> This information comes from Cresson Kearny's Nuclear War Survival Skills, revised 1986 or 1987, which is available for free in PDF form on the internet. Kearny was employed by the American civil-defense establishment.
I'm not sure how much faith to put into that despite the source you just cited. From what I heard, a lot of the nuclear war survival measures (like city evacuation plans) were just methods to calm the population down. I.e. they weren't really meant to work at all, but as long as people believed they will, they carried on with their lives.
There is a ton of misinformation out there, and it tends to greatly overestimate the dangers of nuclear weapons.
For example, it's a common assumption that global thermonuclear war would wipe out humanity, or even all life on Earth. That's not even close to true. Billions would die and civilization would be wrecked, but the human race would continue.
For an example specific to civil defense, the old "duck and cover" routine is widely ridiculed. Which is bizarre, because it's great advice which would have saved many lives in the event of nuclear war. But people don't understand how this stuff works, and just think that nuclear war is a moment where all die, O the embarrassment.
With sufficient warning, evacuating cities would have saved many lives. Such warning wouldn't have been available for ICBM strikes, but in the 50s and 60s the threat was bombers, which would have provided hours of warning.
Of course a full on nuclear war could cause hurricane force winds and fire storms. Does anyone really know how far that could spread? There is a lot of vegetation in close proximity to targets, and in places little to stop a fire spreading for hundreds of miles through crops and forest.
Also, you would have to deal with the fallout from the nuclear power plants that have just been mixed into those hurrican force winds.
Humanity may survive but the effects could be felt far beyond the blast radius of the bombs.
Of course, but there would still be many survivors (especially in the 50s and 60s) and good civil defense measures would have greatly increased that number.
I'm not sure how much faith to put into that despite the source you just cited. From what I heard, a lot of the nuclear war survival measures (like city evacuation plans) were just methods to calm the population down. I.e. they weren't really meant to work at all, but as long as people believed they will, they carried on with their lives.