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Originally Posted by Tonchi
Nope, my perception is based on a sister who has lived in Switzerland for 10 years and who is required by law to keep a fully stocked shelter in her basement. Then there is my cousin who is married to a Chinese national ...
So you are quite mistaken on this count.
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I was of course suggesting that your perception of
Americans that might be a bit myopic. But clearly you've been everywhere and seen everything.
Or your relatives have.
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Originally Posted by Tonchi
And may I ask, if the government is NOT required to take care of the population in this area, how do you think it will get done?
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You think it's possible to
require the government to do something? I just think it's foolish to expect "the government" to take care of you...especially in view of their track record in other endeavors. Education, for example. I suppose we could pass a law like the Swiss one requiring people to provide and equip their own shelters.
How well do you think that would work? Seriously.
Of course, Swiss citizens subject to conscription in emergency (all the males from 20 to 40, same law that requires shelters) are required to keep an assault rifle and know how to use it, too. And it also requires you to make any space in your shelter available for government use.
I'm sure Swiss civil defense is admirable in principle (although I don't evny them their tax rates). Apparently they were spending at the level of US$33 per capita on civil defence in the 1980s...probably gone up quite a bit since then. Of course they only have about 7.5 million people. (Compare the Philadelphia metro area at 5 million.)
Many Americans have made preparations for emergencies. They just don't talk about it a lot...perhaps so others of a more socialist bent (you know, the ones who want "the government " to take care of them) won't decide it would only be fair for them to share in the event of an emergency.
Which brings us back to that assault rifle thing. :-)
Speaking of "fallout shelters", it's quite true they were not intended to guard against blast or fire, and that's why they were callled "fallout shelters" rather than "bomb shelters".
The yellow trefoil sign indicated the presence of a public building that might offer some modest protection from prompt radiation from a nuke going off some distance away as well as shielding from the dusting of fallout afterwards. They were stocked with emergency water in 55-gal drums, crackers and hard candy sealed in cans, and simple radiation monitoring equipment. The hope was that folks who took shelter might be able to survive on the emergency rations inside the building until the outside radiation levels became survivable. Obviously the story for anybody close enough to a strike to be affected by blast or firestorm was pretty grim.
Nobody with any sense at all thought these very minimal measures offered any garauntees. It was just viewed as better than nothing for those not close enough to a target to have been immediately crisped...which was a substantial fraction of the entire poplulation, even more so back then.
At the time I was living here in Philly--with the Frankford Arsenal, the Navy Yard, NAS Willow Grove (key antisub base), Univac and GE Missile and Space division, we were pretty sure the town was worth a warhead or two,