death inside the critical areas. Cover your head and any exposed parts of
DOOMSDAY

Your only real chances for survival, should you your body. If no protective clothing such as
be within the outer areas and are not injured, are Tyvek suits or respirators exists, don as many
for you to take immediate action. layers of clothing or material over whatever

45
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46 NUCLEAR ATTACK|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
you’re wearing. Use a towel or rag to cover your
mouth and nose ensuring that you can still
breathe slowly through it. A damp towel draped
over your head and mouth will help keep conta-
minants to a minimum. Putting your feet into
plastic bags will help keep contaminants from
affecting your feet. Evacuate upwind or cross-
wind. Discard that layering and remove the pro-
tective layers on your shoes before entering
another shelter rolling them all outward and
away from you. Utilize the “COLDER” method
for how to use and care for your clothing.
C — Keep clothing Clean
O — Avoid Overheating
L — Wear clothing Loose and in Layers
D — Keep clothing Dry
E — Examine clothing for defects and wear
R — Keep clothing Repaired
Stay hydrated as often as possible. Drink
only from new, unopened containers. Do not
drink from any open areas such as drinking
fountains, ponds, or streams. Commercially
available water purifiers will eliminate bacteria
and debris but cannot eliminate radioactive
material. The same holds true for food. Do not
eat anything that comes from a container or
wrapper that is already open. The landscape
will be treacherous to walk through, with the
many hazards. You’ll have to navigate through
or around them so as to minimize injury. It will
be slow going. Do so carefully so as not to kick
up and ingest the radioactive dust.
Basic survival skills are always good to have,
however, in an incident such as this, many of
those skills like trapping or snaring food, navi-
gation methods using celestial aids, and purify-
ing water may be useless. On the other hand,
first aid, navigation, sheltering, hunting, and
gathering, will come in handy.
Gear to Take
I always have a small kit bag with me in the
truck that contains a first aid kit, fire extin-
guisher, a case of water, cell phone charger,
jumper cables, a basic tool kit, rubber gloves,
water purifier, a portable radio, rope, a gas
mask and N-95 disposable respirators, a Tyvek
suit, road flares, a flashlight with batteries,
some glow-sticks, Fix-A-Flat, a fire starter, a
candle, some granola bars and gum, a sleeping
bag, and a Thermo Scientific Personal Radia-
tion Detector – Extended Range (PRD-ER), and
of course, extra clothes.
All of that fits quite nicely in a waterproof,
airtight, Pelican Case, 20 x 29 x 15-inches. Yes,
I’ve been accused of being paranoid, but each
time I’ve rolled up on an incident, or have been
away from home for longer than I intended, I’ve
had what I needed to be comfortable or until
better help could arrive. I’m not paranoid. I’m
prepared.
Although this nuclear scenario may seem
far-fetched, it was the first of many exercise
scenarios played out in the largest, full-scale
exercise in the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity’s history, the National Level Exercise 2010,
or NLE2010. During the three-day, nation-wide
exercise, local, state, and federal agencies par-
ticipated in scenarios designed to test the
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
response to nuclear and radiological threats in
and around the Los Angeles area and in other
parts of the country, culminating with similar
scenarios in Washington, D.C.
 ASG-SIP-1412-NUCLEAR 11/21/14 2:13 AM Page 47

|NUCLEAR ATTACK
IN THE PAST

The Atomic Bomb Over

Hiroshima, 1945
When the “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima,
approximately 70,000 people were killed in an instant
and tens of thousands injured. Back then, homes were
made of timber and most buildings were made from a
combination of timber and stone. Anyone in the open
air was incinerated or vaporized in an instant. Miracu-
lously, many were able to survive. Thousands of peo-
ple were injured or burned. Many were trapped in the
rubble. Just 900 feet from the bomb, two young girls
at a bank were sheltered from the worst of the explo-
sion by the earthquake-proof building. When they
struggled outside, they found a vision of hell. The
morning sun was gone, blackened by the cloud and
smoke from the surrounding fires. It had been the
morning commuting hour, 8:15 a.m. People walking the
streets were now dead, lining the streets in every direc-
tion. For as far as they could see, everyone died imme-
diately, naked and burned.
The two could do nothing but fall to the ground and
cry. Somehow, they found the strength and courage to
escape the danger and survive. A mile from the explo-
sion’s hypocenter, a nurse was blown away from the
window. Her body was bounced around like a ball. Like
so many others, she was badly lacerated by flying
glass, but survived. In another part of town, a young
boy, trapped in the fallen debris at his school was res-
cued by a soldier who freed him from the wreckage.
The soldier followed the river behind the school to
safety. As he carried the boy through the burning city,
the boy heard a familiar voice. It was his father calling
out his name. The little boy recognized it and the sol-
dier carrying hime reunited him with his father.
Although the thought of a nuclear attack is on the
minds of millions in the world, not much time is spent
thinking about it actually happening. Everyone hopes it
doesn’t happen just as they hope an earthquake or
tsunami never hits, but not many do much to prepare
for it. It’s often viewed in the same way news of a shark
attack is. Some say, “I avoid the water, so it will never
happen to me” while others say, “It will happen when
we least expect it.”
President Kennedy said, “Every man, woman and
child living in the world today is living under a nuclear
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of

DOOMSDAY

threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by acci-

dent, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons
of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”

47
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48 TORNADO|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

“TORNADOES
OCCUR MORE IN
THE UNITED STATES
THAN ANOTHER
COUNTRY IN
THE WORLD.”
ASG-SIP-1412-TORNADO 11/24/14 12:18 AM Page 49

Tornadoes
SURVIVING THE TERROR OF THE TWISTERS > Story by Jenna Handley

Imagine it. A day like any other: outside it’s blue and
sunny, nothing out of the ordinary. All of a sudden, clouds begin to form
in the sky—puffy, white ones at first—but within minutes, darkly ominous
clouds gather overhead and lightning begins flashing every few seconds.
A tornado is about to hit and you have minutes, if you’re one of the lucky
ones, to prepare yourself. What do you do? Where do you go? How do
you stay safe?
Tornadoes are unstoppable forces that occur thousands of times a
year around the world. Difficult to prepare for, difficult to escape; these
deadly twisters are responsible for billions of dollars worth of damages
and hundreds of deaths a year, often leaving behind apocalyptic after-
maths. In one instance, a tornado obliterated a motel in Oklahoma, and
people later found the motel’s sign in Arkansas. Tornadoes cause life-
altering damages, and because no place in the country is safe from them
(although there are areas more prone to tornadoes), it is important to
know the steps for survival.

How Does a Tornado Form?

Each year it is estimated that more than a thousand tornadoes hit the
U.S., more than any other country. Tornadoes are aggressive, swirling fun-
nels of air that connect from a cumulonimbus cloud to the surface of the
Earth. These twisters come in various forms, including a landspout, multi-
ple vortex and waterspout, although the most common type is a visible
condensation funnel.
These tornadoes form from funnel clouds, typically during thunder-
storms, but the clouds are not considered tornadoes until they physically
touch the ground. The name “tornado” actually comes from the Spanish
word tronada, which translates to ‘thunderstorm.’ The twisters are mea-
sured by the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which focuses on the damage caused
and ranks it from EF0-EF5.
Tornadoes occur more in the United States than another country in the
world; in fact, three out of every four tornadoes that occur globally are
located in the U.S. The most active area is known as “Tornado Alley,”
where more than 500 twisters occur every year. The borders for Tornado
DOOMSDAY

Alley are not clearly defined, but it is roughly made up of Texas, Okla-
homa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Missouri,
Arkansas and Louisiana. Texas reports more tornadoes than any other
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK

49
ASG-SIP-1412-TORNADO 11/24/14 12:18 AM Page 50
50 TORNADO|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
state, but this is due to its large size. Per square
mile, Kansas and Oklahoma have the most.
There is not a set “tornado season” and as long
as conditions are right, a tornado can occur
anytime of the year.
These deadly storms develop when there
are certain conditions in environment at the
same time—an abundance of warm, moist air
to cause vertical movement of air, atmospheric
instability and a “trigger,” which can be a cold
front or converging winds that lift moist air.
One of the reasons Tornado Alley experi-
ences so many tornadoes is its proximity to the
Gulf of Mexico. The warm, moist air from there
collides with the cool, dry air from the Rocky
Mountains, which forms a supercell (the type
of thunderstorm that produces the twirling
updraft of air that results in tornadoes).
Tornadoes carry immense power; some are
able to pick up a house and move it down the
street. Even less powerful ones are able to
destroy cars, send debris flying and cut off vital
power lines. The total number of deaths from
tornadoes typically varies year to year, depend-
ing on the number of tornadoes and the sever-
ity of them. According to the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, 126
people were killed in 2008, yet in 2009, only 21
people died from the twisters. In 2011, torna-
does caused 553 deaths, but just 70 in 2012.
Beyond fatalities, tornadoes are the cause
of severe injuries both before and after the
storms. People are susceptible to injury while
they are working to rescue others, clean up the
mess or even move around an affected area.
Power and gas lines can be damaged, which
leads to explosions or electrocutions. One tor-
nado can cause millions of dollars worth of
damages, which can put a lot of burden on
people who have already been through a trau-
matic experience.
How Can You Survive?
Similar to other natural disasters, there is
very little warning before a tornado hits due to
the nature of their formation. The average lead-
time for tornadoes is currently 13 minutes, which
doesn’t offer much time to prepare. Due to the
short warning, the most important survival skills
for tornado encounters is preparedness.
The best way to survive a tornado is to take
refuge in an underground tornado shelter. Tor-
nadoes typically only affect what is above
ground, so as long as you are underground in a
secure room with a sturdy door that is latched
shut, there is little chance of death or injury. The
second best option would be a basement
because they are also underground, but few are
specially built to protect against tornadoes like
the shelters are.
If a basement is your only option, there are
several additional steps that need to be taken
in order to better ensure safety. Most impor-
tantly, stay as far away from windows as possi-
ble, if the basement has any. Hide under a
heavy table and cover yourself with a mattress
or sleeping bags to protect from heavy and
sharp debris. If you are aware of any particu-
larly heavy items on the floor above, try to avoid
sitting under them. This is where a little extra
preparation could save a life—before a tornado
ever hits, mark the spots in the basement that
would be safest, so in an emergency, people
would know exactly where to go.
Taking shelter in a basement or under-
ground refuge is fairly obvious; the real difficul-
ties begin when a building doesn’t have
either. In these instances, your best bet
would be to go to the lowest floor and get in
the smallest space available, whether that
be a closet, bathroom, stairwell or hallway.
Again, cover yourself with thick blankets or a
mattress and take cover under a table, if
possible. The Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency published a guide to building
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
a safe room in your house, which is easily
accessible online and can help you prepare
for this type of situation. If you are in a car
and the tornado is close—never attempt to
 ASG-SIP-1412-TORNADO.CX51 11/25/14 1:53 AM Page 51
outrun it. Tornadoes travel more than 60 mph
and can easily pick up a car. The safest option
would be to pull over at the nearest place that
offers shelter, such as a gas station bathroom.
If you have the chance, put a bike helmet on.
Many injuries or fatalities are caused by head
trauma, so its smart to eliminate this possibility
before the tornado is too close. Keep a helmet
for everybody in the designated shelter, and
make sure they are easy to access.
Similarly, if there is time, bring outside furni-
ture into the home to prevent them from being
swept away or hurled into the house, which
would create more damage. It is also smart to
pre-reinforce your windows. This will help
inside damage remain minimal, but don’t risk
your life to do this when a tornado is headed
your way. Most of the time house damage is
unavoidable during a bad tornado, and once
winds get above 100 mph, houses will begin to
break down.
In an ideal situation, you would be able to
structurally secure your home during the build-
ing stages in order to protect it from the heavy
winds tornadoes bring, but few people have
this option. If you live in a tornado-prone area, it
is likely that certain measures have been taken
to reinforce your home, especially for newer
houses. Modern building code protects homes
from weaker tornadoes, around 90 mph winds,
but when violent winds hit, it is likely that they
will start to buckle.
If possible, anyone renovating a home
should be careful to have the roof firmly con-
nected to the walls, and the walls firmly con-
nected to the foundation, because this has
shown to withstand tornadoes much better.
Easier home fixes would be to install impact-
resistant windows and outside doors, and
attach the doors with three hinges and a dead-
bolt. In addition, cut down dead trees or tree
limbs within close proximity to the house.
Always stay on top of roof, gutter and wall
maintenance, as any small issue could become
a huge one when a tornado hits.
Even after a tornado has passed, there is
chance for severe injury. Tornados tend to leave
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
a path of destruction wherever they pass—this
means stray electrical wires, sharp debris,
floods, fires and other hazardous situations.
Depending on how strong the twister was,
buildings could be collapsed and roads might
be blocked. Leave your shelter carefully and
move around with caution. Pay close attention
to fallen power lines and wires in puddles. In
addition, do not use a lighter or match in the
effected area in case of fuel or natural gas
leaks. Under no circumstances should you enter
damaged buildings without the proper precau-
tion or gear.
The best way to survive tornadoes, and
other natural disasters, is to be prepared and
pay attention. Many times before a tornado
hits, a “watch” will be issued. This informs resi-
dents of areas, sometimes up to 25,000
square miles, that conditions are
favorable for a tornado. It doesn’t
mean that a tornado will definitely
“THE BEST WAY
TO SURVIVE
occur; in fact, many times nothing
happens after a watch, but you
TORNADOES AND
never want to count on that. Keep
an eye out on the weather during
tornado watches. Dark, low-hang-
ing clouds indicate an impending OTHER NATURAL
tornado, as does frequent lightning
and hail. Often the power will cut DISASTERS, IS TO
out right before the tornado hits
BE PREPARED
AND PAY
because nearby power lines were
knocked over or damaged.
ATTENTION.”
Never just rely on visual signals,
however. In some parts of the coun-
try, large trees or hilly landscape
can block an oncoming tornado
from view, so always keep the TV or
radio on for warnings. Tornadoes form and
begin destructing within minutes, so take a tor-
nado watch as an opportunity to account for
everyone and prepare for the worst.
If one does form, a “warning” will be issued,
which means a tornado is imminent. Of course
it doesn’t mean that it will strike exactly where
you are, and if you’re one of the lucky ones, it
won’t; but don’t take that chance. The time to
gather padding and protective gear is not when
a tornado warning has been announced. There
will not be enough time to prepare at this point,
and many people have been killed because
they were trying to gather supplies after a
warning, but didn’t make it to a safer location in
DOOMSDAY
time. Take the time to ready yourself before and
once a warning has been issued, take shelter
immediately.
51
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52 TORNADO|PERSONAL ACCOUNT
DOOMSDAY
STORIES OF SURVIVAL
Michael Naruta
Michael Naruta recounted his experience dur-
ing a particularly brutal tornado in 1953—the
Beecher Tornado in Michigan, which resulted in
116 fatalities and remains one of the top 10
deadliest tornadoes in history. Back in the
1950s, there was virtually no warning for these
disasters—if you were lucky, you saw it coming
from a distance with enough time to take shel-
ter. Michael didn’t get a warning, and his story
shows how useful common household items
can be during an emergency; in this case, a
table, blankets and a flashlight—and why they
are still recommended as protection today,
some 60 years later.
Michael was in his farmhouse with his
mother and two brothers, Tom and Gordon,
when the tornado hit. He, Gordon and their
mother were in the kitchen when the tornado
blasted through their house, and the three of
them were lucky enough to get knocked down
next to their heavy kitchen table. As the tor-
nado raged, the table created a small space of
protection for them amid the collapsing walls.
Without the table, the three of them would
undoubtedly have been crushed.
Tom happened to be upstairs in his bedroom
during the storm, and he immediately hid under
the blankets on his bed. When the house col-
lapsed, the tornado threw Tom and the bed into
the front yard, where even more debris was fly-
ing wildly. Thanks to the blanket, Tom was not
seriously injured, although any sharp piece of
debris could have easily fatally wounded him.
Once the storm passed, Tom, who was out-
side the collapsed home, began yelling for his
family, and was relieved to find out everyone
was alive; but Michael, his mother and Gordon
were still buried under the house with no way
to get free. Luckily, the mother was able to
locate a flashlight and shine it through cracks
to signal to Tom where they were. Tom began
to dig an opening in the debris and was able to
get it large enough for all three to slip through.
Michael’s mother was bleeding from her
head and neck from the flying glass and nails
that struck her while she was shielding her chil-
dren and Tom was cut on his hands and feet
from digging through the rubble. Bad as they
were, their injuries were not fatal. Although the
tornado was over and the family survived, they
felt the aftereffects for quite some time. The
incident had destroyed their house, farm and
livestock, and it took decades for them to pay
off the debts they acquired after rebuilding
their lives from ground up.
Michael recalled how his mother made
them hide under their beds anytime a storm hit,
and he has spent the rest of his life afraid of
small, enclosed spaces. He took his experience
and used it to his and other’s advantage; he’s
studied tornadoes and participated in Skywarn,
a program that collects reports of localized
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
severe weather to help forecasters issue
weather watches and warnings. As Michael
stated, “It’s good to understand the phenome-
non. It helps remove the fear.”
 ASG-SIP-1412-TORNADO 11/24/14 12:18 AM Page 53

STORIES OF SURVIVAL

Wilma Nelson
When it comes to natural disasters, some
people get lucky and some people don’t, it
does not always matter who is more prepared.
One woman, 89-year-old Wilma Nelson has
had the terrible misfortune of experiencing,
and almost dying in, two severe tornadoes in
the same town.
The first tornado hit in 1947 when she was
just 23 years old. She was living in a duplex at
the time with a roommate, but was home alone
the night of the storm. Nelson recounts how
she could see a menacing cloud and worried
about a hailstorm, but she was not aware that
a deadly tornado was approaching because of
the lack of advanced storm warning communi-
cation back then.
When it did hit, it took her by surprise. As
Nelson rode the storm out under her dining
room table, the tornado, the deadliest in Okla-
homa’s history, essentially leveled her town of
Woodward and killed 116 people. The tornado
influenced the creation of the watch and warn-
ing program, which saved Nelson’s life the sec-
ond time around.
The second tornado was in 2012, and this
time Nelson was prepared. Her walk-in closet
was stocked with nonperishable foods, water,
tissues, scissors, pliers, a whistle and flash-
lights. The night of the second Woodward tor-
nado, Nelson got into bed and, with her cell
phone and glasses close by, listened to her
weather radio. A tornado had been spotted
about seven miles away from Woodward and
was reportedly moving fast.
When the town’s sirens sounded, Nelson
quickly made her way to the closet and got the
door shut right as the tornado hit her street. closet. Nelson was okay, but six fellow Wood-
According to Nelson, it sounded like a bomb ward residents had been killed in the twister.
went off, and her roof was ripped away from Despite having survived two tragedies and
the house. A wood panel fell on her head but losing her home, Nelson remains positive, “I’m
she remained as calm as she could. The door just pretty tough. I’ve just had to learn to be
was blocked by debris after the tornado strong. If life deals you lemons, you make
passed, trapping her inside; but Nelson’s neigh- lemonade, that’s my philosophy, and you do
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

bors came looking for her right away and were whatever you have to do and you take it on the
DOOMSDAY

calling out her name. She shined one of her chin ... and if good things come, you rejoice.” Her
flashlights through the cracks so they could advice to others? “Get you a weather radio,
locate her and they quickly got her out of the because it saved my life.”

53
ASG-SIP-1412-TORNADO 11/24/14 12:18 AM Page 54
54 TORNADO|IN THE PAST
DOOMSDAY
The Tri-State Tornado
of 1925
The Tri-State Tornado, which trekked about
200 miles in 3.5 hours (the longest recorded
tornado in history) and ruined 13 counties in
Missouri, Illinois and Indiana in 1925, remains
the deadliest tornado in U.S. history. This FE5
twister was among a larger tornado outbreak
on March 18, 1925 across Tennessee, Kentucky,
Indiana, Alabama and Kansas.
This outbreak was spurred by severe thun-
derstorms all over the Midwest and the South,
and there were some reports of hail and strong
winds. These supercell thunderstorms began in
the afternoon and quickly condensed into a
squall line, or a line of thunderstorms that form
along a cold front and contain hail, heavy pre-
cipitation, lightning, and can often produce
waterspouts and tornadoes.
Although no one factor present in the
atmosphere that fateful day accounts for the
exceptionally long path and duration, the com-
bination of a variety of elements may have con-
tributed to its severity.
The tri-state tornado formed at about 12:40
p.m. and was reported to be a relatively little
condensation funnel in Missouri. Although the
size was small at first, the tri-state tornado
alone would cause 695 fatalities over the next
few hours. As the tornado made its way
through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, it
destroyed 15,000 houses, caused $16.5 million
worth of damage ($1.4 billion by today’s stan-
dards), killed at least 695 people and injured
2,027. The entire town of Gorham, Illinois was
essentially obliterated. Almost every building
was flattened, railroad tracks were ripped from
the ground and more than half of the town’s
population was killed or injured.
In Murphysboro, a total of 234 people were
killed, which is the most deaths caused by a
tornado in a single town. The tornado
destroyed about 100 square blocks in the town,
and an additional 70 were ruined from resulting
fires. West Frankfort, a mining town in Illinois,
experienced significant loss as well. When the
tornado struck, most men were underground in
the mine, and therefore safe from the disaster.
After the power in the mine went out they came
to the surface to see what had hap-
pened, and found a destroyed town.
With the men protected, almost all of
the 148 deaths and 400 injuries were
women and children.
The total tri-state death toll is
more than double the second most
deadly tornado in the U.S. in 1840.
Outside of fatalities and injuries, the
tornado left thousands without
homes and there were many reports
of fires and looting around the
affected areas. Nine schools were
destroyed during the disaster and 69
students were killed.
There have been debates over
whether the destruction was caused
by a single tornado or a family of tor-
nadoes, and despite exhaustive
research there has been no clear con-
clusion. Most scientists agree that,
while there may have been multiple
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
tornadoes at the beginning and end
of the long track, the majority of the
widespread damage was caused by
one continuous tornado.
 ASG-SIP-1412-TORNADO 11/24/14 12:18 AM Page 55

Joplin Tornado of 2011

Yet another disastrous tornado occurred in
Joplin, Missouri occurred in 2011. Part of a
larger tornado outbreak, this multiple-vortex
tornado struck the town on May 22, 2011 and
had an almost mile wide reach. The twister
caused 158 fatalities, an additional two indi-
rect deaths, 1,150 injuries and $2.8 billion
worth of damages. When it first hit ground, the
tornado was at an EF0 intensity, but it picked
up steam as it traveled towards Joplin and
eventually reached EF5.
The damage from the tornado in Joplin was
catastrophic. Three hundred-pound concrete
parking stops fixed with rebar were thrown
yards away, something that could only have
happened with winds that exceeded 200 mph,
as one wind engineer was able to determine. St.
John’s Regional Medical Center also suffered
heavy damage, so bad, in fact, that it was
deemed structurally compromised after the
storm and was torn down. The building lost “THE TORNADO WAS TOO STRONG,
windows, walls and part of its roof and six peo-
ple were killed. HOWEVER, AND IT SUCKED LUCAS
The tornado maintained its strength as it
destroyed buildings, a church and even Joplin
INTO THE STORM, WHERE HE DIED.”
High School, although luckily, the graduation
ceremony was that day and the students were
three miles away at a different venue.
The mile-wide tornado hit a Pizza Hut, damage in the future, Joplin officials
where the manager had herded the four announced that they would require all houses
employees and 15 customers into the walk-in to have hurricane ties, or fasteners between
freezer. The door was unable to close, so the houses and the foundation. However they
manager, Christopher Lucas, tied a bungee rejected a proposal that would require concrete
cable to the door and wrapped it around his basements in new homes. Only 28 percent of
arm to keep it shut. The tornado was too new homes in Joplin had basements as of
strong, however, and it sucked Lucas into the 2009, and 54 percent of the fatalities occurred
storm, where he died. His efforts were not in within residences.
vain though, his selfless act managed to save Following the storm there was a dispute
the lives of his employees and customers. Simi- over its intensity. One engineering study found
lar scenes were happening around the town as that there was no structural damage on par
the tornado continued to forge its path, stack- with an EF5 rating, but the National Weather
ing cars and throwing around 100-pound man- Service in Missouri reported that their team had
hole covers. It weakened as it made its way found evidence, albeit a small amount, of EF5
south to neighboring communities, where damage near the hospital, which they claim
minor damage was reported. could have been missed in the engineering sur-
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

A preliminary survey found that around 20 vey. This along with a variety of non-conven-
DOOMSDAY

percent of Joplin had been destroyed and tional damage indicators—the moving of the
about 75 percent damaged, including 7,000 concrete parking stops and manhole covers—
houses. In an attempt to prevent such severe led to a final rating of EF5.

