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Show lie Thankful . . . You May Live Through A Bombing' Cheer up, because the Civil Defense Office of the National Security Resources Board intimates that the public can live through an atomic bomb raid without with-out the aid of Geiger counters, protective clothing or any special training. A book, entitled "John Citizen's Bible of Atomic Attack Protection," is now being distributed. It does not minimize the threat of the atomic bomb but it gives some space to "myths" about atomic energy. These, according to the booklet, center about the effects ef-fects of radiation and the "wild talk of 'super-super bombs." Encouraging is the declaration that "injury by radio activity does not necessarily mean you are doomed to die or be crippled". It is admitted that a modern bomb can do heavy damage to houses and buildings about two miles away but a bomb of double power will extend the damage only another half-mile. Moreover, a bomb one hundred times as powerful would reach out a little more than four and one-half times as far. The book contains six "survival secrets for atomic attacks," so if you have a premonition you might be bombed, memorize the following : (1) Try to get shielded; if you have time, get clown in a basement or subway. Should you unexpectedly unexpec-tedly be caught out-of-doors, seek shelter alongside a building or jump into any handy ditch or gutter. (2) Drop flat on' ground or floor; to keep from being tossed about and to lessen the chances of being be-ing struck by flying objects, flatten out at the base of a wall or at the bottom of a bank. (3) Bury your face in your arms; when you drop flat, hide your eyes in the crook of your elhw. That will protect your face from flash burns, prevent pre-vent temporary blindness and keep flying objects out of your eyes. (4) Don't rush outside right ofter a bombing; after an airburst, wait a few minutes, then go to help fight fires. After other kinds of bursts, wait at least until lingering radiation has some chance to die down. (5) Don't take chances with food or water in open containers; to prevent radio-active poisoning, or disease, select your food and water with care. When there is reason to believe these may be contaminated, contam-inated, stick to canned and bottled things if possible. (6) Don't start rumors; in the confusion that follows fol-lows a bombing, a single rumor might touch off a panic that will cost your life.' The experts figure that a person's chance of escaping es-caping alive, when within one-half mile of the center of an atomic explosion, will be one to ten. From one-half one-half to one mile away, the individual has a fifty-fifty chance. At points more than one and one-half to two miles away, deaths drop to only two or three per hundred and beyond two miles "the explosion .will cause practically no deaths at all. These might be disturbing thoughts to express the week of Thanksgiving but they might help to impress upon us a few more things for which we may yet be THANKFUL. . |