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by Warren Laine

~ The threat of nuclear war, and
the total destruction of human
civilization, has loomed over our
heads for the past 35 years.
Stockpiles of nuclear weapons
have grown and become more and
more advanced since the Cold War
years, when everyone was worried
about someone dropping the ‘Big
One’. Today people have turned
into apathetic ostriches; not willing
to dwell on a nuclear wars’
implications. After all, the impli-
cations are immense, as well as
very taxing on the imagination;
and the ‘Big One’ can now wipe
out the human race more than 25
times over.

The notion that a nuclear war is
survivable, or that civil defense is
plausible, raises some interesting
questions. What would warn us in
the event of a nuclear attack?

charge?

To warn the public of an
oncoming attack, air raid sirens
are the universal standby, but
since 1968 there has been a
national ban on audibly testing
these sirens. This means that
Vancouver’s 56 sirens, made a-
round 1950, haven‘t been tested in
13 years.

Bob MacDonald, Fire Chief for
North Vancouver, was interested
in using the sirens for peace-time
emergencies. It took the city six
months to obtain permission from
the minister of national defense,
and a promise to alert the public
about the intended test; so as to
not panic the city. On June 20 of
last year the sirens went off. Far
from panicking the public, only 60
per cent of the people heard the
sirens and none knew what they
signified. The reason for this
seems to be that the municipality
has expanded too far for the sirens
to reach and that since the 1950s,
buildings have been put up around
the sirens, thereby blocking them.
If this is so, they could not warn
us in the event of an attack!

The idea that Vancouver will be
a target is acknowledged by most
experts; if not in the first strike,
then in the second or third.
(Vancouver is the largest port
apart from San Fransisco and is a
communications,
governmental center.)

To give a scenario of a possible
attack, let’s say a one megaton
bemb was detonated 8000 feet

over City Hall. What would
(happen? A one megaton bomb is

 

 

 

Where would we go if we were.
attacked? Who would be in

 

 

 

 

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industrial, and

equal to one million tons of TNT.
The bombs used on Hiroshima and -
Nagasaki were equal to only
15000 tons of TNT. Remember
photos of the cities after only one
of those bombs?; Imagine 6 times
that destruction to picture what
Vancouver would look like. 5

if a one megaton bomb was
dropped on Vancouver, the city
would be obliterated, a flash fire
would result, and the pressure
from the blast would put 5 pounds

“per square inch of over-pressure
on all the buildings; this means
that anything standing would be
flattened, and anyone caught out
in the open would be instantly
vaporized. According to Dr. Karl
Erdman, a physicist at UBC,
“There are no survival possibil-
ities.‘

Outside of Vancouver, the fall-
out would spread as far north as
Williams Lake. High tempera-
tures and poisonous gases would
turn any shelter into an oven or a
gas chamber. According. to Dr.
Thomas Perry, physicist at UBC, it
would be worse than the Black
PLAGUE: ‘‘There is no possible
medical. response to a nuclear
attack.’ He calculates that in
Vancouver, 400000 people would
killed outright, with 300000 people
dying within 4 weeks from radia-
tion. 70 per cent of the doctors
and nurses in Vancouver would

also be killed, and all the hospitals
would be destroyed. There would
also be no water, electricity, or
medical supplies.

In a nuclear war, about 20000
survivors would be burn victims in
Vancouver alone. In all of North
America, there are only 2000 beds
available for burn victims; and
that is during peace-time. ‘‘If the
powers used only one-quarter of
their weapons, there would only
be about 6-7 million survivors in
Canada, maybe 66 million in all of
North America; we must be in-
formed that a nuclear war is NOT
survivable,’’ says Perry.

If you wish to flee the city

towards the interior, try to picture.

the rest of the Vancouver area
doing the same thing. Evacuating
Vancouver is refered to as being
between ‘exceedingly difficult’ and
‘absolutly impossible’.

Fred D. Cooper, B.C. represen-
tative of Emergency Planning Can-
ada (E.P.C.), is not at all optimis-
tic about civil defense. ‘‘It is the
government’s responsibility to pro-
vide the country with a civil
defense program, but it is naive to
think that they possibly could,’’
said Cooper. ‘’The government is
doing little because there is no
way to protect the country, it can’t
be done!‘’ There is literature
available from the E.P.C. such as
‘Your Basement Shelter’, with a

 

» them, and few would be out there

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toreward by ‘ YOUR Prime Mini-
ster’, the late John Diefenbaker.

There is also, ‘Eleven Steps to
Survival’ (c. 1950), about how to
construct a shelter from old mat-
tresses and doors. Today shelters
are a lucrative business. Costing
50000 dollars, they are equipped
with 30 days. supplies and all the

filter system, radiation monitor,
sewage, and beds; unfortunately
they are only effective against
fallout. Says Greg Cooper, a bomb
shelter ‘builder, ‘‘North America
has never been bombed or felt the
ravages of modern warfare, we are
surrounded by a false sense of
security...In Switzerland and the
rest of Europe shelters are very

underground is one massive maze
of tunnels; the entire population
can be underground in seven
minutes,’’ says Cooper.

Fred Cooper says there is:
more shelter space in Canada
than there are people; you just
have to find it. Cooper did not say
where this abundant shelter could

signs on these shelters. Another
problem with shelters is that if the
EPC were to begin issuing instruc-
tions regarding shelter locations
and survival tips, it could provoke
a war in itself. The Soviet Union
monitors North American com-
munications 24 hours a day. If the
Russians picked up these instruc-
tions about shelters, they may
consider it a hint that the Ameri-
cans were about to attack; if this
happened they would let fly with
everything they have.

In Nanaimo, there is a shelter in
which a core of 300 governmental
representatives would go during
an attack. After which they would
give instructions from this bunker, |
as well as try to keep law and
order. This idea is naive in that no
one would be willing to obey

patrolling, making sure this law
and order is implemented. Be-
sides, thre won’t be any society
left to try to control; and the
bunker itself will not withstand a
nuclear blast.

In Vancouver, along with a lot of
the world’s populace, there is an
apathetic outlook towards nuclear
war. In answer to the question,
‘‘Are you ready for a nuclear
war?’’, one Vancouverite respond-
ed, ‘‘Ready? How?’’, and then he
laughed.

“Mother do you think they’ll
drop the bomb?’’
-from Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’

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