55
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56 TORNADO|GEAR GUIDE
DOOMSDAY

Prevent Window Pains

Damage occurs when the strong winds get
into the house through a broken door, roof
or window. Although these wouldn’t do
much for the more severe tornadoes, they
could offer a decent amount of protection
during the lower-intensity ones. These
acrylic sheets can fit into window frames
and add extra fortification.
HDSupplySolutions.com

Head Protection
One of the main causes of death
during tornadoes is head injury, so
a simple bike helmet could pre-
vent fatal head trauma. Once a
warning has been issued, it would
be smart to put on a helmet just in
case; better safe than sorry.
SOSProducts.com

Stay in the Light

Flashlights are crucial to have during a tornado.
Power lines are often destroyed in the storms
and cut off electricity to homes, which can be
disastrous at such a chaotic time. Specialty
flashlights, such as the one above, are perfect
in emergency situations because they are
armed with AM/FM radios and have alternate
power sources, so a lack of batteries in a house
during a tornado won’t be a problem.
CampingSurvival.com
ASG-SIP-1412-TORNADO 11/24/14 12:18 AM Page 57

Portable Armor
Not intended to replace a safe
room, tornado shields add an
extra layer of protection and
are able to protect the wearer
from flying debris. This Tuuli
Armor Tornado shield was
tested by firing a quarter-
pound spike, a five-ounce
steel rod, and glass at the
shield at speeds of 200 to
260 mph; nothing penetrated
the shield. They can be used
in a bathtub, closet, car, base-
ment and most places you
would hide for shelter.
TuuliArmor.com

Sound Signals
In the event that a house collapses and the occupants are
buried under rubble, a whistle is a lifesaver. Without a phone,
it’s hard to signal for help. As rescue workers move throughout
the affected areas, a whistle could alert them immediately
where you are and possibly save hours of searching.
Coleman.com

Keep Informed
Similar to the flashlight above, this
hand-crank-powered, multi-use
tool is perfect in any emergency
situation. The mobile phone
charger with a universal adapter
provides enough power for a short
conversation, which could save
lives. Keep this crucial tool in your
designated tornado shelter,
whether it’s a closet or basement.
FireSupplyDepot.com
DOOMSDAY

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58 VOLCANO|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
ASG-SIP-1412-VOLCANO.qxp 11/24/14 12:14 AM Page 59
Fountains Fire
SURVIVING THE LAVA OF A VOLCANO’S ERUPTION > Story by Jeff Zurschmeide
Ask most people what they think of when they imagine a
volcano eruption and they’ll describe red-hot lava sluggishly flowing.
We’ve all seen the film clips of lava in Hawaii doing just that. But as hard
as it might be to believe, a river of molten rock is about the best possible
case for a volcanic eruption. For the most part, you can see those coming,
and they’re going to flow in a mostly predictable way. It’s the other kind of
eruption that poses an extreme challenge for survival.
of
There are about 1,500 active volcanoes in
the world, and 169 of them are in the United
States. Most of the world’s active volcanoes are
located along a big circle called the Pacific Rim
of Fire. If you draw a line around the west coast
of the Americas and out the Aleutian peninsula
and down through the east coasts of Japan and
Asia all the way down to Australia and New
Zealand, you’ve pretty much got it. Most of the
islands in the Pacific Ocean have a volcanic
component to them, too. Other volcanoes are
scattered around the world, including Etna and
Vesuvius in Sicily and Italy, Eyjafjallajökull in
Iceland, and some in the Caribbean.
DOOMSDAY
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60 VOLCANO|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Every year, 50 to 70 volcanoes will erupt. For
the most part, this is no big deal. They belch
some gas and ash into the sky, or send some
lava along a well-defined channel, adding
some real estate to the local map. But occa-
sionally, we get that other kind of eruption—the
ash and dust and mud kind. Volcanologists
have a lot of scientific terms for it, but the bot-
tom line is that a mountain just explodes, rain-
ing superheated rock and ash down on the
countryside for hundreds of miles in every
direction, while a combination flood and land-
Rules for slide of superheated mud and rock scrapes
Surviving absolutely everything off the landscape.
Volcanic This happened in Washington State on May
Aftermath 18th, 1980, when Mount Saint Helens erupted
with the force of 500 nuclear bombs. People
> Husband your resources were expecting an eruption, but no one pre-
carefully. You don’t dicted that the top and side of the mountain
know how long your would simply explode. The initial shockwave
stored provisions need ran at over 300 mph and flattened everything
to last. in its path. Then came the pyroclastic flow—a
> Depending on social wave of mud and rock hundreds of feet thick
conditions where you and measuring hundreds of degrees Fahren-
are, you may want to be heit. A total of 57 people died that spring
rescued or to keep a low morning, including those who defied warnings
profile until order is to evacuate and some who were in areas
restored. Be prepared authorities believed safe.
for either possibility. But the people in the path of millions of
> Any wind or distur- tons of volcanic sputum were not the only ones
bance will kick up ash with a challenging survival situation on their
and dust. When you hands. The ash and dust from the explosion fell
must venture out, wear as far away as Minnesota. The entire Pacific
good, all-covering Northwest was covered in a blanket of fine grit
clothes and the best anywhere from an inch to a foot thick. If you dig
respirator you have. a hole in the right place, you can still find a layer
> Wash your air filters of ashy clay a few inches down.
and keep them clean. If The survival challenge for anyone under the
they get clogged and umbrella of a volcano, and anyone who lives
you can’t breathe, your downwind of that volcano, is more subtle but no
other options won’t be less dangerous. Plus, there’s a tremendous risk
as good. of property damage that you might not expect.
> Get ash and dust off
your house and car as Yellowstone – The Big One
soon as you can use the If all that doom and gloom doesn’t have you
hose to clean up. Espe- thinking in survival mode, consider this: Mount
cially if rain is immi- Saint Helens was pretty small in the grand
nent, the ash will hold scheme of things. The great Yellowstone Crater
water and get heavy, is expected to blow at some point, and if it goes
putting a burden on up the way some scientists expect it will, the
roofs and gutters. resulting super-eruption could take out much
of North America entirely. The last time this
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
crater blew up, the volcano spewed out 100
million cubic yards per second, which changed
the climate of North America and may have
caused the extinction of large numbers of
species on the continent.
Yellowstone doesn’t look as imposing as a
cone-shaped volcano mountain such as Mount
Saint Helens or Mount Fuji in Japan, but it’s
actually much more significant. When you enter
the Yellowstone crater, it looks like you’re dri-
ving into a big valley. Don’t be fooled by the
size, though—it’s still a volcanic crater. And the
amusing tourist attractions like the Old Faithful
geyser indicate that the volcano underneath
that crater is alive and fully active.
Scientists believe that if Yellowstone fully
erupts, the ejection could cover most of the
western United States in ash, disrupting agri-
culture and wildlife. Up to half of the United
States could be rendered uninhabitable for an
extended period of time. An eruption of this
scale would devastate the global economy
and perhaps threaten civilization itself.
Surviving an Eruption Event
Your first challenge is to survive the actual
eruption. The best way to do this is by being
elsewhere when it happens. This is generally
possible because at least in the United States,
we keep a pretty close eye on our volcanoes.
The mountains usually offer distinct signals to
our scientists that indicate when an eruption is
likely. When the situation goes critical, you’ll
get an advisory to leave the area. You should
heed that advice and leave by the safest route
possible.
If you are caught by the explosion, you have
a decision to make: shelter in place or run for it.
If you believe you could be in the path of devas-
tation, then obviously running is the right
choice. No humans overtaken by a pyroclastic
flow have ever been known to survive. Such
flows are too big, too fast, too hot, and
absolutely deadly.
But if you are not in the immediate vicinity or
along any likely path of flows, your best bet is
to plan on sheltering in place. Seal up your
house as much as humanly possible. Seal up
windows, doors, fireplace flues, HVAC system
intakes and exhausts, attic hot air exhaust
 ASG-SIP-1412-VOLCANO.qxp 11/24/14 12:14 AM Page 61
vents, kitchen blower vents, crawl space and
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
basement vents.
The sealing job doesn’t have to be fancy or
completely airtight. You’re just looking to mini-
mize the amount of dust and ash that gets in.
You can use garbage bags and duct tape, sheet
plastic, tarps, even bedsheets. The critical thing
is not to let the ash get into your house where
you will breathe it into your lungs.
Once you have sealed your house, you can
hunker down there until the ash stops falling.
Throughout this process, normal lockdown sur-
vival rules apply. You will need to rely on your
stored drinking water and food. Utilities are
also likely to be out for the duration.
TIP: Your standard home hot water heater holds
30 to 50 gallons of drinkable water suitable for a
long-term lockdown situation.
Resist the temptation to go outside and
check on things while the ash is flying. That just
opens up the house to let ash in, and you’ll get
ash on you while you’re outside. But at the
same time, keep an eye on accumulations of
ash through the windows, because a great
weight of material is likely to be landing on your
cars, your roof, your gutters, and so on. When
this is all over, you’ll have plenty of time to exer-
cise your respirator while washing and sweep-
ing the ash away.
Surviving the Aftermath
While the actual eruption might be terrify-
ing, the real challenge with surviving a major
volcanic event happens after the mountain
ceases its destructive tear.
In the near term, a volcanic eruption pre-
sents the same challenges as an earthquake,
flood, or other natural disaster. Roads are likely
to be impassable, utilities out for extended
periods, and store-bought food will be thin on
the ground.
Your first step here is to rely on your stored
provisions. This is why you carefully planned
and purchased the food and water you need to
survive for several weeks. Standard rules apply:
do not be conspicuous about how well you are
doing, maintain a regular schedule of rations,
and quietly help out as you are able.
VOLCANIC ERUPTION SURVIVAL RULES
> Keep your distance. If authorities are saying there’s a good chance a Volcano eruption is
imminent, the best thing to do is bug out early and beat the rush. You should already have
your escape plan established, and the supplies ready to hand when the time comes.
> As much as possible, follow directions. Scientists who study volcanoes have a pretty good
idea where the mess is going to go. If it’s likely that the volcano is going to blow right
across your bug-out path, it’s time to change that plan, pronto.
> Pack the proper clothing. Volcanic ash is alkaline and not good for you. Wear and pack
plenty of good-covering clothing to keep ash off of you.
> Bring along eye protection to help keep ash and dust out of your eyes, and pack some
saline solution to rinse ash out of your eyes.
> Don’t forget to breathe—pack good filtered respirators if possible, and painter’s masks,
surgical masks, or even just a couple bandanas to keep ash out of your lungs. Volcanic ash
in your lungs can easily kill you.
> If you must shelter in place, turn off all vents to the outside. That includes all windows,
doors, ventilation systems, and so on. Don’t forget the flue in the fireplace! You want to
keep all ash and fumes outside.
> Once the eruption hits, try to avoid driving, or if you must drive, try to add extra air filtering
capability to your car. Volcanic ash does nothing good for cars, and will be sucked right
into your engine.
Volcanoes and Climate Change
In the event of a regional volcanic disaster in
North America, help should be on the way in
short order. Food will arrive and getting water
systems up and running will be a top priority.
But in the event of a nationwide or interconti-
nental disaster, things could look very different.
In recorded history, there are several
instances of major eruptions that have actually
changed the climate worldwide. What happens
is that the ash and dust get into the upper
atmosphere, blocking the sun and bringing on a
volcanic winter that can last for years. In
recorded history, we know that hundreds of
thousands have starved after a major eruption,
and in prehistory, it is thought that a volcanic
eruption nearly caused the extinction of
ancient man.
In that case, your long-term survival skills
have to come into play. Many of the local live-
stock are likely to be dead of bronchitis and
mechanical pneumonia from the initial erup-
tion, and those that are left may be struggling
to find suitable uncontaminated food.
Crops are likely to be meager or fail entirely
at a continental level if freezing temperatures
persist through a summer. When the normal
growing season is disrupted, not just sown
crops are in trouble, but even the wild-growing
foods that a resourceful person knows how to
exploit. In this case, you could find yourself
becoming a refugee, or at least bringing your
DOOMSDAY
precious stock of cash, metals, trade goods,
and skills into play to keep yourself fed, housed,
and healthy.
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62 VOLCANO|PERSONAL ACCOUNT
DOOMSDAY
STORIES OF SURVIVAL
The Moore Family
One of the most famous stories of volcanic
survival comes from the Mount Saint Helens
eruption. The Moore family of Longview, Wash.
had gone to a campsite about 15 miles north-
west of the peak of the rumbling volcano with
the intention of getting a front row seat for
some spectacular natural fireworks. The fool-
hardy plan nearly cost them their lives when
the eruption turned out to be far greater than
anyone could have anticipated.
The four members of the Moore family:
father, mother, and two children under five,
camped out overnight and awoke the next
morning to see the mountain going up, and the
cloud of ash and dust approaching them at
about 300 mph. Within moments, they were
engulfed in a fog of unbreathable silt and poi-
sonous gases.
The family described the sound of the
explosion as being similar to a troubled air-
plane—a low, loud rumble. Then they felt the
first pressure wave as the air was pushed
towards them by the force of the blast. The
Moores say that they could feel their bodies
being compressed by the shock wave.
Mr. Moore was frantically taking photos as
the cloud of dust grew around the mountain,
until he realized that he had positioned his
family far too close to the cataclysmic explo-
sion taking place just a few miles away. When
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he looked skyward, all he could see was black-

ness. The time to run was long past, and the
family car was a 2-mile hike away.
With no time to escape and only their camp-
ing tent for protection, the Moores had to think
fast—their childrens’ lives and their own
depended on their ability to protect themselves
from the millions of tons of debris headed their
way. The family decided to shelter in place at a
tiny cabin located nearby.
By the time the Moores made it into the
cabin, trees were coming down and the black
sky was riven with lightning generated by the
particles of ash and soot. The lightning was the
only source of light making it through the cloud.
The cabin was not sealed, and ash was mak-
ing its way into the structure, so the Moores
used their clothing and drinking water to create
makeshift breathing filters. By the time the
cloud passed and the eruption subsided to sur-
vivable levels on the next day, there was 6
inches of ash and dust covering every surface.
The Moores attempted to hike out of the
area and back to civilization, but with every
landmark changed or obliterated, they spent
another night outdoors in the wilderness before kind, and only a grate in the door to bring him
being spotted by rescue workers and evacuated fresh air. That miserable accommodation gave
by helicopter. him the protection he needed to survive what
Quick thinking and the chance proximity of a happened on the following morning.
sturdy shelter saved the Moore family from On the morning of May 8, Mount Pelée
what would otherwise have been certain death. erupted spectacularly, destroying much of the
There’s more luck than skill to this story, and island with a cloud of dust and gas that
the lessons are clear. It is impossible to know spewed forth at more than 400 mph. The tem-
beforehand what an eruption will do, and the perature of the erupted material surpassed
best place to be is far away. 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and almost the
entire population of the island was burned to
death or suffocated in the firestorm that fol-
August Cyparis lowed. Every building in the city of St. Pierre col-
lapsed, and Cyparis’ cell was covered in rubble.
Sometimes being in jail isn’t such a bad thing. After four days in the cell, rescue crews
Back in 1902, a man named August Cyparis arrived and heard Cyparis shouting. He had suf-
ended up spending the night in jail on the island fered extensive burns and barely survived. He
of Martinique in the Caribbean. The story is testified that all light vanished and extremely
vague, but it seems likely that Mr. Cyparis was hot air mixed with ash began flowing through
stuck in the clink for his involvement in a his cell door. He tried to block the flow with his
drunken fistfight. clothes, and was burned over much of his
But fortune often looks out for drunkards upper body by the hot air.
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

and fools, because the cell where he was In later years, Cyparis made a living telling his
DOOMSDAY

housed was protected by thick stonewalls in the story and showing the scars he sustained while
basement of the police station. He was alone in surviving one of the most intense volcanic erup-
this dank little prison, without a window of any tions in the history of the Caribbean.

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64 VOLCANO|IN THE PAST
DOOMSDAY
Mount Saint Helens
Eruption of 1980
The Pacific Northwest is home to many vol-
canoes, laid out in a ragged line from Northern
California up through British Columbia and
Alaska. About 7,700 years ago, Mount Mazama
in what is now Southern Oregon exploded and
collapsed. The Native American tribes of the
region recall the event in their legends as a bat-
tle between two giants. The eruption left the
United States with one of its most spectacular
formations: Crater Lake National Park. With
nowhere to go, snow and rain gradually filled
the volcano’s caldera, creating a pure and
beautiful lake. Scientists have measured water
temperatures and found that the water down
by the floor of the crater is quite warm—a sign
that Mazama is not dead, merely sleeping.
But as mentioned earlier, on the morning of
May 18, 1980, Mount Saint Helens, another vol-
cano in the Cascade chain exploded, killing 57.
The run-up to that moment is instructive.
The mountain had been giving clear signs
that it was active for weeks and months
beforehand. The day prior to the eruption, an
earthquake measuring 5.1 on the traditional
Richter scale emanated from the mountain.
Authorities had contacted everyone known to
be living on the mountain or in its likely flow
path to evacuate. One man, named Harry Tru-
man, refused to leave his Spirit Lake Lodge
home and business. Truman and his lodge now
lie buried at least 200 feet under the new sur-
face of the Earth. Other victims of the blast
included David Johnston, a volcanologist with
the United States Geological Survey. Johnston
was stationed on a ridge when the eruption
came. His last words on the radio were “This is
it” before he was consumed by the 300 mph
blast wave and lost in the ash.
The mountain blew out its top and
sides to the northeast, releasing the
devastating flows of mud and rock.
Some late evacuees were not able to
drive out faster than the mud flows,
due to zero visibility in the dust cloud.
President Carter, surveying the dis-
aster a few days later, compared the
destroyed area to the surface of the
moon, stating that the moon looked
like a golf course compared to the dev-
astation around Mt. St. Helens.
For weeks afterward, residents up
to hundreds of miles away had to wear
respirators and pay careful attention
to the air intakes on their vehicles, and
all filtration systems. Water supplies
were compromised and authorities
had their hands full meeting basic
public utility needs.
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO
Today, much of the area blighted
by the volcano remains stark and bar-
ren. Yet life began returning to the
mountain almost immediately. What is
more amazing is that the mountain is
rebuilding itself far faster than most scientists
expected. A new mountain peak is growing
down in the caldera, and it is already over 100
feet high just a little over 30 years later. It is fair
to note that we have not heard the last from
Mount Saint Helens, and residents of Seattle
now look towards Mount Rainier, while Port-
land, Oregon residents look to Mount Hood.
Both wonder when these mountains might roar
to life and change their verdant cities to blasted
wastelands.
ASG-SIP-1412-VOLCANO.qxp 11/24/14 12:15 AM Page 65
Mount Ontake Eruption
of 2014
Even with the advanced volcanic monitoring
and warning systems, the Earth can still sur-
prise us with an eruption. On September 29,
2014, Mount Ontake in Japan suddenly erupted,
killing 51 people. Over 250 hikers and tourists
were on the mountain that day, some at reli-
gious shrines or nature resorts.
The Mount Ontake event is known as a
“phreatic” type of eruption. That means that
superheated steam and mud built up near the
surface of the mountain and suddenly blew
out. Unlike deeper types of eruption, phreatic
events are extremely difficult to predict.
When the superhot steam pressure blew
out part of the mountain, a pyroclastic flow of
ash-based mud and gas exploded out of the
new vent. This material jets out at tempera-
tures more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and
at speeds greater that 100 miles per hour—
impossible to outrun.
Of the 51 people who died, most were
caught in the pyroclastic flow. Bodies were
found crushed by boulders flung out from the
explosion, or burned to death by the hot gases
and ash. These were the people closest to the
eruption site. The victims were on foot and
could not move fast enough to outrun the
deadly effusion.
Historic
Volcanic
Eruptions
and
Climate
Change
Mount Pinatubo in the
Philippine islands erupted
in 1991. Scientists estimate
that more than 20 million
tons of sulphur were dis-
persed into the atmos-
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO
phere. The result was that
world average tempera-
tures dropped by 2 degrees
Celsius that year.
Prior eruptions in 1815
in the East Indies and in
1783 in Iceland also had
Yet about 200 people did manage to survive measurable climatic
the eruption on Mount Ontake, primarily by not impacts around the world.
being in the path of the eruption when it hap- In that year, summer was
pened. Those who survived testified to a scene a no-show in the Northern
of biblical scale devastation. Witnesses hemisphere in those
reported that the sky was darkened and the air years. Unseasonable
was a thick miasma of smoke, floating ash, and frosts and snows contin-
choking fumes. Hot rocks fell from the sky, ued throughout both
ejected from the volcano’s new vent. years and up to 200,000
Rescue workers labored for days to account died of starvation due to
for the missing, and the death toll rose as the crop failure.
missing were discovered in the locations where Going even farther
the eruption overtook them. The search was back, it is believed that an
suspended and the remaining missing were Indonesian supereruption
presumed dead when a serious storm made about 75,000 years ago
landfall five days later. ushered in a small ice age,
The significance of this recent eruption on dropping global tempera-
Mount Ontake is that phreatic explosions may tures for years and sharply
take place at any time on or near a volcano. reducing human popula-
Volcanoes are often part of chains that are tions all over the globe.
linked by underground rivers of molten rock, All signs are clear: a
and small earthquakes are an everyday occur- true supereruption could
rence in these chains. When an earthquake too bring on a global winter
small for humans to feel changes the course of that could last for years or
underground aquifers, water may come into even decades. Crops could
contact with heat and flash into steam, creat- fail everywhere on Earth,
ing the perfect conditions for a phreatic out- leading to mass starva-
DOOMSDAY
break. Notably, there was another phreatic tion and the unrest that
eruption in the Philippines in 2013 that killed would surely follow.
five people.
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66 VOLCANO|GEAR GUIDE
DOOMSDAY

Respirator
This is a critical survival
item in your kit. If you
live anywhere near a
volcano, you need one
of these, properly fitted,
for each member of
your household. Vol-
canic ash is irritating to
any part of you that
comes into contact, but
especially to your respi-
ratory system and eyes.
NorthernTool.com

Eye Protection
Goggles are best here, something that will do
as much as possible to keep the volcanic ash-
dust out of your eyes. As mentioned above,
this ash is super irritating to your eyes. Make
sure you get a good pair for each person in
your household—and maybe a few spares.
Ordinary swimming goggles from the sporting
goods store will work, or welding goggles with
clear lenses.
BarzOptics.com
ASG-SIP-1412-VOLCANO.CX67 11/25/14 1:55 AM Page 67

Water Filter
In the event that water systems are down for
some time, you’ll want to filter any water you
plan to drink. The particulate ash will be the
worst, so think about getting more than one
filter because the filters may become clogged.
Katadyn.com

Flare Gun
If you did manage to survive, you’ll want to be found.
When the airplanes are surveying the damage, you can
send up a signal. In most cases of people surviving where
others did not, they survived because they were able to
alert rescuers to their presence.
OrionSignals.com

Sealers
Plastic sheeting such as painter’s
drop cloths and ordinary garbage
bags are perfect for sealing your
house against volcanic ash or
other airborne pathogens. Get
some bungee cords and duct tape
for sealing off vents like your fire-
place flue, hot air escape vents on
the roof, and the kitchen blower
vent. Don’t forget those attic and
DOOMSDAY

crawl space or basement vents.

