Urgent radiation preparedness action items for California, Oregon, Washington, B.C., Yukon and Alaska

Thursday, March 17, 2011 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: radiation, preparedness, health news

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(NaturalNews) The New York Times report that a radiation plume will reach California by Friday has a lot of people asking us for more information about what to do. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/science/17...) Fortunately, the amount of radiation that would actually fall on California (or Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, etc.) is currently very small. Too small to pose a serious health risk for right now.

The time to get really concerned is if -- and only if -- the Fukushima reactors suffer a fuel rod "meltdown" event which would release a massive amount of radiation into the atmosphere. The United Nations has calculated that such an event would send a cloud of very powerful radiation headed eastward, arriving on the shores of the United States and Canada within 2-3 days after the meltdown, depending on wind patterns.

Importantly, this will give you some time to take action should such an event occur. The next 24 - 48 hours are crucial in Japan's effort to stop the nuclear fuel rod meltdown. It is entirely unknown whether Japan can succeed in stopping it. The situation remains dire.

Important action items to take right now

If you live in the western states or provinces of North America, it is extremely important to be prepared by taking the following actions RIGHT NOW:

1) Fuel up your vehicle(s) and be ready to hit the road for a possible evacuation (or hunker down if you're out in the country and feel like you would be safer there).

2) If you plan to stay put, go to the hardware store TODAY and buy large amounts of plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal up your windows and doors. This will help protect you from radioactive fallout. You will also need to store water, food, and all the usual emergency supplies because outside help probably won't be available.

3) If you plan to evacuate, have a "Go Bag" ready to go at a moment's notice. This go bag should include a water filter, emergency radio, flashlight, duct tape, emergency knife, spare cash, whatever medical supplies you might need, extra food and water, spare fuel cans and so on. Have it ready now in case you need it.

4) Significantly increase your intake of iodine-containing foods and superfoods starting right now: Seaweeds are a great source. We've listed our entire inventory of what we have available at our store (https://www.naturalnews.com/031730_iodine_rad...), but I would actually prefer you to go out and get this locally TODAY at your local health food stores, where possible. You may not have time to wait on a UPS delivery. Fortunately, our store ships from Ojai, California, meaning that if you order foods from us today that are in stock, and you're in California, you could receive them very, very quickly (within 1-2 business days).

5) If you have potassium iodide pills (radiation pills), don't take them yet. Keep them ready to take if and only if a meltdown event occurs and a massive dose of radiation has been released into the atmosphere.

6) Have a plan for you and your family. Where will you meet if you need to evacuate? Don't count on cell phones working. Have a plan of where to go, how to get there and how to survive once you get there.

Why you probably won't be told the truth on all this by "official" sources

Hopefully none of this will be necessary. If they can stop the meltdown at Fukushima, there is virtually no real radiation risk in North America. That's the outcome we're all hoping and praying for.

But if a meltdown takes place, it is almost certain that strong winds will push a massive radiation cloud right into North America within a matter of days, potentially dropping an extremely dangerous quantity of radioactive material on California or other regions. That's the scenario that we all need to be prepared to guard against.

Do not rely on your government to tell you the truth about what's happening. Governments are in the business of "preventing panic" by withholding information you need to know. Governments believe that if too many people know the truth, it might start a panic, and even more people could die in the panic than from the event itself. They may actually be correct at some level on that, but I believe that people have a right to know what's really going on. And the sober, shocking truth of the matter is that as of right now, our world is facing an unprecedented nuclear meltdown event that could dwarf the Chernobyl catastrophe of 1986. We're talking about as many as 600,000 spent fuel rods which are now threatened by fires and loss of cooling fluids. This is not a set of circumstances to be taken lightly.

I urge all NaturalNews readers to take this seriously. Get prepared now. Get your go bag ready just in case. Start boosting your natural iodine intake TODAY. Be ready to head out of Dodge if you're in a geographic area that could be impacted. And then watch the news on this to stay informed (and read NaturalNews for an honest analysis of the situation).

The sad realities of the evacuation of large cities

Another thing: If a meltdown does occur and an evacuation is announced for parts of the west coast of North America, you will need to be one of the first to head out if you expect to get out at all. The highways around Los Angeles in particular do not have the capacity to handle a mass evacuation. They barely have the capacity to handle rush hour! Imagine what happens if half the people in L.A. try to leave all at the same time... that will be a week-long traffic jam, and people will run out of gas on the highways, abandon their vehicles, and make the highways impassable.

I don't mean to paint this as a worst-case scenario, but I'm trying to give you an accurate description of what might realistically happen if a radiation cloud is headed toward LA and an evacuation effort is announced. If you aren't out of LA by the time the government announces an evacuation, you're probably too late.

By the way, this is actually a good time to own a Prius because a Prius can idle without the engine running and use virtually no gas. A Prius is a great getaway vehicle for jammed evacuation highways where traffic is barely moving. Of course, if you had a Hummer, you could probably just off-road it and bypass all the stalled traffic, but that's a debate for another time...

Be safe and be smart about all this. Think ahead. Get real about what might unfold if a meltdown occurs. This is a time to interrupt your regularly-scheduled programming and start thinking seriously about what you can do to protect yourself and your family. It's better to be prepared than to be caught by the unexpected.

We are lucky in one sense right now because we have forewarning of all this. There is time right now to take preparedness steps to deal with a meltdown event should one occur. I strongly advise all NaturalNews readers to use this time wisely and get squared away for what might be coming.

Just in case, you see. Most of the time, when I preach preparedness, I do so in the context of just getting prepared for "the unexpected." But today, we have the expected! We know Fukushima is about to melt down. We know the winds will carry the radiation to North America. We know that evacuation of major U.S. cities in 48 hours is virtually impossible. And we also know that the supply inventories of certain preparedness items are strictly limited, meaning that not everybody who wants emergency supplies will be able to get them. These are the sobering realities of emergencies in our modern, high-population-density world.

Watch NaturalNews.com for more updates throughout the day. We'll be posting stories at an increased frequency during this Fukushima catastrophe to help bring people information more rapidly.