Friday, December 7, 2012

Sheltering in place - 1981 Nat'l Inst for Chemical Studies report - 54-pg PDF

Sheltering in place - 1981 Nat'l Inst for Chemical Studies report - 54-pg PDF


This report provides a look at chemical accidents where sheltering in place was used as a public protective action. It was entered into the record in the Indian Point license renewal proceeding.
Excerpt: "To maximize the protective value of sheltering in place, threatened people must know how to shelter effectively and quickly. Public education in emergency preparedness must include information on how and why to shelter in place. In addition, communities must have ways to alert the public to a chemical threat. Emergency alert systems should be able to provide the public with information about the emergency, simple protective action instructions, and information on where to find additional information about protective actions. In many communities, emergency preparedness instructions, including how to shelter in place, can be found in local phone books. LEPCs (local emergency planning committees) in various areas also have implemented strong public education programs for emergency preparedness."
nuclear.COMment: phone books are rapidly going the way of the dodo bird. New strategies are needed.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

#Chernobyl - is it true that those who live in exclusion zone are living longer than evacuees? #nuclear

#Chernobyl - is it true that those who live in exclusion zone are living longer than evacuees? #nuclear


* Ted Rockwell: A recent study showed that people who refused to evacuate Chernobyl were happier and outlived the evacuees by 20 years, while the evacuees themselves were depressed and suicidal. There is nothing else that is as central to the issue as that one fact.

* [nuclear.COMment] The link provided by Mr. Rockwell isn't actually a study, and it doesn't suggest 20 years difference. Here's the relevant excerpt from the Telegraph newspaper story: The journalist Alexander Anisimov, who spent his career studying the self-settler community, claimed that the women who returned to their ancestral homes in the zone outlived those who left by a decade. No health studies have been done, but anecdotal evidence suggests that most of the babushkas die of strokes rather than any obvious radiation-related illnesses, and they have dealt better with the psychological trauma. Toxic levels of strontium and cesium in the soil are real, but so are the tug of the ancestral home and the health benefits of determining one’s own destiny.

Read more at http://news.nuclear.com/blog7.php/chernobyl-is-it-true-that#jbCGXS3xkCCHa5fi.99