HomeDepot.com

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68 SHOOTER|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

Flying Lead
SURVIVING AN ACTIVE SHOOTER SCENARIO > Story by Tori Tellem

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! A killing spree has

begun. It’s in a high school cafeteria and the freshman homecoming
prince has opened fire on his classmates using a 40-caliber handgun.
There’s no time to react; he is calmly shooting. Three students
instantly dropped to the floor from head wounds. Some students try
to run out of the cafeteria, tripping and falling over one another in the
frantic rush. Someone pulls the fire alarm and more chaos erupts as
students rush from the building. Others hide in classrooms. Within
minutes, the police arrive and find the shooter dead of a self-inflicted
gunshot wound.
In October 2014, the freshman homecoming prince at Marysville-
Pilchuck High School just outside of Seattle did just that.

What is an Active Shooter Situation?

The FBI classifies an active shooter as someone “actively engaged
in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated
area.” Some of the most common locations that make headlines
have been schools, workplaces, public gathering sites, and even
houses of worship. And these types of incidents are on the rise.
The FBI has identified 160 active shooter cases in the U.S. taking
place between 2000 and 2013. In these incidents, 486 were killed
and 557 were wounded. The shooters themselves are not part of
those stats. Of those incidents, 64 were considered mass killings—
three or more killed, according to a federal definition. The incidents
studied happened in both small and large towns, urban and rural
areas, and in 40 of 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The highest casualty count happened during the movie theater
shooting in Aurora, CO, in 2012—12 were killed and 58 were wounded.
In 2007, the shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Uni-
versity in Blacksburg, Va., saw 32 killed and 17 wounded. Most
recently, the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut incident
in 2012 had 27 deaths, while 2 were wounded.
In all but two incidents the FBI tracked, there was a single shooter.
In 64 incidents, the shooter committed suicide. And at least five
shooters from four incidents remain at large.
ASG-SIP-1412-SHOOTER 11/21/14 2:28 AM Page 69
The FBI report A Study of Active Shooter Inci-
dents in the United States Between 2000 and
2013 noted, “the findings also reflect the damage
that can occur in a matter of minutes. In 64 inci-
dents where the duration of the incident could
be ascertained, 44 (69 percent) of 64 incidents
ended in 5 minutes or less, with 23 ending in 2
minutes or less. Even when law enforcement
was present or able to respond within minutes,
civilians often had to make life and death deci-
sions, and, therefore, should be engaged in train-
ing and discussions on decisions they may face.”
Additionally, “The 15 incidents that occurred
in open spaces resulted in 45 people killed,
including 1 law enforcement officer, and 54
people wounded (including 10 law enforce-
ment officers).”
One pattern the FBI did not see? Similarities
in shooter ages; ages have ranged from 17 to 72.
Also, victims were “young and old, male and
female, family members, and people of all
races, cultures, and religions.”
“Active shooter incidents happen for a range
of reasons,” explained Jeff Zisner, president and
CEO of AEGIS Security & Investigations
(aegis.com), whose company offers security
training, including a workshop called Tactical
Response: How to Survive an Active Shooter.
“There are, however, trends and pre-incident
indicators that typically lead to such an inci-
dent and fall within several categories. Terror-
ism-related active shooters: attempting to
instill fear for the purpose of political or ideo-
logical gain. Victim: they were bullied—any kind
of environment—domestic dispute, or someone
they know was a victim. And mental illness:
Typically this in itself isn’t a pre-incident indica-
tor that would result in someone becoming an
active shooter; however, mental illness with
other environmental pressures may lower the
cognitive barrier to someone justifying the act.”
How to Survive
Officer Stephen Daniel of the Houston Police
Department told the Examiner out of Houston
back in 2012 that he doesn’t like to hear that
survivors of active shooters say they didn’t know
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
what to do. He noted a “survivor’s mindset” is
required, and “society has progressed to the
point where this is not an uncommon event. We
want you to know what to do.”
The best thing to do is get the hell out of the
area as fast as possible,” said Matt Klier, owner
of Active Shooter Defense School
(asdschool.com). “So if you work in a large
office building explore it, find all the alternative
exits and even use the staff maintenance exits
and elevators. Do this daily; learn your environ-
ment prior to an incident.” Having an escape
route in advance is key. If you’re at a mall,
where are the nearest exits? If you’re in a hall-
way, go to a room and lock the door.
“The first thing you should do is look for and
get behind “hard cover”—hard cover is anything
that will stop a bullet,” Klier continued. “Build-
ings, concrete, walls, the axle or engine of a car.
Stay behind it, get low, and move away if possi-
“…VICTIMS
WERE ‘YOUNG
ble. Avoid rooms without an exit.”
According to Pepperdine University’s emer-
gency information on active shooters, “Devel-
oping a survival mindset is first and foremost.
AND OLD,
Take time to understand your surroundings and MALE AND
environment before an emergency. If you hear
gunfire, “drop to the ground immediately, face FEMALE,
down, flat.” Also, move or crawl away from the
FAMILY
MEMBERS,
gunfire, and stay down. The university also sug-
gests tips like hiding behind furniture or finding
a room that locks, and block the door with
heavy furniture. Close the blinds and shut off AND PEOPLE
the lights, and definitely don’t look out a win-
OF ALL
RACES,
dow to see what’s going on.
The Department of Homeland Security sug-
gests remembering three key words for sur-
vival: run, hide, fight. By run, have an escape CULTURES,
route. Also, don’t try to move any of the
AND
RELIGIONS.’”
wounded. Evacuate, even if other people don’t
want to go with you. In terms of hide, be out of
the shooter’s view and stay quiet. This means
ensuring your phone or other noisemakers are
set to silent.
“If you’re caught in an open area such as a
hallway or large room, do what we call run the
walls. Staying out of the center of the room
allows for some concealment and may allow
you to slip out unnoticed, get low, crouch,
duck, hide behind desks, leap frogging from
one hiding spot to another,” explained Klier.
“Do not stay still unless it is absolutely the only
option. If you hear shots on the east side, go
DOOMSDAY
west! Do not panic, trust your instincts, and
get out! Run then run some more until you’re
sure you are safe.”
69
ASG-SIP-1412-SHOOTER 11/21/14 2:28 AM Page 70
70 SHOOTER|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
You’ve probably heard various suggestions,
such as run in a zigzag or play dead. Zisner of
AEGIS noted, “Playing dead may or may not
work—especially out in the open. It’s always
advisable to find cover/concealment than
being in the line the fire.” Added Klier, “Hitting
a fast-moving target at a long range is very
difficult even for professional shooters, so yes,
run, leap, hide, bounce, zigzag and get to cover
then repeat.”
Fight or Flight?
Fighting with the shooter is a last resort,
such as if the shooter enters the room you’re in.
Make plans with others on what to do prior to
this possibility. If the situation requires this, you
will want to try to seem larger than life and dis-
play a lot of physical aggression, have impro-
vised weapons, and throw things at the
shooter. “Commit to your actions,” advised the
Department of Homeland Security. “If you’re
close enough to rush the shooter while he is
reloading, and of course strong enough, do it.
There’s great video of the guy shooting through
the White House fence and people rush him
when he reloads. And yes, they were success-
ful,” said Klier. “Bottom line: Going up against a
gun without a gun doesn’t have a high safety
rating…but it does have a success rating.”
In fact, the FBI study identified 21 of 160
incidents “where unarmed citizens made the
selfless and deeply personal choices to face
the danger of an active shooter,” and “In 11 of
those 21 incidents, unarmed principals, teach-
ers, other school staff and students confronted
the shooters to end the threat. In 10 incidents,
citizens, working or shopping when the shoot-
ings began, successfully restrained shooters
until police could arrive. And in six other inci-
dents, armed off-duty police officers, citizens,
and security guards risked their lives to suc-
cessfully end the threat.”
Pretend to be Dead?
About pretending to already be dead: The
situation depends. You may be able to stay
motionless or pretend to be unconscious.
“Playing dead may or may not work—especially
out in the open,” Zisner explained, who also
teaches a “Run, Hide, Fight” class. “It’s always
advisable to find cover/concealment than
being in the line the fire.” Klier added, “Playing
dead may be an option, but the last option, and
I would only do it if I had another dead person
to hide under.”
To help law enforcement or the 911 operator,
if possible take note of the number of shooters,
the location and what the shooter looks like,
the type of weapons being used and how many,
and how many victims their may be. Expect the
first officers on scene to not help injured vic-
tims; rescue teams and medical personnel will
follow in the next wave to do that. Put down
any items in your hands, and raise your hands
and spread your fingers, keeping them visible to
law enforcement at all times.
If you aren’t injured, you may be asked to
help move those who are to a more secure
location. And know that even if you’re OK, you
may be held by law enforcement until the situ-
ation is deemed under control and all wit-
nesses have been questioned.
ASG-SIP-1412-SHOOTER 11/21/14 2:28 AM Page 71
STORIES OF SURVIVAL
Shari Thornberg
On April 16, 2007, an active shooter incident
took place in the dormitory at Virginia Polytech-
nic Institute and State University in Blacksburg,
Va. The shooter then chained the doors shut in
a building and began shooting at the students
and faculty inside. Thirty-two people were
killed and 17 were wounded. Sophomore
Kristina Anderson told the Star Exponent in
2013 that she was in the back of her classroom
when she heard gunshots through the wall,
then suddenly the gunman burst into her class-
room, firing.
“My first instinct was to get down on the
floor and my hands on my head. I looked back, I
saw his torso, magazines and two hands out. I
knew to cover my eyes. Once he started shoot-
ing, it was very, very quick. He didn’t say any-
thing, he didn’t stop; he literally went down the
rows of people. It was very methodical.” She
was shot three times, including in the back. “I
just knew to hold on and that it would all be
over,” she said.
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS
PERSONAL ACCOUNT |SHOOTER
Shari Thornberg was a sur-
vivor of the Sandy Hook Ele-
mentary School shooting. She
told USA Today in 2012, “We
heard ‘pop-pop-pop, pop-pop-
pop,’ and I thought, ‘That’s a
weird noise.’ I first thought it
was the janitor taking down
risers and setting up tables.”
She then heard more shots
and screaming, and through the intercom
heard the janitor yelling, “Put the gun down!
Put the gun down!”
Thornberg and two coworkers locked the
door of the teacher’s room, “and the three of us
struggled to get in a small closet. We just
waited in the closet, saying The Lord’s Prayer
out loud over and over again, and praying for all
staff members and the children.” She described
it as “what seemed like forever.” The shooting
incident lasted only about 10 minutes.
In fact, the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity noted that active shooter incidents typically
end after 10 to 15 minutes.
DOOMSDAY
71
ASG-SIP-1412-SHOOTER 11/21/14 2:28 AM Page 72
72 SHOOTER|IN THE PAST
DOOMSDAY
Columbine
High School,
1999
On April 20, 1999, Eric
Davis Harris and Dylan Ben-
net Klebold killed 12 stu-
dents and one teacher at
Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colo. They both
then committed suicide
before law enforcement
entered the school. School
safety and law enforcement response to active
shooters became a nationwide discussion.
That same year, Supervisory Special Agent
Dr. Greg Vecchi, the unit chief of the Behavioral
Science Unit located in the FBI’s Training Divi-
sion at the FBI Academy, Quantico, Va., told
the Inside the FBI podcast, “School shootings
before Columbine in 1999 were handled by a
‘contain and wait’ approach. And what that
meant is that the police would build their
perimeter, have a perimeter, just kind of con-
tain it and wait. With Columbine and the
changes in behavior that that brought, as far
as a school shooter, that required what we call
an ‘active shooter,’ or a very active response,
because if you contain and wait, then people
will die because you’ve got the kids in there
with the guns. Then that was changed after
Columbine to active shooter, and that’s been
the mentality that’s been used to actually go in
after the subject, or after the offender, to pre-
vent further violence.”
Aurora, Colorado,
Shooting, 2012
On July 20, 2012, James Eagan Holmes, with a
rifle, shotgun, and handgun, allegedly released
tear gas in a theater at the Cinemark Century 16
movie theaters in Aurora, Colo., during a screen-
ing of The Dark Knight Rises, then started
shooting. Twelve people were killed, and 58
were wounded. The shooter was wearing body
armor, and apprehended by police. They later
found his apartment was booby-trapped with
explosives.
According to the Aurora Century 16 Theater
Shooting After Action Report for the City of
Aurora released in April 2014 by TriData Divi-
sion, “Overall, police, fire, EMS, and all public
safety agencies were able to overcome adverse
conditions and get patients treated and trans-
ported. No one died who could have been
saved.”
Additionally, “While there are things to
improve, as is always found in hindsight, the
City of Aurora should be proud of its response
to the largest civilian shooting in U.S. history,
and the largest mass casualty incident in
Aurora’s history. To repeat the key point, the
outcome could not have been better in terms of
lives saved and a rapid arrest.” Also to come out
of the incident was “the need to clearly define
threat levels and to distinguish between a ‘hot
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS
zone’ with active shooters and a ‘warm zone’
where there is concern, but no immediate
threat will be discussed further in the Fire/EMS
and the Incident Command chapters.”
DOOM_1412_73 11/25/14 2:17 AM Page 73

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74 GLOBAL PANDEMIC|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

C
ASG-SIP-1412-PANDEMIC.qxp 11/24/14 12:04 AM Page 75

Global Sickness HOW TO SURVIVE A WORLD-WIDE PANDEMIC > Story by Carrie Visintainer

Sometimes the worst begins on the most regular of days.

Imagine a family of four on a typical school day morning. They get dressed, eat
breakfast, watch for the school bus, and head off to work. But by mid-morning,
mom isn’t feeling well. She has chills, muscle pain, and a sore throat. It’s the
flu, it seems, which she finds strange, because she had her annual flu shot a
month ago. Yet many of her co-workers have been sick, too.
Mom goes home to rest, but by the end of the day she’s worsening. Within a
week, the entire family is sick. It’s then that things begin to spin out of control.
Mom’s respiratory distress becomes severe, but she’s turned away by her doc-
tor’s office, because they’re overloaded with flu patients and have no more
antiviral medication. In the Urgent Care waiting room, rows of people hack and
wheeze. Some are sitting or lying on the floor. Rumors spread that this is bad—
really bad—and that people are getting pneumonia and some are dying from
respiratory complications. Not only those in high-risk populations, like the
elderly and ill. Everyone is at risk.
Message boards, blogs, and forums permeate the internet, propagating a
wave of mass hysteria. Yet public health officials try to keep things under con-
trol. Calmly, they describe the facts. It appears that a new influenza A virus has
A. This colorized
emerged. Often called the “bird flu,” because it is carried by wild aquatic birds
transmission electron
like ducks and gulls, it’s what causes seasonal flu epidemics. But in this case, micrograph (TEM)
scientists haven’t seen this particular strain before, which means the human reveals some of the
internal structural of
population hasn’t had previous exposure to the virus and virtually no one is the Ebola virus.
immune. Current flu shots won’t help. The virus is very contagious. Young,
B. Influenza A H7N9
healthy people are at risk. Cases are popping up in various countries around
as viewed through an
the world. electron microscope.
Of course, measures are being taken. Scientists are working diligently to Both filaments and
spheres are observed
develop an effective vaccine, but no one can predict when it will be complete.
in this photo.
Drug companies are making more antiviral medication. Travel restrictions and
bans have been issued in order to contain the spread of the virus. Schools are C. This is a transmis-
sion electron micro-
closing down one by one, both in order to protect students and staff, and also graph (TEM) of the
DOOMSDAY

so the buildings can morph into makeshift clinics. In the meantime, citizens are West Nile virus (WNV).
asked not to panic.

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76 GLOBAL PANDEMIC|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
What Causes a Pandemic?
This scenario describes a realistic example
of a flu pandemic, a rare global epidemic where
an infectious disease moves quickly, affecting
huge numbers of people in a short period of
time, spanning state lines and borders, crip-
pling the economies of highly affected nations,
and creating large scale serious illness. Unlike
an outbreak, which we hear about regularly on
the news and find listed on the Centers for Dis-
ease Control (CDC) website—diseases or nat-
ural disasters that are contained to a certain
country or region like the recent enterovirus
D68 in the U.S. or the Washington Oso mud-
slide—the global nature of a pandemic puts
enormous strain on healthcare and government
systems around the world, because mass ill-
ness means a shortage of hospital beds, venti-
lators and other life-saving equipment, sup-
plies, and health care professionals.
Fear and panic are key factors in a pan-
demic. So are the tricky properties of viruses.
They are unpredictable, sometimes lying dor-
mant for months or years without causing ill-
ness. Or they unexpectedly mutate—change
form—into a new, unfamiliar version that scien-
tists haven’t seen, meaning there’s no vaccine.
Maybe the new version transmits in a new way,
such as through the air instead of only through
bodily fluids, causing extra cause for alarm. Or
the virus doesn’t respond to medication. Per-
haps it preys on the immune systems of per-
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
ASG-SIP-1412-PANDEMIC.qxp 11/24/14 12:04 AM Page 77

“…THE NOTORIOUSLY
DEADLY H1N1 FLU
PANDEMIC INFECTED
500 MILLION PEOPLE
ACROSS THE WORLD
WITH INCREDIBLE
ENDURANCE…”
fectly healthy people—the prime gene pool—
instead of the sick and elderly. There are so
many possibilities.
Because of this, the reality is that public
health officials agree that a future pandemic—
and the flu is a major concern—isn’t a matter of
if, it’s a matter of when. One must only look
back at history to see the reason for this predic-
tion. Various examples come to mind. For
starters, in 1918, the notoriously deadly H1N1 flu
pandemic infected 500 million people across
the world with incredible endurance, traveling
even to highly remote locations like the Arctic, Other Diseases
attacking the immune systems of primarily But pandemics are not lim-
healthy young adults. The U.S. death toll alone ited to only the flu. Consider,
was 675,000. Theories on how the pandemic for example, human acquired
began are varied; a couple of investigations immunodeficiency virus
point to Kansas. Another to China. British virol- (HIV/AIDS). Although the origins
ogist John Oxford speculated that the virus of the virus can be traced back to
originated in a troop camp in France, harbored Kinshasa, the capital of the Democ-
in birds and then mutating to pigs, which were ratic Republic of the Congo, in the
kept at the camp; eventually transmitting and 1920’s, the first cases weren’t reported until
causing aggressive illness in humans. 1981. HIV has been a particularly perplexing
More recently, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, virus for scientists to understand because it lies
commonly called the swine flu, comes to mind. dormant in infected individuals without causing
Originally thought to be an outbreak confined symptoms, sometimes for many years. Before
to Veracruz, Mexico, this strain never seen public education campaigns were developed
before in humans was detected in April 2009 in and HIV testing became widespread, people
a 10-year-old patient in California. More cases were unknowingly spreading the virus widely,
were diagnosed in California, and then beyond, often through sexual contact or by sharing nee-
and by June the World Health Organization had dles during recreational drug use. This caused
declared an official pandemic. According to the the pandemic to grow to alarming proportions.
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

CDC, in a one-year time span, the pandemic As of 2006, the CDC reported more than 65
DOOMSDAY

caused approximately 60.8 million infections, million cases of the infection and 25 million
274,304 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths in deaths in the U.S. Currently, more than 35 mil-
the U.S. alone. lion people are living with HIV around the world.

