We’ve just got through the 25th anniversary of 9/11, which hit me much harder than the 20th anniversary did (probably because that was overshadowed by Covid). Can’t we take a break now from catastrophes?
Nope. Not if we’re smart.
Emergency preparedness for a nuclear terror attack are not words most of us want to see lined up in a sentence. The new thriller from Discovery Institute Press, Oppenheimer’s Demon, is animated by novelist Geoffrey Simmons’s training in such grave matters. The story centers on just such a threat.
This book is a great read, and gathers its suspense at it goes. I don’t want to make it sound like it’s going to be a lecture, or a downer, because it’s not. But Dr. Simmons has spent a good part of his medical career training others for emergencies, and acting in emergencies himself. He takes them seriously.
The Ultimate Emergency?
In an op-ed today in the Washington Examiner, he addresses a subject many of us would definitely rather avoid: “If a nuclear bomb hits your city tomorrow, your evacuation plan will kill you.”
Image source: Discovery Institute Press.He sketches two alternative scenarios: one where you and your family have made no preparations, and one where you have. In the former case, it’s not the Big Bang that will kill you but the ensuing panic. Picture this:
Imagine you and your family are home, and a flash of light floods the room. Your vision is temporarily blurred. Your home starts shaking as if a major earthquake just struck. Next, a giant sonic boom ruptures your eardrums, leaving you in pain and with the sound of Niagara Falls persisting in your ears.
Everything in the house that can fall does. Every dish and glass in the kitchen cabinets flies out. You duck and cover under the dining room table. Car alarms go off outside. People everywhere are screaming for help. After the rumbling ceases, you work your way across broken glass to a shattered window. You see a massive mushroom cloud rising in the distance.
Simmons asks:
What if you and your community had made suitable preparations? You have plenty of bottled water. You quickly tape up your windows. You and your family stay put in an interior room. You try not to panic. You and your neighbors have some disaster training and have plans to help each other. You communicate via walkie-talkies. You have a first-aid kit and key medicines on hand, like prescription antibiotics and pain pills.
Staying put has its problems, but mayhem, heightened radiation exposure, dehydration, and starvation on the clogged highways are surely worse.
Some Simple Advice
It’s a sobering subject, and in Oppenheimer’s Demon, Geoff Simmons addresses it with a rare combination of storytelling dexterity, inventiveness, and, yes, even humor.
Here he has a simple piece of advice. What should you do first? “Visit ready.gov and prepare a go bag.”