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Show would then carry out the civil defense plan. At the time I checked into the matter for myself and my family in Park City I learned that while Utah is the only tate in the United States to have a civil defense plan for each and every county, coun-ty, the plan for Summit County was still being developed and would not be complete until at least January of 1984. In the meantime, there is no civil defense plan or program in Park City, Utah for me or anyone else. In case of nuclear attack the 4,000 residents of Park City and the 15- to 20,000 tourists would be on their own to find shelters. Ond of the distrubing factors about the civil defense program that we do have in this country is that everything hinges on a 72-hour warning system. Our leaders are convinced that the Soviets will begin sending their people into shelters before initiating any attack at-tack and that by so noting this through the eye of satellite communications, we will then have time to do the same. I can't imagine that the Soviets are not very much aware of this stance and that they would follow our expectations expec-tations for our convenience. Neither am I convinced that even with the luxury of a 72-hour warning that we could manage to get our 270 million citizens to safe places without panic and pandemonium. If you have the imagination to contemplate con-template the unthinkable, I would encourage en-courage you to find out, as I have, what the plan for your county is and then do whatever you can to educate those around you. Who knows, with a little organization and voice we might even get the government to raise the ante above 64 cents! Frank Benson I, ln case of nuclear attack... Editor: Yesterday was Dec. 7, 1983, and although 42 years have passed sincej was a small child living in Honolulu when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I am very concerned for all of us. Because we have not experienced an enemy bombing of the American mainland in the 207 years of our history, we have become disdainers of the idea. For most Americans it is not possible to contemplate the kind of disaster that a nuclear attack on this country would bring. Somehow we believe ourselves to h invinpihle. And it is that complacency that worries me most. As an educator I know that experience ex-perience is the best teacher ... and the best stimulator of our imaginations. Once we have experienced being out of control in a car on ice and somehow survive the incident, it is easier for us to imagine the hazard, and it is that imagination that causes us to slow down and drive more carefully on ice. For the Russians, who lost more than 20 million people fighting Germans Ger-mans on Russian soil, it is not hard for them to imagine the ravages of war. And it is undoubtedly their memory of WW II that enables them to imagine WW HI and to prepare for it. In spite of our perception of the U.S.S.R. as a totalitarian state with little lit-tle or no regard for human life or rights, we must recognize that they are spending 11 dollars per capita for civil defense and are in a high state of readiness. Compare that to our investment in-vestment to insure the survival of the American people in case of nuclear attack at-tack of 64 cents per capita! As a people, we spend more annually for cat litter than for civil defense. This would be more understandable if we were a nation of pacifists ... but we are not. We are in an arms race with the Soviet Union and are spending billions of dollars annually for military defense. Even untroubled Switzerland with no nuclear capability and one of the more peaceful histories in the world, still has the imagination to spend 23 dollars per capita in 1982 for civil defense. . I don't know whether it was ABC's airing of the television movie "The 1 Day After," the invasion of Grenada, the escalating hostilities in Beirut, or the placement of nuclear missies in Western Europe that stimulated my imagination... but it has been stimulated. I began asking myself questions like, in case of nuclear attack what kind of warning could I expect? How much time would I have to get with my family and to seek shelter? Where would we go? What should I take? How would I know when it was safe to leave the shelter? And so on. It didn't take me long to realize that I really didn't have the answers to these questions, and loving my family as I do, that bothered me. Consequently, I got on the phone and began calling city, county, and state agencies to find out what kind of civil defense program 64 cents will buy me... a"1 'hi,a city referreu me to tne county and county to the city, it was finally the Utah State Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management that provided pro-vided me with some answ"". It is the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA that oversees all disaster relief in the United States. It is the funding from this agency that provides the states with the civil defense program they have, and is from whence our 64 cents comes. The states, in turn, do shelter survey and designate the counties by area to be either "high risk," "non-risk," or "non-risknon-host." High risk areas would be those most likely to be subject to the blast and heat effects of nuclear detonation. Non-risk may not have to be concerned concer-ned about blast and heat, but may, instead, in-stead, be subject to radioactive fallout. Some non-risk counties are designated to be "host" counties and in case of nuclear attack, some of the high-risk population would be transported tran-sported or directed to these places. The counties, and more particularly the county commissioners would implement im-plement and oversee their own civil defense plans provided to them by the State Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management. The county commissioners, in turn, would provide the county sheriff with full law enforcement enfor-cement authority for the entire county, and over all incorporation and unincorporated unin-corporated cities. With this authority and on behalf of the county commissioners, com-missioners, the sheriff and his people |