77
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78 GLOBAL PANDEMIC|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
“WHAT IF TERRORISTS DROP A
BOMB CONTAINING SMALLPOX
INTO THE MIDDLE OF A CITY?”
Bio Warfare
The other important factor in speculating
about the potential for another pandemic is
that Mother Nature isn’t the only culprit. Biolog-
ical agents, including bacteria and viruses, have
been used in acts of biowarfare and bioterror-
ism throughout history. These terms refer to the
deliberate release of a biological agent into the
air, water, or food, with the intention of sicken-
ing and killing large numbers of people. As far
back as 450 B.C., Scythian archers, part of a
group that ruled a vast region around present
day Iran, concocted a mixture of decomposed
bodies of venomous snakes, human blood, and
manure, and allowed it to putrefy. They dipped
their arrows into this concoction that contained
the bacteria of gangrene and tetanus, among
other things, and then shot these arrows at
their enemies.
The first recoded “weaponized” biological
agent in North America—smallpox—was used
during the French and Indian Wars in the mid
1700s. The commander of British forces in
North America formulated a plan to “reduce”
the size of the Native American tribes that were
hostile to the crown, so in late spring 1763,
when there was an outbreak of smallpox in the
garrison of Fort Pitt, blankets and a handker-
chief were used to collect the pus or dried
scabs from the smallpox sores of the infected
British troops and were then ceremoniously
given to the Indians. Native American tribes in
the Ohio Valley suffered a smallpox epidemic.
And much more recently, there have been
acts of terror involving biological agents that
concern officials. For example, in the
Rajneeshee bioterror act of 1984, salad bars in
10 restaurants in Oregon were deliberately
contaminated with salmonella by followers of
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, sickening 751 peo-
ple and hospitalizing 46. The anthrax attacks
after 9/11 also come to mind, as does the fact
that ricin has been sent through the mail to
political figures in the last year. Because of
events like this, contamination of public food
and water systems, and the use of the postal
system to disseminate pathogens, remain a
top concern, and public health and biosecurity
experts are always asking the question,
“Could this be done on an even larger scale?”
They spend a lot of time in committees brain-
storming possibilities. What if terrorists drop a
bomb containing smallpox into the middle of
a city? What if anthrax is released into the air
in a subway station?
As a result, after 9/11 and the subsequent
anthrax attacks, the CDC pooled its resources
and went to work developing a list of the bio-
logical agents that are potential threats in an
act of bioterrorism. They put them into cate-
gories based certain factors: their ability to be
easily disseminated, cause public fear and
panic, result in widespread illness and death,
and ultimately cripple the infrastructure and
economy of a society. Category A agents—
those that pose the greatest threat—include
anthrax, smallpox, tularemia, botulism, pneu-
monic plague, and the viral hemorrhagic fevers,
which includes Ebola. To make matters worse,
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
acts of bioterror create not only a public health
emergency, but a biosecurity issue that requires
an even deeper level of resources, investigation,
and surveillance.
 ASG-SIP-1412-PANDEMIC.qxp 11/24/14 12:05 AM Page 79
How to Prepare
In looking back at historical events, the good
news is that we’ve learned a lot from what’s
already happened—both through Mother
Nature and through deliberate acts—which
have helped take steps toward preparing for
the future. Strides have been made. For exam-
ple, scientists understand the HIV/AIDS virus
more clearly, and drugs have been developed
which treat symptoms, improve quality of life,
and increase life span for infected individuals.
In addition, screening for HIV has become
the norm in U.S. culture, and communities
around the country have dedicated time and
energy to raising awareness; educating people
about how to prevent infection and transmis-
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
sion of the disease by practicing “safe sex,”
such as using condoms.
In terms of the flu and the potential for
another pandemic, the CDC has come up with
simple ways to prevent infection and transmis-
sion. Four everyday recommendations that peo-
ple can implement include getting an annual flu
vaccine, covering your cough, washing hands
often, and taking antiviral drugs if you become
ill and your doctor recommends them.
Hospital preparedness for large-scale ill-
ness has also been a major focus. Post 9/11, the
Bush administration and future leaders have
allocated increased funds to helping healthcare
systems. This has meant purchasing more hos-
pital beds and equipment, developing commit-
tees that discuss evidence-based protocols
and procedures, and creating coalitions; part-
nerships between neighboring hospitals.
Healthcare systems are required to practice
mandatory drills, in which hospital communica-
tions staff announce a disaster, and volunteer
DOOMSDAY
patients arrive at the hospital and may be sus-
pected of having been infected with smallpox
or anthrax or Ebola. The front line doctors,
79
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80 GLOBAL PANDEMIC|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
nurses, and staff respond as if it were a real sit-
uation, containing the contagious patients and
initiating a series of steps of decontamination;
ultimately preparing for a real situation.
And science continues to leap forward as
well. Partially with government funding, virolo-
gists at major universities have been studying
biological agents of concern, including emerg-
ing viruses; gaining ground in understanding
their properties and behavior. In addition, some
researchers are partnering with pharmaceutical
companies to create effective vaccines and
antiviral drugs that can be stockpiled for use in
case of emergency. They are constantly work-
ing to predict what might be needed next.
With all that has been learned and with
ongoing efforts in place to improve current
emergency protocol—some of this gleaned
from the mistakes that have been made in the
current Ebola crisis—the good news is that
many experts believe we can survive a future
pandemic. In her recent book Scatter, Adapt,
and Remember: How Humans Will Survive A
Mass Extinction, science writer, Annalee Newitz,
captures this spirit of survival when she says,
“The world has been almost completely
destroyed at least half a dozen times already in
Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, and every single
time there have been survivors.” Thus, if we’ve
done it before, we can do it again. She cites
examples of how organisms in nature have sur-
vived harsh conditions—from cyanobacteria to
gray whales—and how we can learn from them.
In addition, she discusses how ancient tribes of
humans, specifically Jews, learned to survive
war and oppressive conditions by dispersing
and creating new communities.
On the ground in society, the CDC provides
comprehensive plans for how specific groups—
businesses, communities, parents, schools,
travelers, and health care professionals—can
prepare for a future pandemic. For example, a
five-step practical plan is suggested for reduc-
ing the flu in schools. Recommendations
include encouraging staff and students to stay
at home when they’re sick; covering noses and
mouths when sneezing or coughing; avoiding
touching your nose, mouth, and eyes to avoid
the spread of germs; washing hands often; and
disinfecting surfaces and objects.
Surviving a Global Pandemic
There are important ways for individuals to
prepare, too. According to the Emergency Pre-
paredness Center, an online resource focused
on practical solutions post-disaster, the best
way to survive a pandemic is to avoid getting
sick. Which means avoiding sick people. This
may sound obvious, but preparation for “avoid-
ing people and society” requires forethought,
and it’s important to develop a comprehensive
plan—focusing on both skills and gear—that is
appropriate and your family. Here are some
tools to get started.
Building Self-Sufficiency
If the pandemic is prolonged, which is a
strong possibility (remember the 1918 flu), it’s a
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
good idea to plan for societal shutdown. Sick
people aren’t going to be at work, and those
who aren’t sick may be at home caring for ill
family members. Many businesses may close.
 ASG-SIP-1412-PANDEMIC.qxp 11/24/14 12:05 AM Page 81

It’s important that you and your family are able

to live comfortably in your home, so that you
can implement your own form of social dis-
tancing. Recommendations include:
> Ideally, choose to live in a less populated or
rural area
> Install alternative power sources in your
home, such as solar panels and shingles
> Store several battery-operated lanterns
> Consider having a propane heater (and tank)
on site
> Store a radio with extra batteries in order to
listen to news updates
> Don’t forget entertainment. If you’re stuck
inside your home for a long time, you’ll want
things to do. Collect books, games, craft pro-
jects, and other activities you and your family
enjoy. Especially with children, it will be
important to make sure there is plenty to do.

Food and Water

If grocery stores shut down, or if the water
supply becomes contaminated, you’ll want to
make sure you have sustenance.
> Approach food stockpiling little by little until
you have about a month’s worth of food
stored. Each time you go to the grocery store,
buy few extra items; preferably things you are
already used to eating. Store them in your
pantry. If you have children, engage them as
you choose what to buy.
> Plant a garden. Even small plots produce a
significant amount of food. Depending on the
time of year, you may be able to eat straight
out of your garden. If you live in a place that
doesn’t have a year-round growing season,
learn how to can fruits and vegetables and
then add them to your stockpile for the winter.
> Learn basic cooking skills, and involve your
children.
> Stores water in your pantry. In addition, fill
empty jugs with water and put them in the
fridge and freezer. In addition, make sure you
have a reliable method for sterilizing tap
water, if this becomes necessary.
Medical Considerations
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
> Make sure you have a current medical history
on each family member
> Keep extra medications on hand for family
members who suffer from chronic conditions.
Don’t forget important toiletries like contact
lens solution, toilet paper, and paper towels.
> Make sure you have a first aid kit that
includes basic supplies for cuts, bruises, and
minor injuries
> Take a CPR and First Aid class to build your
skill set
Preparing for the Flu
Since a flu pandemic is one of the greatest
threats, the Emergency Preparedness Center
lists the following steps to take, in case you
get sick.
> Build up a supply of over-the-counter med-
ications like ibuprofen, acetaminophen and
cough suppressants.
> Stock up on energy drinks for rehydration and
replacing lost electrolytes.

In the case of a pandemic, hospitals will be > It’s also good to have a supply of rubbing alco-
DOOMSDAY

overloaded, and you won’t want to go near hol, disposable tissues, and a thermometer.
them, in order to avoid exposure. Plan in > If you are planning to travel, you can track flu
advance for what you might need. trends at Google.org/flutrends/us/#US.

81
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82 GLOBAL PANDEMIC|IN THE PAST

DOOMSDAY

Ebola Pandemic of 2014

There’s no question: The Ebola outbreak in
West Africa is on everyone’s minds, especially
because cases have begun to pop up in the
U.S.; the result of health care workers becoming
infected after treating sick patents. But what
does this mean for everyday people? Should
we be alarmed? The Centers for Disease Con-
trol (CDC) offers the following information
about the current epidemic.
What’s the history? Ebola was first identi-
fied in 1976 in what is now the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. Since then, outbreaks
have appeared sporadically in Africa. The 2014
epidemic is the largest in history, affecting mul-
tiple countries in West Africa. Scientists believe
that the fruit bat may be the host for the virus.
What is it? Also know at Ebola hemorrhagic
fever, Ebola is a serious disease caused by
infection with a virus in the Filoviridae family.
Scientists have discovered five types of the
Ebola virus, and four of these are known to
cause disease in humans.
How is it transmitted? People can get Ebola returned from West Africa with Ebola; a Liber-
if they come into contact with the blood or ian man who later died from the disease.
bodily fluids, such as urine, saliva, sweat, feces, Although mistakes were made and two health
vomit, breast milk, or semen, of an infected per- care workers became infected, experts believe
son. It is important to note that a person must that much has been learned. It’s difficult to face
be symptomatic with Ebola in order to transmit an unknown virus for the first time, and steps
the virus to another person, and direct contact are being taken toward better preparedness.
is necessary (i.e. the virus must enter through For example, immediate steps have been taken
broken skin or through your eyes, nose, or to offer additional training to hospital employ-
mouth). Ebola can also be transmitted through ees on how to combat the virus, including safe
contaminated needles or syringes, and through procedures for removing protective gear such
infected animals like fruit bats or primates. as gowns and gloves.
How do you know if you have Ebola? Symp- What can you do? The CDC recommends
toms appear two to 21 days after exposure and focusing on four priorities in order to protect
may include fever, headache, diarrhea, vomit- yourself from becoming infected:
ing, stomach pain, muscle pain, and unex- > Wash hands frequently with soap and
plained bruising or bleeding. It is important that water, and use an alcohol-based hand
a person seek treatment immediately upon sanitizer.
diagnosis. > Do not touch the blood or bodily fluids
Is there a cure? Currently, there is no FDA- (urine, saliva, feces, vomit, sweat or
approved vaccine or antiviral medication avail- semen) of a sick person.
able to treat Ebola. Thus, when a person > Don’t handle clothing, bedding, needles or
becomes sick, health care practitioners treat medical equipment that have come into
the symptoms. Recovery depends on the per- contact with a sick person’s blood or bod-
son’s immune system and the quality of care. ily fluids.
Are hospitals prepared? Texas Health Pres- Do not touch the body of someone who has
byterian Hospital treated the first patient who died from Ebola.
ASG-SIP-1412-PANDEMIC.qxp 11/24/14 12:05 AM Page 83
Brownells sells a comprehensive pandemic
kit that provides essential gear. There are two
options: the Essentials Pandemic Kit ($54.99)
and the Ultimate Pandemic Kit ($119.99).
Brownells.com
GEAR GUIDE |GLOBAL PANDEMIC
Items in the Ultimate Pandemic Kit include:
• Filter masks, 10-pack. Masks protect you from inhaling germs
and viruses. They are an excellent line of defense; not as protec-
tive as a hazmat suit, but much better than no protection at all.
• Nitrile Ambi Textured Gloves, 100-pack. Gloves are essential
when touching a person who has been infected with a bacteria
or virus, and they also protect against germs that may be pre-
sent on surfaces like countertops and handles.
• Biodegradable soap. Use this liquid soap to kill germs. It’s par-
ticularly useful for cleaning surfaces and for hand washing.
• Survival Towels, two-pack. These towels are very compact and
stored in sealed discs about the size of a half dollar. Unwrapped,
the towels are 13 x 22 inches. Use the towels and biodegradable
soap for frequent hand washing.
• Adventure First Aid Kit. This kit contains all supplies necessary
to treat minor scrapes, cuts, and burns.
• Zippo Emergency Fire Starter. This combination of supplies
allows you to boil water rapidly in order to sterilize a piece of
gear, such as a utensil that a sick person used for eating. Water-
proof matches in a sealed plastic tube are included, plus tinder
and match striker surfaces on top and bottom. The Jet Boil Zip
DOOMSDAY
and gas can are self-contained.
83
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84 CHEMICAL|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

Toxic Terror
HOW TO SURVIVE A DEADLY CHEMICAL ATTACK > Story by Kyle Chezum

You’re standing on the second floor of an enclosed shopping

mall, overlooking an atrium where hundreds of holiday shoppers stand
pressed together around a small stage in the center. A local blues band has
just started its set, and you’re getting into the music. The second floor, like
the lower level, is crowded with families and tourists, but the sounds and
laughter give the mall an upbeat, vibrant atmosphere.
As the band finishes its first song, you hear a loud pop from somewhere
in the crowd to your right, followed immediately by another from across the
atrium. You look, but don’t see anything out of the ordinary. The music con-
tinues. But you hear someone coughing, hard.
And then it happens.
Someone in the atrium below screams. It’s not just one person coughing
anymore—it’s 15 or 20, and then, without warning, it’s everyone. The crowd
surges and presses against you. You’re unable to move. Shouts echo through
the mall. A cloud of thin, colorless vapor drifts along the second floor bal-
cony and seeps through the railing onto the stage below.
You try to move through the crowd to get away, but your hands are shak-
ing and your vision is blurry. You’re finding it very hard to breathe. You see
bodies convulsing on the floor of the atrium, but your eyes seem unable to
focus. Something is very wrong.
In the next 30 seconds, you’ll either make it outside into clear air, or you’ll
end up like the others below.

What are Chemical Weapons?

Chemical weapons are substances or devices that take advantage of the
toxicity of various chemical agents to harm or kill humans. Highly toxic com-
pounds dispersed over a wide target area can result in significant casualties,
far more than would be possible with conventional weapons. Chemical
weapons are therefore classified as weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Though frightening and highly lethal, chemicals aren’t practical as
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK

weapons unless they are deployed effectively. Most chemical agents are liq-
uids at room temperature and must be inhaled into the lungs or make con-
tact with skin to produce any effect. As a result, deployment requires heating
or agitating the chemical such that it transitions from a liquid to a gas.
ASG-SIP-1412-CHEMICAL 11/24/14 12:01 AM Page 85

DOOMSDAY

85
ASG-SIP-1412-CHEMICAL 11/24/14 12:01 AM Page 86
86 CHEMICAL|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Chemical agents can be deployed directly
onto a target by spraying, dropping, or dump-
ing, or by placing exposed chemicals in an area
and allowing evaporation to draw the toxin
into the air. Alternately, chemicals can be
sealed within various munitions, including
“HALF A
bombs, rockets, and artillery shells designed to
release the toxin upon detonation or impact.
MILLIGRAM Chemicals in liquid form can be used to poison
water and food.
OF SARIN IN
LIQUID OR
Types of Chemical Weapons
Nerve Agents: Colorless, odorless, and
VAPOR tasteless, nerve agents are among the most
lethal chemical agents in existence. They can
FORM WILL be inhaled into the lungs in aerosol form or can
KILL AN
pass through the skin or eyes to enter the body.
There are a variety of nerve agents, but the
AVERAGE most well-known is probably sarin.
Like all nerve agents, sarin attacks the cen-
ADULT.” tral nervous system and causes muscle spasms
that paralyze the lungs, making breathing diffi-
cult or impossible. Half a milligram of sarin in
liquid or vapor form will kill an average adult.
Developed and used experimentally by the
Nazis prior to World War II, sarin did not see
battlefield deployment until much later, when
Saddam Hussein used it against Iranian troops
and Kurdish rebels during the First Persian Gulf
War. Sarin has been used against civilians as
well—on March 20, 1995, the cult Aum Shin-
rikyo carried out a large sarin gas attack in the
Japanese subway system that killed 13 and
injured thousands more.
Blistering Agents: These chemicals affect
the skin and lungs of victims, causing severe,
burning pain and chemical burns. Death can
occur due to respiratory distress caused by
damage in airways.
Mustard gas, also called sulfur mustard, is
perhaps the most infamous blistering agent. In
1916, German scientists Wilhelm Lommel and
Wilhelm Stienkopf designed a process that
allowed the Imperial German Army to produce
mustard gas on a large scale. As a result, mus-
tard gas saw frequent use in World War I. Its
painful and deadly effects earned it a fearsome
reputation among Allied troops.
Choking Agents: Chemicals designed to
kill via suffocation are called choking agents or
pulmonary agents. These chemicals cause fluid
to build up in the lungs and cause severe throat
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
irritation, coughing, and other symptoms.
Chlorine gas is a highly toxic choking agent,
and is known as the first modern chemical
weapon to be deployed effectively in combat
 ASG-SIP-1412-CHEMICAL 11/24/14 12:01 AM Page 87

when it was used by the Nazis against the
French at the Second Battle of Ypres in World
War I. The French suffered over 6,000 casual-
ties from the gas. Phosgene, another choking
agent, was also used extensively during World
War I.
Blood Agents: Blood agents are derived
from cyanide or arsenic and affect the body
through absorption into the blood. Blood
agents block the transfer of oxygen and carbon
dioxide among cells, literally suffocating the
body to death at the cellular level. Hydrogen
cyanide and arsine gas are two weaponized
blood agents.
What to Watch For:
Signs & Symptoms
Chemical weapons don’t behave like con-
ventional weapons. A thin, barely-visible gas
drifting from the back of an unmarked truck
seems at first less threatening than a squad of
soldiers wielding assault rifles. But the end
result is far more dramatic and terrifying.
Chemicals can be insidious. In the 1995
Tokyo sarin gas attacks, members of the Aum
Shinrikyo cult brought plastic bags filled with
liquid sarin into subway cars. The bags were
wrapped in newspaper, then discreetly punc-
tured and left sitting on the floor. Witnesses
saw nothing out of the ordinary—just a few
folded newspapers.
Most chemical attacks begin and end within
minutes. Recognizing that an attack is occur-
ring is critical to your survival. The only way to
determine whether an attack is occurring is to
watch for subtle physical signs and observe the
presence of symptoms in yourself or others.
> Thick vapor emanating from a suspicious
source, such as a vehicle, canister, package, or
luggage.
> Any low-flying aircraft that appears to be
“cropdusting” a populated area.
> Oily pools or a sheen of oily liquid on surfaces
in the target area. This would typically be
observed immediately following certain types
of chemical attacks.
Symptoms of Chemical Poisoning
By far the most reliable and effective way to
confirm whether a chemical attack is occurring
is to observe the symptoms of the victims. The
more familiar chemicals agents, like sarin, VX,
chlorine, phosgene, and cyanide, share many of
the same symptoms.
• Coughing
• Difficulty breathing
• Blurred vision
• Burning in nose, throat, and eyes
• Nausea and vomiting
• Drooling
• Headache
• Dizziness
Exposure to nerve agents will also result in
symptoms like the following:
• Weakness
• Convulsions
• Muscles spasms
• Loss of consciousness
• Paralysis

Physical Evidence of a Chemical

Attack
During an attack, you may not see, hear,
smell, or taste the chemical agent in the air.
This is part of what makes chemical weapons
so difficult to defend against. Detecting a
chemical attack before it occurs or while it’s
happening isn’t always straightforward. Watch
for the following.
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

DOOMSDAY

> Any suspicious cloud of mist or vapor, partic-

ularly if the cloud is yellowish or greenish in
color and appears heavier than steam.

