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Show CIVIL DEFENSE Small Communities Will Care For Evacuees of Bombed City By Walter A. Shead (This is the second in a series ol five articles en thi all-important subject of civil defense.) TF YOU WERE ONE of those directly beneath the explosion of an atomic bomb over your home town tonight, there would be practically no hope of your survival. Even if you lived anywhere within a half-mile of the center of the explosion, your chances of living to tell the tale would be about one in ten. From a half-mile to a mile away, you would have about a 50-50 chance, and farther away than that your chances would be pretty good that you would be able to help your less fortunate neighbors. Ana oi course wurnn inese areas your chances of injury would be even greater. But your chances of recovery from radioactivity or other injuries would be good. And if you have a few minutes warning of an impending air raid, these chances are vastly improved. What should you do, even if you have only a few seconds warning? The first thing to remember is to fall flat on your face. If you have time to pick a spot to fall, choose first to flatten out against a cellar wall, or even an inside wall, or beneath be-neath a sturdy table or bench. Or if you are outside, drop beside the base of a building, or fall into a ditch or gutter. And when you fall, cover your face in the crook of your arm, and cover any exposed skin with whatever is handy and hold it for several seconds after the explosion to prevent flash burns. To you folks in the home towns of the nation and In the rural areas there is little danger of a direct atomic bomb overhead, for the enemy would most certainly aim at one or more of some 16 strategic strate-gic target areas In large cities and Industrial areas. But your neighbors neigh-bors in your nearest large city might suffer as follows: A surprise daylight attack on an average city would produce about 120,000 casualties. casual-ties. Of this total, approximately 40,000 would be killed outright or die the first day. An additional 20,-000 20,-000 would die In the following five or six weeks. Of the 80,000 remainder, re-mainder, about 48,000 might be suffering suf-fering from burns, 40,000 from mechanical me-chanical injuries and 16,000 from radiation injulres. This total of over 100 per cent arises from the fact that a large number of casualties would be suffering from two or more types of Injuries. To top this ..staggering total, there follows the complex and difficult job of evacuation, evacua-tion, either after the bomb drop, or of course, if there is warning, preferably before the drop. And here is where folks in strictly strict-ly rural communities and the small towns of the country can play a tremendously important role In their state's civil defense set-up. If your town and your county Is chosen as an evacuation site, plans may be made beforehand to care for several thousands or even a million mil-lion or more evacuees from a stricken city in the following order: (1) school age children; (2) children chil-dren under six years, accompanied by mothers or escorts; (3) pregnant women; (4) the aged, infirm; 5) inmates of Institutions, hospitals, homes and state or county institutions; institu-tions; and (6) all others except those serving in essential capacities capaci-ties such as industry. Your town or your county must be organized to care for these people peo-ple to help provide transportation, health service, sanitation, police, fire protection, water supply, food, housing, hospitalization, morgue services, and a dozen other essentials, essen-tials, Including welfare service. Your state civilian defense administration ad-ministration and his entire staff running down into the cities, towns and counties, should be trained to meet every contingency of such a catastrophe. This requires weeks and months of organizational work ' and intense planning and entails the draft or volunteer of thousands of individuals, both men and women, who should be trained and educated, edu-cated, simply, as Gov. Millard Caldwell, director of the national civilian defense administration said; to save their own lives and to assist In saving the lives of their neighbors. Here are a few musts in preparing pre-paring your house after an air-raid warning: Don't let trash pile up; shut doors, wlndowi and pull down blinds; throw your electric switch;' if you burn coal, close draft doors-keep doors-keep a flash-light handy; don't light' a match; have a radio, first-aid equipment and a supply of canned goods; don't eat open food; don't rush outside after a bombing; drink only bottled water or other bottled liquid; don't start rumori and use the telephone only for emergency.; There is little danger of radioactive radio-active clouds after the first two minutes after the bomb burst. |
