Survival in Japan and Nuclear Radiation

I wonder if he really meant fresh water treatment?. Who cares about radioactivity in sewage, which would be a small fracton of that in runoff?. In that case, he is a lot closer to being right. Rapid sand filters will remove almost any particle, and if Japan use PAC or GAC it will capture iodine, and probablly Sr-90. I think Japan uses PAC or GAC because of all of the organics and pollutants in their fresh water.

I didn't see where he confused explosion with nuclear detonation.

 

Glad to hear that you and your family are safely back in the US. If Sir John is so convinced that you jumped the gun, ask him if he is willing to take your place in Japan.

 

Everywhere you can find some authoritarian report saying something along the lines of a dose of radiation from squatting on the rubble of reactor#3 for seven hours would be less dangerous than shaving with a lawnmower - or some other misleading comparison.

Quite a few of my friends who stayed quote these proclamations to me. I tell them 'you can believe it if you like, but I don't. I don't trust the powers that be to divulge anything which might affect commercial profitability in a bad way.'

One guy sent me this:

Radiation Chart

 

Tsneds, welcome home. Everything I've experienced or studied about disasters, states that those that act first come out the best.

You did the right thing, worry about going back when it's over.

 

Glad to hear you are home, praise God! I am in agreement with the others, I would have been looking to get off the island. They can say what they want, but you aren't having to worry about radiation in KY.

 

Welcome Home.

Bear

 

Another classic email I received from a guy who stayed in Japan:

"You think the North Koreans, Chinese or the Russians are telling anyone if they're venting radionuclides to atmosphere?

Stress can kill you, too. If you are relieved of stress by flying away, good on you.

But scientifically, you exposed yourself and your family to statistically significantly greater risk by traveling to the airport, getting on the plane, flying away, landing, traveling to someplace, etc., and coming back. That does not mean that it was an ultimately dangerous thing to do, but the relative danger is a demonstrable fact. The science is well understood.

There are a lot of political games to be played out over this incident, unfolding as I type this. Some of more idiotic government positions pronounced are being played out are for domestic political reasons, like the upcoming German elections. Angela Merkel had just extended the operating licenses of German nuclear power stations, but now she and her govt have to posture to show they are 'tough on nukes' or something equally stupid for the sheep who can't read beyond a headline. The politicians are being politicians, and increasing fears by showing they can provide 'leadership' by taking 'positions' to protect the people from essentially non-existent 'dangers'.

The press is doing their business, in addition to playing to their own politics. News show ratings shot through the roof, revenues for ads way up.

The monomaniacal focus on this unfortunate incident is almost entirely a selfish, pointless, dangerous distraction while 400,000 people are displaced, millions are without power, probably 15,000-20,000 dead, almost all of them laying in mud and decaying under mountains of rubble, while tens of thousands of very elderly people are living under conditions of marginal heat, energy, and hygiene. Those people are in real and increasing danger of dying from respiratory infections that are increasing rapidly, as they do in every such situation.

That is the real tragedy, and it gets almost no attention from the world while we indulge ourselves in pointless fretting about meaningless, insignificant amounts of radiation. Anyone reading this in Denver, Colorado, is exposed to more radiation on a daily basis than almost anyone in Japan outside the fence of that nuclear power plant. Japan's additional exposure will go to zero, and Denver will continue to experience higher levels than I am experiencing in Tokyo every day, forever."

 

Ahhh... Perspective!

By and large, I agree with the perspective of the writer. And, being outside of Denver I got a chuckle out of this. For extra grins, one could always go to Leadville, Colorado (which I've been known to do) where the background radiation is FAR higher than around Denver. You'd still find a conspicuous absence of people with three heads or even distressed thyroids.

Yes, the real tragedy IS largely ignored. And so is the real peril to the world, which is economic. A cynic (like me) might observe that the errant focus of the media is not accidental.

BTW, tsneds, welcome to the forums. (And don't take this to be an argument against you guys bailing out. With a baby in the oven and the uncertainty of the whole situation, you did the right thing.) Glad you're safely outta there!

 

Well what I learned from this is what is written in many preparedness books but I will explain 3 of them anyway.

1. Officials will candy coat their findings till the end,one needs to get news from multiple sources and read between the lines. I monitored NHK,Kyodo News,the Japan times,Yomiuri,CNN,Reuters,Der Spiegel,Russia Today,Pravda.ru,contacts at US military bases in Japan as well as contacts at Japanese military bases.

2. Stay prepared for emergencies-especially those prevalent in the region where you reside. Being prepared for a snowstorm in El salvador may not be the wisest use of available space but mudslides and death squads are a real danger there. I had a quake kit from quakecare (though I wish I had purchased thwe terrorism kit with NBC suits and other items that would have been helpful) that I had purchased about 2 years prior to the time that the quake hit.

3. Err on the side of caution- if there is a radiation leak that has not been contained and the various news outlets both in country and abroad are reporting that things are deteriorating,dont wait around for the government or the corporation that built the reactor to get things under control,get to a safe place and monitor the situation from there,no time for 'a savior is coming' thinking in these circumstances.

By the way,my daughter was born in the bathtub of our house yesterday!!!

 

Ditto on what RH said! Congrats on the new addition. Glad she was born safe and sound.

 

Congrats on the rug rat... best of wishes... BTW it's a good time for a new shotgun...

 

Congratulations of the birth of your daughter. The only thing better that the birth of your own child is the birth of you grand children.

You don't have to pay the Hosp. bill, you can spoil them rotten, buy them noisy toys, then send them home!!!

 

The more coverage I watch of the quake the more sorry I feel for the folks in Japan. God bless them all. Congrats on the new addition!