87
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88 CHEMICAL|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
“SHOPPING MALLS, TRANSIT CENTERS,
LARGE FESTIVALS AND GATHERINGS,
SKYSCRAPERS, AND OTHER ENCLOSED,
CROWDED AREAS ARE PRIME TARGETS
FOR A TERROR ATTACK. ”
Mustard gas is a bit different than the oth-
ers. With mustard gas, symptoms do not typi-
cally appear until two to four hours after expo-
sure. The most familiar symptoms of mustard
gas include the following.
• Painful irritation, itching, and blistering of
skin
• Irritation and swelling of eyes
• Temporary blindness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Fever
• Diarrhea
• Weakness
How to Survive a Chemical Attack
A chemical attack could occur in one of two
ways.
Foreign or domestic terrorists could use
chemical weapons to carry out specific, iso-
lated attacks against civilians in public places.
Shopping malls, transit centers, large festivals
and gatherings, skyscrapers, and other
enclosed, crowded areas are prime targets for a
terror attack. Recent events prove that such an
attack is not at all improbable.
A foreign nation could resort to chemical war-
fare as part of a larger, sustained military conflict
against the United States. While much more
deadly and destructive, this scenario is less plau-
sible than the threat of terrorist activity on U.S.
soil. Nevertheless, the possibility of such an
attack exists, and preparation is key to survival.
What’s the real risk of a chemical attack
occurring in the United States? Some experts
contend that the risk is disturbingly high. In the
past several decades, multiple chemical
attacks have been carried out by unstable gov-
ernments and terrorist groups in various parts
of the world, notably the Middle East. Russia
stockpiled chemical weapons during the Cold
War, as did the United States. It’s not at all diffi-
cult to imagine some of these weapons falling
into the hands of terrorist organizations or
rogue nations, like North Korea.
An Isolated Terrorist Attack
Depending on the chemical agent and how
it’s dispersed, survival may be more a matter of
luck than anything else—you’re either termi-
nally exposed within a minute or two, or you’re
probably going to be fine. But this doesn’t
mean there’s nothing you can do to prepare. On
the contrary, this narrow window for survival
makes advanced planning and awareness even
more important.
Recognize that a chemical attack is occur-
ring. This is very important. If you fail to assess
the situation and recognize what’s happening,
you’re less likely to survive.
Don’t panic. When you panic, your breathing
speeds up, and breathing fast is the last thing
you want to do during a chemical attack. Rapid
breathing pulls in more of the surrounding air,
increasing your exposure to the chemical agent.
Get out of the area. This is your first and only
objective. If the attack occurs indoors, go out-
side immediately. Break a window if you must.
Speed is critical. Depending on the method
used to deploy the chemical, fatal exposure
can happen within seconds. Your odds of sur-
vival increase the faster you move. Once you’re
outside, head to high ground. Most chemical
vapors—like chlorine gas, sarin gas, and mus-
tard gas, for example—are significantly heavier
than air and will travel downhill.
Cut off and dispose of clothing. Remove all
clothing that may have come into contact with
the gas or liquid, but don’t pull your shirt off over
your head—this will allow the chemical to con-
tact the skin of your face. Cut off all clothing and
dispose of it by sealing it in plastic bags.
Wash your entire body thoroughly with
soap and water. This will remove any chemi-
cals remaining in your body. Don’t skip this
step. You won’t always be able to “see” the
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
chemicals on your skin, and the longer the sub-
stance is there, the greater your exposure will
be. A shower could mean the difference
between life and death.
 ASG-SIP-1412-CHEMICAL 11/24/14 12:01 AM Page 89

Seek medical attention. Depending on

the agent to which you’ve been exposed,
full symptoms may not set in for as long
as several hours. It’s a good idea to get to
a hospital or emergency room immedi-
ately, even if you’re feeling fine after the
attack. Be aware that in the event of a
large attack, local medical centers may be
overwhelmed with victims. Don’t let this
deter you—if the symptoms do get worse,
you’re better off collapsing in a hospital
parking lot than in your bedroom at home.
If the attack is very small, with just a few
people affected, doctors and emergency
room staff may not know what to look for
or what treatment to provide, so be sure
to tell them what happened.

Surviving Sustained Chemical

Warfare
Surviving sustained chemical warfare
is different than surviving a single isolated
chemical attack in a public place, and it
requires much more preparation. The degree to
which you are prepared in advance will deter-
mine whether you live or die.
Vacate the area. As soon as an attack
occurs, grab your bug-out bag and gas mask
and get to high ground. Don’t try to move
upwind or downwind from the point of attack—
if you try to go upwind, you’ll pass right through
the affected area, and going downwind will
only delay the inevitable. Instead, travel in a line
perpendicular to wind direction. This is usually
the fastest way to get out of range.
If you can’t get out, seal yourself in. If you’re
at home when the attack occurs and you’re
unable to leave, immediately seal all doors,
windows, chimneys, and vents with heavy
plastic sheeting and duct tape. Turn off your
heater or air conditioner. Your goal is to stop
airflow as much as possible until the chemical
agent has had time to dissipate or settle.
How long this takes will depend on the
chemical. Sarin gas, for example, is highly
volatile and dissipates rapidly in the air. By
contrast, the nerve agent VX is much more sta-
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
ment, as most chemical agents are heavier
than air and will pool in low areas.
Suit up. If you have a gas mask or a hazmat
suit, this is the time to use them. Put on your
gas mask first—your respiratory system is your
greatest vulnerability in a chemical attack,
regardless of the agent used. In addition to the
hazmat suit, be sure to stock multiple pairs of
thick rubber gloves and boots.
Test the air using a chemical agent detector.
These devices are relatively compact and not
too difficult to obtain. Having one in your home
could be the difference between life and death.
Avoid standing water and don’t touch wet,
slick, or oily surfaces. Chemical agents can cling
to surfaces for very long periods of time. As
mentioned above, the chemical VX can stick
around for months before gradually evaporat-
ing, which means any surface that appears wet
or oily could be harboring the deadly agent long
after the air is clear.
Stay secure until help arrives or until your
chemical agent detector registers that the air is
clear. Use your chemical agent detector to test

ble and can persist on the surface of an object the air every hour until readings return to nor-
DOOMSDAY

for days or months after contact. Stay indoors mal. If you’ve secured yourself in your home
and move everyone to the second floor of the and you lack adequate protective gear, don’t go
house, if possible. Do not hide in your base- outside until help arrives.

89
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90 CHEMICAL|PERSONAL ACCOUNT
DOOMSDAY
STORIES OF SURVIVAL
Tokyo Subway Attack, 1995
On March 20th, 1995, Yasuo Hayashi boarded
the subway at Kita-Senju Station in Tokyo,
Japan. He carried an umbrella, a newspaper,
and three plastic bags filled with a thin, clear
liquid. He had hidden the bags within the folded
pages of the newspaper prior to boarding. After
taking a seat, he set the newspaper and the
three concealed bags on the floor at his feet
and waited in silence as the train started on its
course, crowded with morning commuters.
As the train approached its second stop,
Hayashi stood and deftly jammed the tip of his
umbrella into the wrapped bundle. He did this
several times, his movements careful and dis-
creet. The train pulled up to Akihabara Station,
the doors opened, and Hayashi stepped swiftly
out onto the platform. From there, he walked to
ground level where a car and driver waited for
him and disappeared into the city.
On the train, several minutes passed with-
out event. But as the clear liquid soaked
through the newspaper and puddled on the
floor, it began to evaporate into the air, gradu-
ally drifting through the entire passenger car.
Passengers began cough, vomit, and convulse.
Other felt dizzy or weak and struggled to
breathe. At the next stop, a passenger kicked
the damp newspaper bundle out the door and
onto the platform, where the toxin continued to
evaporate and spread, but the damage had
been done. The train continued on through two
more stops as symptoms worsened among the
passengers, until finally someone pressed the
emergency stop button.
The sickened commuters stumbled out of
the train in a panic. Many collapsed on the plat-
form. Transit staff and emergency medical pro-
fessionals didn’t know what had happened or
what aid to provide. The punctured plastic bags
remained where they had landed, untouched.
No one knew what to do.
At the same time, similar attacks were in
progress on four other Tokyo subway cars. The
plastic bags contained the nerve agent sarin,
one of the deadliest chemicals in existence.
Each of the perpetrators used the same
method to smuggle the substance aboard and
release it—the bags were wrapped in newspa-
per, placed on the floor, and punctured. In some
of the other cars, the bags went undetected for
much longer, increasing the damage and delay-
ing cleanup.
In all, 13 people died in the attack and as
many as 5,000 were injured.
The attack had been organized and carried
out by the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shin-
rikyo, a secretive organization with millions of
dollars in cash and assets and more than a few
highly regarded scientists among its members.
The cult had produced the sarin from scratch.
When Japanese police raided an Aum Shinrikyo
compound following the attack, they found a
massive stockpile of chemical ingredients. Aum
Shinrikyo could have produced enough sarin to
kill 4 million people. The motive for the subway
incident remains unclear, but it may have been
an experiment, a test in preparation for a much
larger attack.
Chemical warfare is not a thing of the past.
While the international community has almost
universally banned chemical weapons, this has
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS
not stopped rogue regimes and terrorist groups
from employing such weapons to devastating
effect. Unfortunately, the threat of a chemical
attack today is all too real.
 ASG-SIP-1412-CHEMICAL 11/24/14 12:01 AM Page 91
History of
Chemical
Weapons
The history of chemical war-
fare is largely a history of
restraint and prohibition. Put
simply, no one likes chemical
weapons. Chemicals agents
are difficult to handle, control,
and deploy, and their lethality
often puts operators at risk of
exposure. The horror and
destruction of chemical war-
fare makes chemicals an
unsavory choice even for vio-
lent dictators and aggressive
regimes.
In World War II, the Nazis
refrained from using chemical
weapons on the battlefield
against Allied troops out of
fear that the use of such
weapons would provoke a
reprisal in kind. The Allies like-
wise did not use chemical
weapons against the Nazis for
the same reason. Neither side
wanted to go down that road.
At the Hague Conference in
1899, world leaders met to dis-
cuss and establish “laws of
war” for international con-
flicts. The attendees passed a
proposal banning the use of
artillery shells filled with poi-
sonous gasses, the first inter-
national chemical weapons
ban. More recently, in 1993, the
international Chemical
Weapons Convention led to a
worldwide ban on the devel-
opment and deployment of
chemical weapons, and signa-
tory nations agreed to destroy
their chemical stockpiles.
But despite efforts to rid
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS
the world of these armaments,
chemicals weapons have
played a role in many conflicts
over the past hundred years.
IN THE PAST |CHEMICAL
Halabja Massacre, 1988
From 1980 to 1988, Iraq and Iran waged
the longest conventional war of the 20th
century. Called the “Iran-Iraq War” or the
“First Persian Gulf War,” the conflict began
when Iraq invaded Iran in an attempt to
establish itself as the dominant power in
the region. Saddam Hussein, president of
Iraq, feared that the ongoing Iranian Revo-
lution could spread across the border
between the two nations and lead to inter-
nal uprisings in Iraq. As Iran wrestled with
domestic unrest, he saw an opportunity to
strike. The ensuing eight-year conflict
would claim the lives of more than
265,000 soldiers and 100,000 to 280,000 civilians.
During the war, Iraq employed chemical weapons to devastating
effect on multiple occasions. The CIA estimates that Iraqi chemical
weapons killed anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 Iranian troops. But
one specific attack—the Halabja Massacre—stands out both for its
destructive scope and for the nature of its target.
To understand the Halabja Massacre, you must first understand the
situation in northern Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam’s fears of
internal turmoil were not unfounded. Within Iraq, ethnic Kurds had sided
with Iran and established a resistance force to combat Saddam’s troops
in a region called Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq. Iran had begun a suc-
cessful offensive campaign into this region and had pledged to provide
supplies and weapons to the Kurdish rebels. Saddam, who had already
put down Kurdish revolts in the area, knew that swift, decisive action
was necessary to eliminate this threat.
On March 16, 1988, Iraqi aircraft dropped chemical bombs over resi-
dential areas in the Kurdish city of Halabja. It’s not clear which specific
chemicals the bombs contained, but CIA analysts believe sarin and VX
were the primary agents involved, along with mustard gas. The bombs
unleashed clouds of lethal gas that swept through the city and left
panic, illness, and death in their wake.
The full extent of the damage is impossible to measure. In the imme-
diate aftermath, the attack left 3,200 to 5,000 people dead and 7,000
to 10,000 others severely injured. The vast majority of those hurt and
killed were civilians, including many women and children. Health com-
plications as a result of chemical exposure killed thousands more in the
years that followed.
While chemical weapons had already been used many times in the
war, the Halabja attack was different. At Halabja, Saddam attacked
civilians—citizens of Iraq—in order to quench a growing revolution. The
international community later labeled it an act of genocide. Today, the
Halabja Massacre remains the largest chemical attack carried out
DOOMSDAY
against a civilian target and is considered the single most devastating
chemical attack in history, showing the full extent of the damage even a
localized chemical attack can cause.
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92 CHEMICAL|GEAR GUIDE
DOOMSDAY

Unless you plan to spend the rest of your

life suited up in full hazmat gear and a gas
mask, there’s no way to completely protect
yourself from a surprise chemical attack in
public. But there are a few critical items you
should keep in your home or bug-out bag to
protect yourself or your family in the event of
a large attack in your area.

Hazmat Suit
(Level A)
Nerve agents and blister-
ing agents can inflict
injury and death upon
contact with your skin. For
complete protection, a
hazmat suit is essential.
But not all hazmat suits
are created equal. In the
United States, various
Plastic Sheeting hazmat suits are ranked
Surviving a chemical attack is about according to the level of
reducing or preventing exposure to the protection they provide.
weaponized compound. As a result, a Make sure you purchase a
simple barrier will provide some protec- Level A hazmat suit, as
tion, and one of the best ways to estab- these are the only suits
lish a barrier is with industrial-grade plas- that can protect against
tic sheeting held in place by duct tape. chemical vapors.
Keep a stock of plastic sheeting in your EnviroSafetyProducts.com
home and use it to seal windows, doors,
and other opens in the event of an attack.
HomeDepot.com
ASG-SIP-1412-CHEMICAL 11/24/14 12:02 AM Page 93

Chemical Agent Detector

Also called a CWA (Chemical Warfare Agent)
Detector or TIC (Toxic Industrial Chemical)
Detector, a chemical agent detector is a small
device, often handheld, used to detect the
presence of nerve and blistering agents in the
Nerve Agent air. There are many such detectors available.
Antidote They work by pumping air through a glass
(Atropine) detector tube containing a chemical reagent
Many chemical attacks that changes color depending on the presence
involve nerve agents due to and concentration of the gas in question.
their high toxicity and SmithsDetection.com
volatility. Atropine, a sub-
stance derived from deadly
nightshade, can be admin-
istered via injection into the
thigh to help counterattack
the effects of nerve gas poi-
soning. Atropine can be
purchased with a prescrip-
tion or with authorization
from a physician. Another
antidote, pralidoxime, is
also highly beneficial, but is
not available to the public.
AceSurgical.com

Gas Mask
The most essential and recogniz-
able protective item for defense
against chemical attacks is the gas
mask. Make sure your gas mask
uses a filter containing activated
carbon. The mask itself should
cover your entire face and head,
creating a tight seal against your
skin. A gas mask won’t block
everything—at best, it will help
keep you alive a few hours longer
than if you didn’t have it. Even if
you’re wearing a gas mask, get out
of range of any chemical attack
DOOMSDAY

immediately.
BossSafety.com

93
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94 TSUNAMI|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Waves Death
SURVIVING A RELENTLESS WALL OF WATER: THE TSUNAMI > Story by Nikki Grey
Imagine a wave as tall as a 10-
story building that can approach land at 100
miles per hour. It uproots and destroys every-
thing it encounters from large trucks to entire
buildings. And then the wave recedes, pulling
the destruction back with it. More waves come
and then go back, between five minutes to an
hour apart.
Tsunamis are difficult to predict because
they can be caused by disasters across the
ocean. Entire towns can be demolished. At
times, thousands of people drown or are killed
when stricken by floating debris.
When the tsunami finally stops, missing
loved ones, power outages, lack of clean water
and more cause mass confusion. The devasta-
tion has only just begun.
What is a Tsunami?
A tsunami—harbor wave, in Japanese—is a
wave that can reach a height of 100 feet. Some-
times tsunamis aren’t large, breaking waves, but
appear as a rapidly rising water level, which is
why they are sometimes wrongly called tidal
waves. Small tsunamis happen almost daily
due to earthquakes and other disturbances, but
are too far away from land to cause any dam-
age. Wave trains, or the series of waves, can
of
travel as fast as 500 miles per hour deep in the
ocean but will only rise a few feet. In shallow
water, near the coast, the waves crash against
the ocean floor, lowering the wave’s speed and
raising its height. Waves recede and, if a reced-
ing wave collides with an oncoming wave, the
kinetic energy released forces the forward-mov-
ing wave to mount higher.
Tsunamis can be caused by underwater vol-
canic eruptions, underwater landslides, ice falls
and as a result of the impact from a meteorite
falling into the ocean. But the most common
cause of a tsunami is an undersea earthquake.
When two tectonic plates push together, it
causes an earthquake that pushes energy up
into the ocean. This displaces water, and lots of
it, in different directions, one into the sea and
one toward the coastline. By the time these
killer waves reach land, they are tall and power-
ful enough to sweep away entire villages.
About 80 percent of tsunamis occur within
the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire, a zone full of
volcanic and seismic activity. This is not to say
tsunamis that occur elsewhere aren’t danger-
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
ous. History’s deadliest tsunami occurred in the
Indian Ocean in 2004. Locations hit by
tsunamis include Japan, Hawaii, Chile, Indone-
sia and Portugal, to name a few.
ASG-SIP-1412-TSUNAMI 11/21/14 2:39 AM Page 95

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96 TSUNAMI|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Hundreds of thousands of people are killed
or injured in tsunamis. Victims— people and
animals—drown, are electrocuted or are killed
by explosions or floating debris. Tsunamis
destroy cliffs and beaches, along with trees
and vegetation. The rush of water ruins infra-
structure of homes, businesses and bridges
costing as much as billions of dollars in dam-
ages. Ships and large objects can be carried
miles inland, adding to the destruction.
Coastal areas flood, causing problems with
sewage and contaminating drinking water. Dis-
eases such as malaria spread. Sea creatures
can die from pollution in the sea. If a tsunami
hits a nuclear plant, as one did in March 2011 in
Japan, radiation can become a danger, which
can result in birth defects, cancer or death
years after the tsunami occurred.
This is all not to mention the emotional and
mental toll on those fortunate enough to sur-
vive. Victims often suffer from Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder years after the tsunami, or even
their entire lives.
How to Survive a Tsunami
The first way to prepare for a tsunami is to
know where tsunamis are likely or even possi-
ble to occur. Coastal areas near fault lines or
near volcanoes are obvious places to consider,
particularly if they are near the Pacific, but
tsunamis have begun and then raged through
entire oceans. Earthquakes as far as Chile have
caused tsunamis in Hawaii.
They can happen minutes, hours or even a
day after the initial earthquake (depending on
how far away it was). And just because a
tsunami hasn’t happened in an area or isn’t
predicted to happen in an area, doesn’t mean it
won’t. A tsunami can hit any ocean shoreline.
It might start as a mere rumble, but a loud,
roaring sound coming from the ocean could
also indicate a tsunami. Survivors have com-
pared the sound to that of a freight train.
Another telling sign that a tsunami may be
coming is a rapid fall or rise of ocean waves
near the coast. A receding ocean may precede a
tsunami by five minutes or fewer, according to
experts. So, if you see a rapidly receding ocean,
get out of there. Fast. (If you’re already on a
boat in the ocean, going deeper to sea would be
safer than trying to head toward the shore,
where the waves increase in height.) Animals
also tend to know when a tsunami is coming so
if you see some leaving, coupled with other
signs, you should probably follow suit.
Evacuate immediately if you hear a tsunami
warning. Do not try to get a closer look. Ever.
You’re too close if you can see it.
Know that there will be chaos all around
you if a tsunami strikes. The ocean will roar.
People will be running, screaming and even
dying around you. Staying calm can save lives.
Head for the hills or a mountain, anywhere
on higher ground (preferably 100 feet above
sea level) or travel two miles inland. If you can’t
do that fast enough, find a sturdy, concrete
building with at least 10 stories, as that’s as
high as waves can reach (but, if possible stay
away from buildings that are near water
because water can crack or harm walls). Go to
the highest floor or a rooftop. If you can’t do
that, climb a tall, sturdy tree and hold on. Stay
away from downed power lines or anything
could electrocute or fall on you.
Physical fitness can only help here. Being
able to run fast or having the strength, speed,
and agility needed to climb a tree, not to men-
tion be able to fit on a branch, could save your
life. If you aren’t able to evacuate quickly
enough, you can still survive if you’re a strong
swimmer. (Not a strong swimmer? Take
lessons.) You’ll want to know how to swim,
with debris such as parts of houses, large
trucks or ships coming at you.
ASG-SIP-1412-TSUNAMI 11/21/14 2:39 AM Page 97
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
Move with the current and keep your legs
up, so they don’t get caught on something that
can pull you underwater. Shed loose clothing
or anything on you that could get caught on
other items. Make use of anything you can use
to float.
Continue to be on the alert after the waves
begin. Just because you survive a first wave,
second or even a third, doesn’t mean you’re in
the clear. Waves can keep coming for as long as
an hour after the first. Wait until official word is
given that it’s safe to return. Get away from the
beach and stay away from rivers and streams
because tsunamis can travel up those bodies
of waters as well.
Although those tips may help someone sur-
vive during a tsunami, the best way to ensure
survival is to prepare before the first wave strikes.
Tsunami Warnings
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration has its own network of radio sta-
tions that broadcast continuous weather infor-
mation directly from the nearest National
Weather Service office. It’s called NOAA Weather
Radio All Hazards and it airs official Weather
Service warnings, watches and forecasts around
the clock. So listen in, if you know of a recent
earthquake or disaster. Sign up to receive early
alert text messages from NOAA’s tsunami warn-
ing center online at www.Tsunami.gov.
The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation
Program recommends knowing if your work,
school, your children’s school, or any other
place you and loved ones frequent are in a
tsunami hazard or evacuation zone. If they are,
find out the location’s height above sea level
and distance from the coast (you can use
Google Earth). This might affect evacuation
plans. Find out what they are. Knowing where
your children are supposed to be picked up in
the event of a tsunami is far safer than racing to
their school only to realize they’re gone and
you’ve put yourself in harm’s way needlessly.
Next, come up with your own evacuation
plan. Map out routes to take you to safety,
preferably at least two miles inland or 100 feet
above sea level. Think of alternative routes.
Practice so you know them so well that no mat-
ter what is going on, day or night, you can get
there. Make sure your family knows the evacua-
tion plan. If you’re a tourist, learn about the
places you are staying and visiting and plan
accordingly. Learn the local tsunami protocol.
Have an emergency kit ready (more on spe-
cific gear later). Basic supply kits should include
one gallon of water per person for three days; a
three-day supply of non-perishable food; a bat-
tery-powered radio with batteries; a flashlight
DOOMSDAY
and batteries; a whistle; a wrench or pliers; a
dust mask; a map; a cell phone with inverter or
solar chargers, and a manual can opener.
97
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98 TSUNAMI|PERSONAL ACCOUNT
DOOMSDAY
STORIES OF SURVIVAL
Paul Landgraver
The Indian Ocean earthquake that occurred
December 26, 2004 and resulting tsunamis
killed more than 200,000 people in more than
10 countries including India, Indonesia, Sri
Lanka and Thailand.
Paul Landgraver, a scuba diving instructor
who was in his early thirties at the time, sur-
vived the tsunami in Thailand. The morning of
the tsunami, the power flickered in his house
about 400 feet from the beach. He looked out-
side and saw people running up the street and
shouting. He also noticed smoke and dust,
along with brown water rolling toward his
house. Landgraver didn’t think much of this,
and attributed it to a “strange full-moon high
tide,” he later wrote in an article about the
event published in Esquire magazine in August
2005. He and his companion Karin went
upstairs to avoid getting wet. But the water
rose higher and higher, eventually caving their
front door in and rushing upstairs.
Initially the scuba instructor tried to throw a
mattress out of the window to float on, but the
water was too fast, so he jumped. Karin and
Landgraver were separated, and he was hit by
something and pulled under water. He strug-
gled to get back to the surface. He floated at
about 30 miles per hour, watching helplessly
as a man is impaled by a piece of wood. Land-
graver swam and avoided debris and trees. His
pants were caught on something, so he ripped
them off. A refrigerator struck him and he was
pulled toward a collapsing building, but he
kept swimming.
Landgraver said he survived by acting like he
was “whitewater kayaking,” according to a story
in National Geographic Adventure, published in
2009.
“I looked for smooth water, avoiding obsta-
cles by swimming left or right as best I could. I
tried to float as much as I could on the surface,”
Landgraver, who in just four minutes was taken
more than a half-mile by the tsunami, said. He
later reunited with Karin, who also survived.
Landgraver went on to found an organization of
divers that helped people affected by the
tsunami called Dive Aid.
Maria Belon
The 2012 movie, The Impossible, is based on
Maria Belon and how she and her family sur-
vived the same tsunami as Landgraver. Belon
and her husband, Enrique Alvarez, were enjoy-
ing Christmas vacation with their sons Lucas,
10, Tomas, 8, and Simon, 5, at a resort in Khao
Lak, Thailand. Belon was reading a novel by the
pool, while her children played in the water,
when she heard the tsunami coming.
“Suddenly we heard a horrible sound, like
the sound of thousands of big planes,” Belon
told People magazine in an article that ran in
January 2013. “Seconds later, there was a black
wall in front of us. I thought it was death. I
couldn’t imagine it was water. It was a monster.
The most horrible monster you can imagine.”
Soon after, the family was swept away by
the wave — Belon watched in terror as her hus-
band and Tomas and Simon were hit first. She
called to them, but it was too late and they
were all taken under. Belon was under water for
nearly three minutes before she emerged, badly
hurt with internal and external injuries. Sepa-
rated from her family and terrified they were
dead, Belon held on to a palm tree. She noticed
Lucas floating nearby and they held each other
in a tree until a Thai man helped them to safety.
Alvarez held his younger boys, until the wave
crashed him into a column on the ground floor
of the hotel. He clung to a tree and cried for his
family, because he was sure everyone was
dead, until he heard Tomas shouting. He went
to his son and they held onto another tree, until
they heard Simon calling out for help. Later,
Alvarez left his sons with a few other survivors
on the roof of a hotel and searched the hospi-
tals, finding Belon and Lucas.
For more than a year after the tsunami, Belon
was treated for her injuries in hospitals in Singa-
pore and in Spain, the family’s homeland. Belon
helped actress Naomi Watts depict her in The
Impossible, for which Belon’s family returned to
the resort that had since been rebuilt.
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO
ASG-SIP-1412-TSUNAMI 11/21/14 2:39 AM Page 99

