cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/16751749
The Householder’s Handbook explained how to prepare a home for nuclear attack: Whitewash the house, tape windows and create a safe core in one of the rooms. It listed medicines, food, and supplies needed and explained what to do if there was a nuclear attack. Householders would be able to occupy themselves and their families in preparing for the worst.
Even before the 80’s version, Protect and Survive and the CND peace movement’s riposte – Protest and Survive, the handbook seemed remarkably naïve. A 20-megaton bomb detonated 500 feet above St Paul’s Cathedral in central London would have created a blast wave destroying or damaging buildings for up to 17 kilometres and deliver a lethal dose of radiation for nearly five kilometres.
The effects of modern high density construction make blast zones and lethal distances a bit unknown.
500ft above St Paul's cathedral nowadays would mean that several million tons of concrete and steel would block the radiation pulse and mitigate the blast to quite some extent for those in the outer radius.
Does that account for the rise of ultra-modern construction which is basically cheap plywood and petroleum?