“SECONDS LATER, THERE WAS A BLACK WALL IN

FRONT OF US. I THOUGHT IT WAS DEATH. I COULDN’T
IMAGINE IT WAS WATER. IT WAS A MONSTER.”

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100 TSUNAMI|IN THE PAST

DOOMSDAY

Japanese Tsunami of 2011

The fourth largest earthquake since record
keeping began occurred off the Pacific coast of
northern Japan on March 11, 2011. The 9.0 mag-
nitude earthquake took place about 15 miles
deep into the ocean at 2:46 p.m., Japanese
time. About an hour later, it caused a tsunami
with 30-feet high waves to hit the coast.
More than 19,000 people died and thou-
sands more were evacuated. By the next day,
six million homes—10 percent of Japan’s
households—had no electricity. One million
didn’t have water. (Smaller waves of about
seven to 11 feet reached Maui and the Big Island
in Hawaii; 3- to 4-foot waves hit Oregon, as
well. The northern port of Crescent City in Cali-
fornia was destroyed by waves, however, and a

“MORE man in Northern California was swept away to

THAN 19,000
his death by the waves.)
Thousands of Japanese rescue workers

PEOPLE
responded to the crisis, along with relief work-
ers from organizations such as the American

DIED AND Red Cross. Many countries, including the U.S.,

sent search-and-rescue teams. In the after-

THOUSANDS math of the tsunami, hundreds of thousands of

people were reported to be in shelters. Thou-

MORE WERE sands were stranded in areas that were hit and
waiting for rescue workers to reach them. The
EVACUATED.’ tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant by disabling its cooling systems,
causing reactors to melt. In a televised speech,
Emperor Akihito addressed the country and
urged people to “never give up hope, take care
of themselves, and live strong for tomorrow.”
Rare addresses such as these in Japan tend to
only happen in times of war or great crisis.
Months later, after continued nuclear power
plant issues, the head of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission warned U.S. Congress of
“extremely high” levels of radiation. Eventually
more people living nearby were told to evacuate.
Tokyo Electric Power Company admitted in
2013 that radioactive water from the
Fukushima Daiichi plant had leaked into the
Pacific Ocean. Cleanup of Fukushima continues
and is estimated to cost $50 billion. About 1.5
million tons of debris is estimated to be floating
in the Pacific, although it is not believed to be
radioactive.
Although there haven’t been cases of cancer
linked to the radiation, there are still health
concerns for those affected. Rebuilding efforts
near the nuclear disaster are slow. Public infra-
structure such as roads and railways have
mostly been repaired since the disaster, more
than half of the original evacuees remain dis-
placed, according to an editorial in The Japan
Times published in March 2014.
Valdivia Tsunami of 1960
The largest earthquake in recorded history
happened in Chile and caused a Pacific-wide
tsunami in May 1960. It took lives off the
Chilean coast, in Hawaii, Japan and the Philip-
pines. The 9.5-magnitude earthquake hit at 7:11
p.m. May 22 of that year, near the city of Val-
ASG-SIP-1412-TSUNAMI 11/21/14 2:39 AM Page 101
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
divia. About 15 minutes later, a tsunami, with
80-foot waves, crashed into the coastline near
Lebu and Puerto Aisen. Much of Queule, Chile
was washed away by the tsunami, although the
area was a mile away from the ocean.
The waves continued to rage in the sea,
traveling thousands of miles to hit Hilo on the
Big Island in Hawaii 15 hours later. Many resi-
dents in the bay area did not evacuate their
homes because previous tsunamis there had
done little damage. And the first waves were
only a few feet tall. The later waves, however,
grew to 35 feet, killing 61 people. The tsunami
destroyed more than 1,600 homes.
The shape of Hilo’s bay caused it to be hit
hardest by the tsunami. Other Hawaiian Islands
were only hit by waves ranging for three to 17
feet tall. The damage cost $75 million in
Hawaii, according to the United States Geologi-
cal Survey. Crescent City, Calif. was also hit by
waves about 15.5 hours after the initial earth-
quake, causing run-up, but no deaths. Damage
was caused to harbors in Los Angeles and Long
Beach; for the most part, damage was done to
small boats, with an overall cost an estimated
$500,000.
About 22 hours after the earthquake, the
1960 Chilean tsunami hit Honshu, Japan. The
waves reached 18-feet high and killed 138 peo-
ple, causing about $50 million in damage.
About 32 people were killed or missing after the
tsunami hit the Philippines. Southern Chile suf-
fered $550 million in damage.
The 1960 earthquake in Chile and resulting
tsunamis killed 2,000 people total; 3,000 peo-
DOOMSDAY
ple were injured; 2,000 became homeless.
Chile continues to suffer from earthquakes, but
none have been as large as the one in 1960.
101
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102 TSUNAMI|GEAR GUIDE

DOOMSDAY

It’s always a good idea to have a basic

survival kit at hand in case a disaster
strikes, but if you live in or are visiting a
coastal area, arm yourself with these Submersible
tools to make your chances of survival Two-Way Radio
that much greater. Having a radio to hear the
news and warnings
before, during and after a
tsunami is essential. If
you get separated from a
loved one and you each
have one of these, you’ll
be able to communicate
in all the panic. And, of
course, ensure the radio
remains functioning by
purchasing a weather-
proof device.
Uniden.com

Dry Bag
You might be wondering where you’re going to put all
this stuff while trying to escape a tsunami. A dry bag,
that’s where. Typically made of nylon and waterproof,
one of these is a must-have. Go ahead and put gloves, a
whistle and other survival gear in there, while you’re at it.
CascadeDesigns.com

Personal Floatation Device

PFDs, generally referred to as life vest or
jackets, provide buoyancy—the force in
pounds needed to keep a person’s head and
chin above water. (Generally, adults need an
extra seven to 12 pounds of buoyancy to stay
afloat.) PFDs should fit snuggly. Many PFDs
include extras such as a knife holder. PFDs
are also available for dogs.
RescueTech1.com
ASG-SIP-1412-TSUNAMI 11/21/14 2:40 AM Page 103

Signal Flare
Signal flares can shoot high
enough in the sky to alert others to
your location. You might escape a
tsunami only to get stranded
somewhere, unable to leave safely
or you may be too injured to move.
A flare can signal others you need Dry Suit
help and possibly save your life. Watersport dry suits,
OrionSignals.com unlike wetsuits, prevent
water from entering,
keeping you dry and
warm while immersed
in water. If you have the
chance to get one of
Water Filter these on before a
For survival, there isn’t much we tsunami strikes, do so.
need more than water. After a The suit can also pro-
tsunami strikes, there’s often tect the wearer from
chaos and it can be days or even polluted water and
weeks before help arrives. sharp edges of debris.
Depending on a few factors such WhitesDiving.com
as temperature and activity, a
person can live three days with-
out water. Water filters can
come in the form of micro-filters,
survival straws or even UV-puri-
fying water bottles.
Katadyn.com
DOOMSDAY

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104 ASTEROID|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

Planet
ASG-SIP-1412-ASTEROID 11/21/14 2:42 AM Page 105

SURVIVING THE CATASTROPHE OF AN ASTEROID IMPACT

Imagine this: NASA scientists have predicted an asteroid is going to drop from
the sky onto Earth. It would be more than a mile wide, traveling at about 20,000 miles per
hour. The impact would be comparable to 2 million atomic bombs. Hitting the ground would
turn whole cities into craters. Hitting the ocean could cause a Tsunami wave hundreds of
feet in height. The dust in the air would cause months of darkness. What exactly should you
do with information about a giant speeding rock careening toward Earth?
Basically, nothing. It’s probably just the plot of a movie.
“There are millions of asteroids out there in orbits that do come close to Earth’s orbit, and
impacts have happened many times in Earth’s past, and it will happen again in the future.
It’s just a matter of when,” Lindley Johnson, NASA’s asteroid expert and director of its Near-
Earth Objects Program, explained to American Survival Guide.

Killers
> Story by Tori Tellem
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
ASG-SIP-1412-ASTEROID 11/21/14 2:42 AM Page 106
106 ASTEROID|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
What is an Asteroid?
Call it a speeding rock in space, or call it a
small planetary body and one without an
atmosphere. Asteroids are usually found orbit-
ing the sun in what’s called the Main Asteroid
Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
According to NASA, asteroids are thought to be
“primordial material prevented by Jupiter’s
strong gravity from accreting into a planet-
sized body when the solar system was born 4.6
billion year ago.” The first—and largest—aster-
oid, Ceres, was discovered in 1801.
“An asteroid less than about 30 feet in size is
commonly called a meteoroid while still in
space before it hits Earth’s atmosphere, becom-
ing a meteor that burns up on entry before it hits
the surface,” explained Johnson. Asteroid
impact is what scientists consider a very low
probability, but high-consequence event.
“Once a year, there’s a car-size asteroid that
does hit Earth’s atmosphere and makes a fire-
ball spectacle of itself, then burns up before
reaching the surface. And every 2,000 years or
so, an asteroid about football-field size does hit
Earth and causes catastrophic damage to the
impact area. But it’s only about once in a mil-
lion years that something large enough hits
Earth to threaten civilization.
NASA’s team sets out to find any asteroid
that might pose an impact hazard to Earth, and
to know that information far enough in advance
to do something about it. Scientists detect any
asteroids in Earth-approaching orbits, “and
then we do what we call propagate the orbit,
which is to predict the movement of those
objects well into the future,” Johnson said. “In
fact, we’re pretty high precision now to 100
years in the future of where that asteroid will be
in relation to where the Earth is, and not only
the Earth, but also for all the major bodies in
the solar system.”
The group has already found pretty much
the entire population of large Earth-approach-
ing objects out there, anything bigger than
three-quarters of a mile across, even knowing
how big and small they are.
“As of today, we are tracking some 11,508
near-Earth asteroids,” noted Johnson. “Any
asteroid that would be the size that would
annihilate Earth, we have already found.” But he
also noted that there are estimated to still be
tens of thousands of asteroids larger than a
football stadium that can come near Erath and
are still undiscovered.
How You Can Survive
Here’s the thing: Earth is impacted by stuff
every day (like those meteor showers we rush
to watch), and the planet also collects about
100 tons of material a day, like sand and dust
coming in from space. And Mother Earth does a
pretty good job of protecting herself.
“The object is moving so fast, the mole-
cules in the Earth’s atmosphere can’t really get
out of the way so they build up pressure and
cause friction on the object. Enough heat and
friction on a smaller object in the atmosphere
cause it to break up, explode, and disintegrate
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
before it hits the surface,” Johnson explained.
“But a larger object coming at a high velocity,
its internal strength is greater than what the
atmosphere can handle, so it is able to make it
 ASG-SIP-1412-ASTEROID 11/21/14 2:42 AM Page 107
all the way through the atmosphere before
that pressure and heat build up to the point
that it explodes.”
The way in which we’re most likely to sur-
vive a true asteroid threat is based on the fact
that scientists, once the object is found by tele-
scopic surveys, can predict where it would hit
the Earth’s surface and would then be able to
evacuate the area, similar to the preparation for
a hurricane that’s heading for the coast. But
there are high-tech procedures that could pre-
vent this from happening while the asteroid is
still in space. It works like this: They find an
object that might be an impact threat many
years—if not decades—before possible impact
and put a force upon it that either increases its
speed slightly or decreases its speed slightly.
“You only have to change the velocity of an
object maybe an inch per second many years in
advance and by the time that it gets to where it
would have impacted Earth, it’s in a completely
different place in its orbit,” explained Johnson.
Smaller objects, say 300 feet wide, can be
hit with a spacecraft at a relative velocity to it,
like eight miles per second—the kind of velocity
orbital trajectories have. This technique is called
kinetic impactor, and it will slow down the
object, and then several years later when it
would have impacted Earth, it will be in a differ-
ent place of its orbit. Scientists could also utilize
a spacecraft for something called gravity tractor,
“where we hover in what we call a halo orbit in
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
front of or behind the asteroid, and mutual grav-
ity attraction between the spacecraft and the
object will eventually change its velocity and
have the same effect as the kinetic impactor.”
However, if there isn’t enough time for these
techniques to have an effect, then to get a
spacecraft to the object to be able to deflect it
or disrupt it, a nuclear device could be used.
In December 2005, President Bush signed
into law the NASA Authorization Act (also
called the George E. Brown Jr. Near-Earth
Object Survey Act), which stated, “the objec-
tives of the George E. Brown, Jr. NEO Survey
Program are to detect, track, catalogue, and
characterize the physical characteristics of “AS OF TODAY,
NEOs equal to or larger than 140 meters in
diameter with a perihelion distance of less than WE ARE
1.3 AU (Astronomical Units) from the sun,
TRACKING
SOME 11,508
achieving 90 percent completion of the survey
within 15 years after enactment of the NASA
Authorization Act of 2005.”
NEAR-EARTH
ASTEROIDS.”
The study team “assessed a series of
approaches that could be used to divert a
NEO potentially on a collision course with
Earth. Nuclear explosives, as well as non-
nuclear options, were assessed,” and “nuclear
standoff explosions are assessed to be 10-100
times more effective than the non-nuclear
alternatives analyzed in this study. Other
techniques involving the surface or subsurface
use of nuclear explosives may be more effi-
cient, but they run an increased risk of fractur-
ing the target NEO.
“There’s certainly no reason to panic that
the earth is going to be hit by an asteroid any-
time in the near future,” Johnson explained. “We
are tracking objects that are in orbits that
DOOMSDAY
approach the Earth, but none have significant
probability of impacting the earth in the next
100 years.”
107
ASG-SIP-1412-ASTEROID 11/24/14 12:48 AM Page 108

108 ASTEROID|IN THE PAST

DOOMSDAY

Asteroid Dangers,
1908-2029
There was a pause heard round the
world in 2004 when an asteroid about
1,000 feet wide was spotted on an
orbit that comes close enough to
Earth that initially it was calculated to
have some probability of smashing
into us in April 2029—Friday the 13th,
in fact. Its official designation was
2004 MN4, although the discoverer
named it Apophis after the Egyptian
god of destruction. Back in 2005, Paul
Chodas, an orbit analyst with NASA’s
Near-Earth Object office responded,
“We weren’t too worried, but the odds
were disturbing.”
The object thought to wipe out
Earth and dinosaurs 65 million years
ago was estimated to be about six
miles in size, “but we certainly would
know of any object that size now, and
there are none that big that will
impact the Earth any time in the fore-
seeable future nor thousands of years
into the future, as a matter of fact,”
Johnson explained.
The Barringer Crater in the Arizona
desert is a recent example of impact
on Earth, although by recent, it’s esti-
mated to be 50,000 years old. The
640-plus-foot-deep and mile-wide
crater was caused by an approxi-
mately 150-foot-wide, 300,000-ton
asteroid. Something like that “hitting
close to a metropolitan area would do
a lot of damage and there would be a
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK

lot of casualties,” Johnson said.

In 1908, an asteroid about 100 feet
in diameter blew up over a remote “…IT WAS CALCULATED TO HAVE SOME
part of Siberia, destroying more than
PROBABILITY OF SMASHING INTO US IN
APRIL 2029—FRIDAY THE 13TH, IN FACT.”
half a million acres of forest. And in
1989, an asteroid about a quarter-mile
wide and cruising at 24,000 mph
came about 450,000 miles from
Earth. Scientists believed the asteroid
and Earth had actually passed
through the same point in space by a
difference of just six hours.
DOOM_1412_109 11/25/14 2:20 AM Page 109

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110 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

Becoming
Self-Aware
HOW TO SURVIVE WHEN THE MACHINES RISE > Story by Joe Gurrola
ASG-SIP-1412-AI 11/21/14 2:47 AM Page 111
Technology is a beautiful thing.
It makes our lives easier and it has helped us grow as a
species. The life expectancy rate has increased by more
than 40 percent in the last 100 years due to our technologi-
cal advances. The computer that runs the smartphone in
your pocket is a 1,000 times more powerful and a
1,000,000 times cheaper than the most advanced com-
puter at MIT in the year 1970, according to famous futurist
and inventor, Ray Kurzweil.
But what happens when we get to the point where tech-
nology, instead of increasing our life expectancy, begins to
diminish it? The prospect of a reduced life span (or no life
span at all) is just one possibility when talking about a
potential Artificial Intelligence takeover. The disastrous
results of creating an artificially intelligent supercomputer
that we could not control would be devastating to the very
existence of the human race.
Realistically, there are a few different outcomes that are
being discussed by scientists and futurists. There is the pos-
sibility that humans continue the trend of using technology
as an extension of the brain (like our smartphones), to the
point that we retrofit ourselves with certain equipment that
changes the way that we think and how we experience the
world. This would be a sort of transition from human to what
scientists and philosophers are calling transhumans. That is,
a being that is built upon the biological structure of a human,
but who does not possess the feelings or desires that we tra-
ditionally associate with the human condition. Technology
would change human beings so much that transhumans
would be significantly different from human beings in terms
of their ideals and abilities.
Another scenario that has been discussed by philosopher
Nick Bostrom, and which is the most common in pop culture
representations, is the possibility of humans building a
supercomputer that decides that humankind is in some way
a danger to its survival or in the way of reaching its maxi-
mum potential. This sort of scenario has been the subject of
such films as The Matrix, by the Wachowski brothers and Ter-
minator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Either of these events would take place on a global scale
and would, more likely than not, result in the extermination
of the human species. These types of Artificial Intelligence
scenarios would pose an existential risk to humanity, one
that threatens not only to put a significant dent in the
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
human population, but to exterminate humanity altogether.
We would cease to exist.
“An existential risk is one that threatens the premature
extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life or the perma-
nent and drastic destruction of its potential for desirable
future development” (Nick Bostrom, “Existential Risk As a
Global Priority,” 2002).
As noted by Bostrom, humans have survived natural exis-
tential risks for centuries—one example being the Black
Plague. But the plague was not something that was actively
trying to kill us. A conscious supercomputer that was bent on
destroying us would be a far more dangerous and a most
likely unstoppable opponent. It would be smarter than all of
humanity combined, and, given the amount of interconnec-
tivity that will exist in the future, it would most likely know
everything about anyone alive.
So, when would such a thing happen and more impor-
tantly, how could we stop it?
The Singularity
Kurzweil has written extensively on the subject of Artifi-
cial Intelligence, specifically on the moment where Artificial
Intelligence surpasses all human intelligence combined. This
moment is called The Singularity. Many philosophers and
scientists believe that The Singularity will occur as early as
2040. The Singularity is something that is difficult to see
beyond, as it is hard to conceive of a world where machine
intelligence surpasses that of human intelligence. Philoso-
phers have borrowed the term “Event Horizon” from physics,
which is the moment just before an object is sucked into a
black hole, to describe how difficult it is to theorize at pre-
sent about what the world would be like post-singularity.
The Singularity could mean lots of things for humanity. It
could be the case that machine intelligence helps us answer
some of the biggest problems of the universe, such as “Why
are we here?” and “What is the purpose of existence?” That
is, we could use machines to our benefit and coexist with the
intelligence that we will have created.
Fuzzy feelings about The Singularity aside, there could
be a lot of trouble just over the event horizon.
Machine Takeover
Machine takeover seems to be the more obvious problem
in terms of pop culture awareness of the dangers of Artificial
Intelligence, but how exactly would something like Skynet, in
the Terminator films, actually take place?
Well, it seems that we would have to look to the future, to
that moment where human intelligence is surpassed by Arti-
ficial Intelligence. It is impossible to see beyond this previ-
DOOMSDAY
ously mentioned “event horizon,” but it is possible to theorize
about cases where even the most innocent uses of AI could
potentially lead to the extinction of the human species.
111
ASG-SIP-1412-AI 11/21/14 2:47 AM Page 112
112 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
Take a commonly used example of an artificially intelli-
gent machine that is given the task of making paper clips.
The machine could be making paper clips and realize that
the most efficient way to make paper clips would be to uti-
lize certain resources that humans might need, but because
it is programmed to make paper clips in the most efficient
way possible, it may utilize the necessary human resources
anyway. Even worse, imagine that the machine realizes that
being turned off at night significantly decreases its produc-
tion of paper clips and decides that it is going to stay on at
night instead. The machine would perceive the human desire
for it to be shut off as a threat to its end goal of paper clip
production, and subsequently seek to destroy any possibility
of being turned off by destroying human beings.
Obviously, this is an exaggerated scenario, but it illus-
trates the need for significant insight into how exactly the
artificially intelligent machines of the future will function.
Will these machines be able to understand the nuances of
human desires, or will they make the direct connection
between a programmed goal of efficiency and the ineffi-
ciency of human beings in relation to their production?
Unless we put significant efforts into finding the right
way to program our artificially intelligent machines, it is likely
that we will lose control of our own destiny.
The second scenario of a machine takeover is the one
where machines literally become aware that humanity
poses a risk to the existence and persistence of the machine
itself, and so it decides to destroy humanity in order to
ensure its own survival. This is pretty serious stuff, and if we
were ever to reach this point in our future it is unlikely that
we would be able to survive.
This sort of scenario would most likely happen because of
a lack of planning in the structure of the programming given
to an artificially intelligent machine. However, this could also
be an unforeseen consequence of reaching the singularity. It
is possible at the moment the first superhuman computer is
created that that AI could create other AI’s, which could then
calculate the danger humankind poses to its own existence,
and thus seek to annihilate the inferior species.
The machine takeover scenario is one that human beings
would have virtually no (no pun intended) control over. Even
some computer viruses now have the ability to evade dele-
tion, showing that they may have developed some sort of
“cockroach like intelligence.” Imagine that same desire to
survive in a computer with unlimited intelligence and
resources—now that’s scary.
Transhumans
The idea of Transhumanism comes from a philosophical
movement that took place during the early 19th century. Tran-
shumans are essentially human beings that have become so
intertwined with technology that they will have far surpassed
the capability of human beings themselves. Another word
used in common language for this sort of being would be a
cyborg, which is an organism that contains both biological
and technological materials as part of its person.
Why would Transhumanism be a problem? Well, there
are two realistic scenarios about why retrofitting ourselves
with technology would lead to some complications.
Technological Advancement to the Point of the
Loss of the Human Condition
If someone were to ask us what makes us human there
would probably be a variety of answers, but probably what
makes us human more than anything else is our conscious-
ness, our desires, and the way we see the world. All of those
things have the potential to change with the creation of a
transhuman species. It is possible that we could alter our-
selves to the point that we no longer think like human beings.
We wouldn’t have the same desires, feelings, or goals—we
would be changed not only as individuals, but as a species.
The scary thing is, this is probably the most foreseeable
disaster related to Artificial Intelligence. We already carry our
smartphones in our pockets and use them to answer ques-
tions and solve problems for us on a daily basis. Before the
21st century, the concept of being able to use a pocket-sized
device to literally have access to the entire Internet (essen-
tially providing its users a second brain) had not been real-
ized. Now I can use my smartphone, and if you ask me a ques-
tion and I don’t know the answer I can simply look it up and
most likely have the answer for you in less than 30 seconds.
Because of something called Moore’s Law, we know that
information technology grows exponentially. This law holds
not only for the power of the technology itself, but also for
the decrease in its size as well as a significant drop in cost.
So, using Moore’s Law, we can imagine that at some point in
the near future we will have machines that will be exponen-
tially smaller, cheaper, and more powerful than the ones we
have now. To quote futurist Ray Kurzweil, “the machine that
fits in your pocket today will fit inside a blood cell 25 years
from now.”
This exponential technological growth, coupled with our
ever-increasing dependence on technology, could have seri-
ous consequences in the future if we make the wrong
choices in how to use our technology to better ourselves.
Just imagine what it would be like to have access to every-
thing without having to interact with an external interface—
imagine having the same technological and knowledge
seeking tools that you have in your computer or smartphone
inside of your mind. Our dependence on technology for com-
munication is already having significant effects on our ability
to communicate with one another face to face. The way that
ASG-SIP-1412-AI 11/21/14 2:47 AM Page 113
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
generations are growing up now is significantly different
than just two decades ago. Our conception of reality could
change entirely if we had essentially all of the information
compiled online inside of our minds. We may end up living
more of our lives in there than we do in the outside world.
This kind of technological advancement could change all
of those things that we say make us human: our desires,
feelings, consciousness, and goals.
Subjugation of the Human Species by
Transhumans
The second issue associated with the creation of a tran-
shuman species is that transhumans would most likely be
far superior to their predecessors, homo sapiens. Many
philosophers believe that a creation of this new species
would most likely lead to the Transhumanists essentially
ruling the inferior human beings. This possibility would
essentially reduce human beings to the level of a chim-
panzee in today’s terms. Chimpanzees, because they live in
a human-dominated world, depend on human beings for
their survival. Human beings would most likely be subju-
gated and used to serve the needs and goals of the superior
transhuman species.
This possibility illustrates just how important preserving
our humanity is. We typically think of an Artificial Intelligence
takeover as machines trying to destroy human beings, but
we rarely think of it as us destroying our humanity, and thus
destroying ourselves. If Transhumanism were ever to
become a reality, then it is a very real possibility that human-
ity as we now know it could become extinct.
How Can We Survive the Rise of the Machines?
We may have to define survival when talking about the
potentialities of an Artificial Intelligence takeover. Since
there has never been a recorded event of this sort, there can
only be talk about the possibilities of what could happen
and how we could survive. And even then, the discussion
should not be one about the survival of the individual, but
rather one about the survival of the human species.
So then, maybe we need to redefine what it means to
survive. As was mentioned earlier in the article, human
beings have survived naturally occurring catastrophes like
the Bubonic plague, which wiped out a third of the human
population—but human beings were the most intelligent life
forms in that equation. That is, if there was a species that
could have figured out a way to survive something like that it
would have been, in all probability, the most intelligent life
form in the equation. But the paradigm shifts when we talk
about a potential AI takeover. Instead of it being a virus
spreading, it would be a super-intelligent entity that we cre-
ated intentionally trying to wipe us out of existence. That’s
scary. Not only would we be physically powerless to stop
something like a supercomputer, we’d also be exponentially
trumped in the candlepower category. We would no longer
be the smartest beings in the equation.
In our pursuit of greatness, we often tend to overlook out-
side factors that could be affected by our achievements. We
rarely ask, what are the ethical implications of achieving a
certain goal? Now, this question may not be a big deal if the
goal we’re talking about is paying off a loan or buying a
house; in those scenarios, the goal can most likely be
achieved with a marginal ethical cost. But when we’re talk-
ing about the potentiality of creating an artificially intelligent
supercomputer, we better think long and hard about the eth-
ical implications of our decisions and our goals.
DOOMSDAY
CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, was recently quoted
equating the creation of Artificial Intelligence with the
releasing of a demon in horror movies. Musk’s words were:
113
ASG-SIP-1412-AI 11/21/14 2:47 AM Page 114
114 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
“If I were to guess at what our
biggest existential threat is, it’s proba-
bly that… With artificial intelligence,
we are summoning the demon. In all
those stories with the guy with the
pentagram and the holy water, and
he’s sure he can control the demon. It
doesn’t work out.”
Not surprisingly, Musk’s hyperbole
was not taken as far-fetched by many
experts in the field of AI. The impor-
tance of understanding the conse-
quences of our innovations for our
species cannot be overstated. Evalua-
tion into the good that will be attained
with our technologies must be evalu-
ated against any potential harm that
could be caused because of it. Going
forward, the ethics of technological
innovation must be taken as a serious topic in the field of AI,
especially in the face of the coming singularity.
What Makes Us Human?
Another thing that we must do to ensure the survival of
humanity as we move deeper into the era of AI is remember
what makes us human and evaluate if our technological
advances are in line with the goals that we have as a species.
Obviously, the survival of our species is key, but so also are
our hopes, feelings, and consciousness. The preservation of
the essence of human beings must be an essential aspect of
AI research going forward. The transition from a primarily
biological life form like a human being to a transhuman one
with different cognitive processes, goals, and feelings is an
existential risk to biological intelligent life. If human beings
are transformed to the point where they no longer match the
criteria for biological intelligent life, then the existential risk
of AI will have been realized.
This is not to say that tinkering with our human bodies
would be all bad—we could potentially retrofit ourselves to
attain longer lifespans and higher order thinking, while still
preserving our emotions and other cognitive processes.
But it seems that part of what makes us human is our
curiosity and our inability to provide answers to the ques-
tions we have right away. Certain limitations and inabilities
seem to be an intrinsic part of what it means to be human.
As we strip more and more of these inabilities away, and as
we start to think differently, at some point would we cease
to love like we love, and feel like we feel? It is certainly imag-
inable that traditional forms of learning such as reading and
face-to-face teaching could become obsolete with our
expanded minds. And as the foundations of the way we
learn change, so probably will the
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
things we learn. What will it mean to
be human in a post-singularity world?
The question remains as to how
much we can change ourselves before
we begin to lose some of the intrinsic
parts of who we are. This issue, like the
ethical issues of AI, needs to be taken
seriously when discussing the survival
of the human species.
No matter how far our technologi-
cal potential reaches, we must always
be aware of the dangers posed by our
progress. We have discussed how even
a simple directive such as “make paper
clips efficiently,” could have cata-
strophic results for the human species.
Making sure that our technological
advances do not surpass our under-
standing of the way they work is crucial to maintaining con-
trol. We must be vigilant in taking all necessary precautions
to grow AI as safely as possible. Humankind has never expe-
rienced a threat that has the potential of Artificial Intelli-
gence. It’s important to keep that fact in our minds as we
move forward with innovation in this field, and as we move
towards the imminent singularity.
Preservation of Humanity
New technological advancements are being made every
day. The last phone I had was a flip phone with 3G. Now I
have a smartphone, and I feel like I can do anything on it. I
even feel smarter when I use it, and I noticed that the way
my brain works has changed. For example, I’m much more
comfortable with the app-based Windows 8.1 than I was
with Windows 7 after I began using a smartphone. My brain
is changing as the technology I’m using changes. But there
are also negatives to this advancement.
Dependence on technology significantly increases the
strain on face-to-face interaction. Walking into a restaurant
you’ll notice way more people on their phones than you
would have 10 years ago. There’s less talking, and more tex-
ting (and Snapchatting and Vining and Facebooking). Be
aware of the world around you and the people around you.
Don’t lose sight of what makes you human. It’s true that
we’re changing with our technology, but we shouldn’t lose
our ability to empathize or communicate. And if you’re
spending your time on the Internet, spend it reading some-
thing worthwhile (like learning about the future of AI), so
that you continue to learn. Keeping up with technology is
tough nowadays, but it’s important to know what’s happen-
ing to the world around you, and to humanity in general.
DOOM_1412_115 11/21/14 3:19 AM Page 115

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116 ALIEN|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

Close
Encounters
HOW TO SURVIVE AN ALIEN INVASION > Story by Jeff Zurschmeide

We’ve seen it a dozen times in the movies—the space ship

hanging in mid-air over the White House, or some other easily recogniz-
able place. Then we see the aliens coming down to announce their inten-
tions, or just starting the destruction without a word. Alien invasion is a
go-to plot that has sustained science fiction for a century. The idea goes
back to such gems as, War of the Worlds (the 1938 radio show adapted
from the H.G. Wells’ novel) and the cult favorite, The Adventures of Bucka-
roo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. The movie, Independence Day, is a
modern standard of the genre.
If you’re of a survival-oriented mindset, the interesting part of the Inde-
pendence Day story begins where the movie ends. What happens next? We
leave our heroes standing victorious in a world where every city and the
planet’s infrastructure has been utterly destroyed and hundreds of millions
of people have just been killed. Their problems are just beginning. But to
get to that clear-cut survival scenario, they first had to defeat the aliens.

What Do Aliens Want?

The part that’s unpredictable is what the aliens will want with us when
they come. The notion of eating humans leaps to mind, but really, we’re
not economical livestock. We take at least 15 years to grow to full size, and
in that time we eat thousands of times our final body weight in high qual-
ity food. Compare that to a pig, who goes from birth to 250 pounds in 6
months on about 750 pounds of food. And that doesn’t even begin to
touch the issue of whether any alien life form could even digest Earth-
borne organisms.
So, if they don’t want to eat us, that leaves two more options, the first
being that the aliens want slaves. Here again, that’s a stretch. Think about
it—you’ve got the technology to travel across the galaxy and visit Earth.
What exactly do you need with a bunch of hungry, unhappy, rebellious
slaves to do that you can’t already do?
ASG-SIP-1412-ALIEN 11/21/14 2:50 AM Page 117

DOOMSDAY

PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK

117
ASG-SIP-1412-ALIEN 11/21/14 2:50 AM Page 118
118 ALIEN|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
The most likely scenario is that the aliens
would simply want us gone so they can strip-
mine the planet and use our home as raw
materials. Just to get here, they’d have to be
much more technologically advanced than we
are, so they might view us the way we’d view an
ant colony living in the spot where we’ve
decided to build our new garden shed: Nothing
there worth noticing.
In that case, we’ve really got a challenge on
our hands. At least in the slavery or livestock
scenarios, they’ll want some or most of us to
stay alive—at least for a while. In the strip-min-
ing scenario, we just have to hope their
weapons and defenses aren’t too advanced.
Surviving the Invasion
In the event of any alien attack, the farther
you are from the major population centers, the
better your chances of surviving to repopulate
the Earth someday. We’ll break the survival
skills into two phases—surviving the invasion,
and surviving the aftermath.
To survive a war against a much more tech-
nologically advanced foe, your best bet is to
escape and elude. If you choose to stand and
fight, you’re pretty much on your own. For most
of us, it’s time to go to ground, bug-out, hide
out, and keep a low profile for as long as it lasts.
A single human doesn’t present a target very
much different than any other comparably
sized animal, and it’s unlikely the aliens will
waste time looking for individuals hiding out in
the mountains.
Remember that laying low includes keeping
your presence a secret from other humans, who
will likely be desperate for the same resources
you’re using. Don’t assume that we’re all on the
same team in the face of a crisis.
So, bring all your outdoor skills to bear in
this phase. Work on remaining unseen, and
don’t forget to minimize your heat signature.
You may have to live rough for some time, per-
haps through a winter, so be sure you know
how to keep warm, find food and water, and
stay healthy.
To survive, you’ll need the same gear you
need to survive human wars, including
weapons, shelter, stored food, medicines,
tools, and clothing for all weather conditions.
You will need to hunt or defend yourself, so
consider firearms and ammunition a priority,
but if you can use a bow for some or all of that,
they’re quieter.
The best situation is a well-concealed off-
grid cabin far away from civilization, preferably
a long way up a difficult road. In that cabin,
you’ll want your firearms and well-equipped
bow, a supply of shelf-stable food, a source of
clean water that does not depend on electric-
ity to pump, some stored firewood, warm
clothing, and a full set of tools. If you’re there a
long time, the tools may be among the most
important things.
You’ll want saws and an axe or two, plus a
splitting maul, wedges, and a big sledge ham-
mer if you need to augment your firewood
supply. You’ll want hammers and nails, gar-
dening implements, and all the tools of the
hunter-gatherer.
TIP: You can buy or make a fruit harvester. That’s
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
a set of thin hooks and a basket to catch the
fruit, all on the end of a long stick – much more
effective than shaking a tree!
 ASG-SIP-1412-ALIEN 11/21/14 2:50 AM Page 119

“TO SURVIVE A WAR AGAINST A

Potentially, a great deal of badness could
ensue depending on how long it takes to fight
off the attackers. We can’t rely on our harmless
native germs to kill off the invaders as in War of MUCH MORE TECHNOLOGICALLY
the Worlds, and really, the notion that we could
figure out how to hack into the aliens’ computer ADVANCED FOE, YOUR BEST BET IS
system and give their network a virus was never
realistic. This could be a long, tough war. But if
TO ESCAPE AND ELUDE.”
you’re well equipped and have the skills to go
with the equipment, staying alive until the
aliens leave or die should be quite possible. But
then what?

Surviving the Aftermath

The true disaster of an alien invasion is
really the same as most other man-made or
natural disasters—assuming we win. If we lose,
well, it’s been observed that humans are tasty
with ketchup and fries.
So, imagine that you’re standing there sur-
veying the wreckage of the invading warship,
amid the smoking ruin of your city or town. How
do you survive the day after Independence Day?
First, you can assume that if your town has
been demolished, every other town of that size
or greater, worldwide, has probably received
the same treatment. Washington D.C., New
York, London, Moscow, Beijing—all left in
smoking ruins. In this case, the smaller the
town you live in, the better off you are. It is rea-
sonable to expect that all infrastructure will
have been destroyed, including power, water,
and communications, because that’s the first
thing that any technologically advanced
attacker is going to eliminate.
So there you are, standing over the wreckage
of the flying saucer, kicking that dead alien in
the head. Or, that part that looks kind of like a
head, anyway. It could be hard to tell. But the mechanics, and so on. All the skills you need to
point is, you have survived the invasion and Bat- get utilities up and running again, evaluate dan-
tlefield Earth. Congratulations. Now you have to gers, and keep a guard up while you work. Peo-
get back to work. There’s a planet to rebuild. ple with useful skills will be highly prized in this
The survival scenario now shifts dramati- phase of recovery, so it will help if you have
cally. Where other people were a threat before, something to offer besides a hungry belly.
now a good team and a community represents It may sound like a paradox: the loner sur-
your best shot to jump-start the world. There’s vives the war, while the team player survives
a reason that just about everything in the world the aftermath, but both those characteristics
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

you can think of was built by teams of people are part of being a resourceful survivor. To
DOOMSDAY

working together. thrive, be willing to pitch in and help in any way

A larger group of people will have individu- you can, and be capable of learning new skills
als with specialized skills—doctors, engineers, to increase your value to the community.

119
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120 ALIEN|PERSONAL ACCOUNT

DOOMSDAY

STORIES OF SURVIVAL

Stories of alien abduction also go back to

ancient times, and tend to be similar in
nature. The person or persons are taken up
into the alien ship, where they are observed
or tested. Few have reported the kind of grue-
some experiments popularized in fiction.
Obviously, all who have related these stories
have been returned unharmed—but of
course, any who did not return would never
be able to testify to their experience.
In recent years, the case of Charles Hick-
son and Calvin Parker is often recounted. The
two men were fishing in Mississippi when
they say they were taken up in an oval-
shaped aircraft by strange-looking aliens
who communicated with them telepathically.
The two men were returned to Earth, and
told their story to the police. They were left
alone for a time, but their conversation was
recorded and neither man gave any hint of
perpetrating a hoax. Indeed, they seriously
discussed what had happened to them.
A few years later, Betty and Barney Hill
were driving their car in New Hampshire
when they encountered a UFO. Later, they
realized that they had each lost several hours
of their memory, and when they regained
their senses they were 35 miles from their
last remembered location. They believed
they had been abducted by the crew of the
UFO. They claimed that their watches froze
and could not be restarted, and their shoes
and clothing were scuffed. Both of the Hills
were interviewed under hypnosis and sus-
tained their story.
In every case reported, humans who have
ben abducted have been subject to far
greater power and technology than they
could resist. Survival seems to have been
entirely in the hands of the abductors, so
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK

sensible compliance seems to be the smart

play in these mysterious cases.
 ASG-SIP-1412-ALIEN 11/21/14 2:50 AM Page 121

IN THE PAST |ALIEN

What a Hostile Alien Invasion

Alien Invasion:
Roswell, N.M., 1947
The best-known case of alien contact con-
cerns the well-known events that are alleged to
have occurred near Roswell, NM. The artifacts
and perhaps even bodies or survivors of an
extraterrestrial crash landing are believed to be
stored in a secure facility in Nevada known as
Area 51. If that was an alien invasion, it wasn’t
much of one, as the aliens either died or were
captured and held by government forces using
1947 technology.
But if you just look back further, there are
many accounts of mysterious flying ships dat-
ing back to biblical times. People described
what they saw as best they could, in the terms
that they knew. That’s why when people read
about fiery chariots swinging low to carry peo-
ple off to heaven, they wonder if this could be a
description of an alien encounter.
In the year 1290, William of Newburgh
wrote about a strange UFO that appeared
over a monastery: “The abbot and monks
were at a meal, when a flat, round, shining, sil-
very object flew over the abbey and caused
the utmost terror.”
Over 170 years later in 1461, the Duke of
Bourgogne related the story that “an object
appeared in the sky over France… It was as long
and wide as a half moon; it hung stationary for
about a quarter of an hour, clearly visible, then
suddenly spiraled, twisted and turned like a
spring and rose into the heavens.” Then in 1479,
a large “comet” was observed over the Arab
peninsula. The people who saw it stated that
PHOTOS BY THINKSTOCK
Might Really Look Like
As hard as it may be to believe, there are real historical
records of the same kind of invasion. Before you scoff, this
isn’t about flying saucers – in these cases the aliens came
in sailing ships, some commanded by Christopher Colum-
bus and others by Captain James Cook. But to the people
they encountered, the strange white-skinned people with
their firearms and iron tools were as strange and advanced
as galaxy-traveling space aliens would be to us.
The first situation was faced by the Arawak tribe on the
island of Hispaniola, now home to the Dominican Republic
and Haiti. Christopher Columbus arrived in 1493 and used
his advanced technology to subjugate the island. He took
slaves and plundered the world known by the Arawaks. He
brought European diseases to which the Arawaks had no
historical immunity— but it’s also thought that the
Arawaks may have transferred syphilis to the Europeans.
On repeated trips to the Caribbean, Columbus demanded
gold as tribute, plundering the islands to pay off his Span-
ish financial backers. Further conquistadores spread out
throughout the new world, using the advanced technology
of firearms and ironwork to plunder the civilizations they
encountered.
On Hawaii, history took a different turn. The Hawaiians
were a warlike people, and when they determined the pur-
poses of the English, they fought back effectively and
turned Cook’s fleet away, preserving their independence
for a time.

the object had windows.

These stories are not hard to find, and simi-
DOOMSDAY

lar observations have been reported periodi-

cally right up to the present day.

121
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122 ALIEN|GEAR GUIDE

DOOMSDAY

See In the Dark

Aliens are often described as coming
from places much hotter than Earth.
They may have extremely high body
temperatures, and so would show up
clearly through infrared binoculars.
Amazon.com

Advanced Communications
You’ll want to stay mostly passive with this tool, but you
can get news about conditions and tips on tactics to fight
the invaders by listening in. HamRadio.com
ASG-SIP-1412-ALIEN 11/21/14 2:51 AM Page 123

Solar Power
Even if the entire infra-
structure has been
reduced to a series of
smoking craters, you’ll
still be able to rely on the
sun to charge your elec-
tronics. Plus, solar is silent
and will help you remain
undiscovered.
GoalZero.com

Library Lifesaver
No, seriously. This is not about
putting your status on post-
apocalyptic Facebook. This is the
place to keep your library of how-
to books on every topic from rais-
ing livestock to electrical genera-
tors and basic math, biology,
medicine and physics. It will be
critical for future generations
that the accumulated knowledge
of the human race is not lost.
Amazon.com

Water to Drink
If you have to rely on rivers
and streams for your drink-
ing water, you’ll want a
reusable filter to keep that
water safe.
DOOMSDAY

BuyLifeStraw.com

123
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124 EMP|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL

DOOMSDAY

The Invisible Jolt

SURVIVING THE DEVASTATION OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE > Story by Kyle Chezum
ASG-SIP-1412-EMP 11/21/14 2:54 AM Page 125
You wake in the night and hear shouting
outside. The room is thick with darkness—all the lights are
off. Something’s wrong. You assume it’s a power outage and
grab your smartphone to check the time, but it’s dead, too.
That doesn’t make sense—the phone had a full charge ear-
lier and is plugged into the wall. The shouting continues.
Someone’s trying to call an ambulance. You get up and go to
the window, but you can’t see anything outside. The street-
lights are black silhouettes against a blacker sky. Someone
pounds on your front door, calling your name. You run to the
door and open it. Your neighbor stands outside. “It’s hap-
pened,” he says. “Cell phones and landlines are down, and
nobody can get their car to start. A few flashlights are still
working. Everything else is fried.”
You say nothing. There’s nothing to say. Like your neigh-
bor, you’ve begun to understand what’s wrong. The world
you knew is gone. No more lights, no more cars, no more
phones, no more Internet, or radios, or refrigerators. Any
electronic device more sophisticated than a simple flashlight
is fried beyond repair, along with the entire power grid and all
communication networks.
Your nation, maybe the world, has been hit by an Electro-
magnetic Pulse (EMP).
“THE WORLD YOU KNEW IS
GONE. NO MORE LIGHTS, NO
MORE CARS, NO MORE PHONES,
NO MORE INTERNET, OR RADIOS,
OR REFRIGERATORS.”
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO
What is an EMP?
An Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is a sudden burst of
electromagnetic radiation. These EMPs occur every day. The
sun produces electromagnetic bursts constantly, while elec-
tronic circuitry can create small electromagnetic effects dur-
ing standard operation. Most of these common EMP events
go unnoticed.
Massive pulses, though, can destroy sensitive electronic
devices, from computers and cell phones to the transform-
ers that regulate our power grid. A large EMP could be cata-
strophic, and preparation begins with understanding what
causes such events.
EMPs arise from two primary sources.
Solar Coronal Mass Ejections (CME)
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a sudden eruption of
plasma from the surface of the sun. Also referred to as a
solar storm, a CME sends charges particles hurtling through
space. If a large enough “storm” were to hit Earth, the pulse
would induce massive electrical currents in electronic cables,
causing transformers to short and plunging our electrical
grid into darkness.
Nuclear Detonation (NEMP / HEMP)
A Nuclear EMP (NEMP) is an electromagnetic pulse cre-
ated by a nuclear detonation. When a nuclear warhead deto-
nates close to the surface of the Earth, much of the EMP
blast is absorbed into the ground. As a result, the actual EMP
is negligible—if you’re close enough to notice the EMP, you’re
probably in range of the actual explosion.
But when a nuclear warhead detonates dozens or hun-
dreds of miles above the Earth, high in the upper atmos-
phere, the resulting pulse spreads outward at close to the
speed of light, with nothing to contain or interrupt it other
than air molecules. This is called a high-altitude nuclear EMP
(HEMP), and it’s what most scientists and military strate-
gists refer to as an “EMP attack.”
The effects of a nuclear EMP are similar to those of a
solar EMP, only more severe and more precise. While solar
EMPs destroy large electrical systems like transformers, the
gamma rays produced during nuclear fission create a sepa-
rate pulse that is highly damaging to small circuitry, making
a nuclear EMP far more destructive, overall.
What Would Happen?
Nobody knows the full extent of the damage a solar EMP
or nuclear EMP attack would cause, but experts hypothesize
that the outcome would be catastrophic.
In the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union sep-
arately conducted multiple high-altitude nuclear tests. The
resulting EMP damage spanned hundreds of miles. If a simi-
lar weapon were detonated today at a tactically optimal
location and height above the United States, there’s little
DOOMSDAY
doubt the resulting pulse would knock out virtually all elec-
tronic systems and devices in North America, effectively
erasing modern civilization.
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126 EMP|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
In the case of an EMP caused by a solar coronal mass
ejection (CME), the damage to small electronics would be
less severe, but the event would nevertheless shut down our
power grid and phone networks for as long as a year or more
while critical repairs are made. A year without power would
be enough to bring our nation to its knees.
How Likely is an EMP Event?
The threat of an EMP striking the United States is all too
real, and as electronic technology advances and we grow
more and more dependent on it for daily life, our vulnerabil-
ity increases.
When discussing the likelihood of an EMP event occurring,
former head of U. S. Strategic Command General Eugene
Habiger says, “It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.”
Advanced nations like Russia and China are more than
capable of producing and detonating high-altitude nuclear
bombs. North Korea is believed to have successfully tested a
powerful EMP weapon in 2009. The components required to
create a small but effective EMP device are readily available,
and the engineering proficiency needed for construction is
basic enough that small terrorist groups and lone-wolf
extremists could feasibly build their own “EMP bombs.”
While not nuclear in nature, these devices could still bring
down a large city or target points of tactical significance.
What about natural EMPs from the sun? At the moment,
NASA is keeping an eye on solar activity with the goal of
“forecasting” extreme solar weather. But experts suggest we
will have no more than two or three days of advance notice
should the sun emit a cripplingly large burst—something
that could happen at any time.
How to Survive an EMP
As many as 250,000 to 500,000 deaths will occur
immediately following a large-scale EMP event as commer-
cial airliners lose power and drop from the sky, medical life
support systems stop running, power plants and hydroelec-
tric generators fail catastrophically, pacemakers give out,
and other similar effects ripple across the nation. Assuming
you’re not one of these unlucky first casualties, your chances
of immediate survival are actually rather high.
EMPs don’t harm the human body. You won’t even know
an EMP has occurred until you try to turn on a light, start a
car, or make a phone call. But experts predict that a suffi-
ciently large EMP attack would result in tens of millions of
deaths over the two or three years that follow. What you do
in the first few days after the event will determine your
chances of surviving long-term.
Preparing to Survive
In the immediate aftermath of an EMP, the steps you’ll
need to take to survive will vary depending on where you live,
your health, inclement weather, resources in the area, and
the supplies and tools available to you. This guide can’t
address every possible factor that could influence your situa-
tion, but if you want to survive, no matter where you are,
preparation is critical.
In the first five minutes following the pulse, you’ll make a
critical decision. This decision is the single most important
factor that will affect your survival, and if you put off making
this choice, you’ll end up paying for it.
You need to decide whether to
“dig in” or “get out.”
Assuming you live in a moderately pop-
ulated urban or suburban area, the reper-
cussions of this decision will rule the next
decade of your life. You can start adjusting
your living space to accommodate an off-
the-grid lifestyle, or you can grab your bug-
out bag and as much water as you can
carry and make a break for it. Which
option is better? It depends.
Digging In: Your home is no doubt
already stocked with many essential items
you’ll need for survival—food, water, blan-
kets, tools, medicine, room for storage,
and so on. Your home provides shelter. You
IMAGE COURTESY OF FEMA
probably know your neighbors and various
members of your community, which may
add a layer of security. In addition, getting
out of town only makes sense if you have
somewhere to go. You’re better off trying
ASG-SIP-1412-EMP 11/21/14 2:54 AM Page 127
IMAGE COURTESY OF FEMA
to secure yourself in your home than wandering with nothing
but a backpack through unfamiliar countryside.
Getting Out: Living off the grid long-term is almost
impossible without land and a supply of fresh water, and in a
resource crisis, the last thing you want are neighbors. Your
greatest threat to survival may well be the people around
you. Lack of electricity and communications will cripple law
enforcement—imagine an urban area with no security cam-
eras, no burglar alarms, no phones, no tasers, no search-
lights, no police cars patrolling the streets. Riots, looting, and
general anarchy will reign. Urban areas must import food
from elsewhere, and with all transportation shut down, star-
vation will set in sooner in the cities than in rural areas.
Whether you decide to stay or go, you must make the
choice and commit to it within the first five to 10 minutes fol-
lowing the pulse. If you waste hours or days trying to decide
or end up changing your mind later, it will be too late to take
the specific tactical steps required for survival.
Assume the worst. You’ll lose nothing if you’re wrong,
and you’ll gain valuable time and composure if you’re right.
By assuming the worst, you give yourself permission to make
decisions you wouldn’t otherwise make, and you’ll be able to
make these decisions faster. Don’t wait around hoping
things will get better in a day or two. Allow yourself to enter
survival mode immediately.
Form alliances early—before disaster strikes. Allies
are important whether you’re planning to remain in your
community or head for the hills. Establish a group of trust-
worthy neighbors, friends, and family members, and make
sure everyone knows the stakes. Your chances of survival are
better when you’re part of a team, but everyone needs to be
on the same page.
Start meeting and connecting with residents in your
neighborhood today. You need to know who’s trustworthy
and who isn’t, and no matter how prepared you are, you
won’t have the time or presence of mind to accurately gauge
this in the wake of a disaster.
Develop a community response plan for your neighbor-
hood. Discuss potential disaster scenarios and map out a
blueprint for how you’ll work together to survive as a com-
munity. Write it down. Rehearse it as a group. This is a great
way to determine what resources are available and who is on
board to help.
Digging In: Survival Techniques
If you’ve chosen to stay put, to remain in familiar territory
with a community you trust, take the following immediate
steps to set yourself up for survival.
Collect as much water as possible. After the grid goes
down, you’ll still have running water, but it won’t last long. If
you’re at home when the pulse hits, start filling bottles,
buckets, tubs, and other containers with water from the tap
as fast as possible. Collect as much as you can. Don’t let
anything else enter your mind until this is done. If you wait,
you won’t get another chance.
Get to a grocery store. Grab all the cash you have, lock
your door behind you, and don’t stop to talk to anyone. Run
to your local grocery store immediately. You want to get
there before everyone else does—preferably while everyone
else is still thinking this is just a simple power outage.
Stock up on the following items.
DOOMSDAY
> Canned beans, canned vegetables, and canned fruit.
> Dried foods like jerky, pasta, beans, and brown rice.
> Peanut butter, nuts, and dried fruits and vegetables.
127
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128 EMP|ANATOMY & SURVIVAL
DOOMSDAY
“GUNS, AMMUNITION, KNIVES, CLUBS, BOWS,
AND OTHER WEAPONS WILL PLAY AN IMPORTANT
ROLE IN YOUR SURVIVAL OVER THE COMING YEARS.”
> Canned meat, especially canned salmon, chicken, and turkey.
> Canned soup, especially thick soups and chili.
> Bottled water and sports drinks containing electrolytes.
> Whole grain flour, oats, and salt.
> Vitamin supplements and powdered “superfoods.”
Purchase everything with cash. If you’ve acted fast
enough, chances are the stores are still open for business
and accepting cash. Take the shopping cart with you when
you leave—you’ll need it to transport your goods back to your
home or apartment.
Stock up on medical supplies. Your next stop is a local
pharmacy or general goods store. Your goal is to obtain a
good supply of standard medical supplies and medicines.
> Bandages, gauze, and disinfectant.
> Over the counter pain relievers and fever reducers.
> Dish soap, hand soap, and hand sanitizer.
> Chlorine for water purification and storage.
> First aid kits, surgery kits, and syringes, if available.
Create a cooking area. If you have a large charcoal or
wood barbecue at your home, you’re all set. If not, designate
a sheltered space in your yard as a cooking area and dig a
shallow fire pit. Your cooking space should be close to your
house, as this will allow you to take advantage of the fire for
heating purposes.
Dig a latrine. Find a section of your yard located down-
hill and away from your home. Dig a shallow trench about 4
feet long, 6 inches deep, and 6 inches wide. Set aside a pile
of loose topsoil to use to cover waste.
Establish a defensible position and a security
detail. In cooperation with your neighbors and other com-
munity allies, determine what area you will protect and
establish a plan to guard and defend it from criminals, van-
dals, and vagrants. It may be best to choose a group of two
or three homes and create a single fortified position. Alter-
nately, your neighborhood may be laid out in a way that cre-
ates a natural defensible perimeter.
Locate and distribute weapons. Unfortunately, there’s
no avoiding this step. Guns, ammunition, knives, clubs, bows,
and other weapons will play an important role in your sur-
vival over the coming years. As a group, take stock of avail-
able weapons and ammo, and determine how to distribute
them for optimal security. Carry a tactical knife on you at all
times, and if you own a gun, don’t let it out of your sight.
Getting Out: Survival Techniques
If escaping to a rural area or into the wilderness is your
plan, preparation is critical. This probably isn’t a feasible
strategy if you’re not ready ahead of time. If you think your
chances of survival are better on your own, keep the follow-
ing in mind.
Know your destination. Don’t run without a goal. Bring
a map and compass and start out with a clear idea of where
you plan to end up. Your destination should be somewhere
close to fresh water and natural food sources. If you don’t
know where in your area to find these things, you’re not pre-
pared enough to get out.
Before disaster strikes, you should identify a bug-out
location (BOL) within a one- to two-day walk from your
home that can serve as your destination in the event of a
catastrophe. Map out a way to get there and memorize it.
Assume all roads will be blocked. Walk the route in advance
and note important landmarks.
Plan for delays. Identify two or three sites along the
route to your BOL that can provide temporary shelter during
your journey. Rehearse the route, and keep the map and
compass handy in your bug-out bag in case your plans need
to change on the way.
Dress in layers. You will know best how to dress for the
conditions in and around your home and your BOL. Regard-
less, dressing in layers is always advisable, as it allows you to
bring multiple clothing items that you can wear or remove as
the weather demands.
Grab your bug-out bag or a backpack you can fill with
food, water, and supplies.
If you’ve prepared properly, you already know what you
need to bring with you, and your bug-out bag is fully stocked
and ready to go. If not, fill a backpack with non-perishable
high-energy food items, like granola bars, jerky, and peanut
butter. Take along a first aid kit and as much water as you
can carry. Knives, a gun, ammunition, and any other
weapons and tools you can fit are essential.
Hit the road. Get out as soon and as fast as possible.
You won’t be the only one planning to vacate the city, and as
soon as the reality of the situation hits everyone else, the
road is going to be full of desperate wanderers. You’re not
safe in the open. You need to make it your goal to reach your
BOL immediately.
ASG-SIP-1412-EMP 11/21/14 2:54 AM Page 129
History of EMPs
No truly catastrophic EMP event has
yet occurred, for the simple reason that
up until 50 or 60 years ago, such an
event couldn’t occur—our reliance on
electronic technology had not yet
advanced to the point where EMP dis-
ruption would cause complete social
collapse, as it would today. Neverthe-
less, a number of historical incidents
serve as proof that EMPs in their various
forms are real and highly dangerous.
The Carrington
Event (1859)
On September 1st, 1859, British
astronomer Richard Carrington aimed
his telescope at the sun and sat down
with ink and paper to sketch what he
observed through the lens. After
recording a series of large sunspots, he
saw two massive points of white light
flare up rapidly and vanish. He had
never seen anything like it.
Hours later, a massive geomagnetic
storm tore through Earth’s atmos-
phere, lighting up the night sky with
immense auroras visible as far south
as Cuba and Jamaica. But this was just
the beginning.
At the time, the United States had
just started to adopt electronic com-
munication in the form of the tele-
graph. Telegraph wires crisscrossed
the nation, connecting major cities, but
beyond this, electrical systems didn’t
play a large role in public infrastruc-
ture. On the night of September 1st,
telegraph operators throughout North
America watched, confused, as one of
the most powerful EMPs in recorded
history wreaked havoc on the tele-
graph network. The pulse did more
than just disrupt communications.
Electric sparks leapt from telegraph
machines, injuring workers. Telegraph
paper burst into flames. Metal contact
points melted. Lines were inoperable
for hours. When operators discon-
nected the machines from their power
supplies, they found that they could
still transmit, as the lines were pow-
ered entirely by the induced current
from the EMP.
The storm came to be called the
Carrington Event and stands as an
unprecedented example of the effects
a powerful EMP can have on electronic
communication systems. But the Car-
rington Event wasn’t a fluke of history.
Similar EMP disruptions have occurred
in the decades since. In 1989, a solar
coronal mass ejection caused an EMP
that shut down Quebec’s entire power
grid for 12 hours and brought the region
to a complete standstill. During the
same event, the U.S. grid struggled but
managed to stay mostly online, with
the exception of a few localized fail-
ures. The 1989 event was about one-
third the size of the Carrington Event.
On July 23rd, 2012, a CME erupted
from the sun and narrowly missed
Earth, passing directly through our
planet’s orbital path. The storm struck
a satellite, and measurements
revealed that the 2012 CME may have
been larger than the Carrington Event.
Daniel Baker, director of the Labora-
tory for Atmospheric and Space
Physics at the University of Colorado,
said in a presentation in April 2014, “If
it had hit Earth, we would still be pick-
ing up the pieces.”
Starfish Prime (1962)
More than 50 years ago, an early
nuclear weapon detonated 250 miles
over the middle of the South Pacific
Ocean produced an electromagnetic
pulse strong enough to knock out
streetlights and telephone communi-
cations systems in Hawaii and New
Zealand. About one-third of all satel-
lites in low orbit failed, and some
sources claim that the blast fried igni-
tion systems in cars a 1,000 miles
away from the launch site.
IN THE PAST |EMP
The test was called Starfish Prime.
Carried out by the United States on
July 9th, 1962, the full power of the
EMP couldn’t be measured—it went
off the charts. As the pulse struck
Hawaii, the public learned for the first
time that a nuclear bomb detonated in
the upper atmosphere could damage
electronic systems.
The Starfish Prime blast occurred
at a height of 250 miles. A nuclear
warhead detonated at a similar height
over Kansas or Nebraska today would
shut down the entire continental
United States, most of Canada, and
parts of northern Mexico.
The Soviets conducted their own
high-altitude nuclear tests and saw
similar unexpected results. During one
such test, called “Project K #184,” the
Soviets detonated a relatively small
nuclear warhead 180 miles above a
remote region of Kazakhstan. The
resulting EMP took out 350 miles of
telephone lines and 620 miles of
buried power cables, and started mas-
sive fires in a nearby powerplant. A
Russian scientist later reported that
the plant was completely destroyed.
Starfish Prime and Project K were
controlled tests performed in remote
areas—back in 1962. Imagine the devas-
tation that would result from an actual
attack carried out with a modern EMP
DOOMSDAY
warhead over a tactically significant
region where all aspects of daily life rely
on advanced electronics.
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130 EMP|GEAR GUIDE
DOOMSDAY
Bicycle
You’ll need transportation, and a
bike is going to be your best
option. Most cars, trucks, trains,
airplanes, and motorized boats
are going to be permanently out
of commission. Find a bike that’s
lightweight, easy to disassemble
and repair, and suited for off-road
travel, and get accustomed to rid-
ing it well before disaster strikes.
SchwinnBikes.com
Faraday Cage
A Faraday cage is a metal enclo-
sure designed to block electro-
magnetic radiation. They’re easy to
build using materials available at
your local hardware store, and you
can find step-by-step instructions
online. Store essential electronics
like handheld radios, medical
devices, GPS systems, and others
inside a Faraday cage to help pre-
vent damage from an EMP.
Five Essentials for EMP Survival
Survival in a world gone dark won’t be
easy, but these five essential items will help.
Chlorine Dioxide
Tablets
Water treatment systems won’t be
operational in the wake of an EMP,
and there’s a good chance your
municipal water supply won’t last
long. You’ll need to find water to
survive, and any water you find will
need to be purified. Chlorine diox-
ide tablets are great for this, and
they’re easy to store and transport.
PotableAqua.com
Candles & Lanterns
Light is often taken for granted in the modern
world, but without electricity, this will be a
major concern. Stock up on candles, kerosene
lanterns, matches, lighters, and wicking. It
wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a book on how to
make candles and keep it handy, as you’ll need
to either find or make your own candles when
your stockpile runs out. Coleman.com
Wood Stove
A cast iron wood stove will
make cooking and heating
much safer, easier, and more
efficient in the aftermath of
an EMP. While it’s not some-
thing you can carry with you
on the move, it’s a good idea
to have one in your home or
bunker or wherever you plan
to dig in. Stock up on wood
and charcoal if you can.
Amazon.com
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“I do not believe that civilization will be

wiped out in a war fought with the
atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the
people of the Earth will be killed.”
—Albert Einstein
PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK
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