Dusting the bombs and stacking the bodies
Friday, March 21st, 2003 02:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerAfter a few months of posting intriguing, "to the shelter" signs, the university has now posted clarificatory documents. If we hear a long, steady tone, it means we should turn off domestic appliances and get ready to go to the shelters (in my case, getting ready means filling my hip flask, grabbing my battery-powered radio so we can have some music in the shelter, and maybe taking my Go set, since I rather like the idea of dying while executing some elegant joseki). It looks silly, but I agree with the line about turning off domestic appliances - you'd feel really stupid if you survived a chemical attack then got blown up because you left the gas on.
A rising and falling tone means "Get your ass to the shelter now!" Intermittent bursts of siren means fallout, or in other words, you're totally screwed, but go to the shelter anyway, though there is helpful advice about what to do if you're outdoors or in your car, like covering exposed skin (obviously no one here took high school physics - gamma rays will go through your sweater without even noticing it).
In the unlikely event that we are subjectged to an Iraqi or American attack, I probably won't go to the shelter (which is not a real shelter, but just the basement of one of the buildings) but take a nice stroll into the neighbouring hills. Modern chemical weapons use paritcles of gas which drop on the gournd then rise up, but the Iraqis, if they have any chemical weapons left, seem to use old-fashined things like mustard gas, which are heavier than air.
Nalan has just been given her civil defence duties. She got the bomb squad role. Apparently, if she finds an unexploded bomb or area of chemical or biological contamination, she's supposed to clean it up. Instructions on how to clean up ricin or anthrax were not provided, let alone how one is supposed to clean an unexploded bomb (dust carefully?). She also has to direct traffic and prevent people from making demoralising comments (like "Why the hell are you dusting that bomb?"). Although this sounds stupid, she is thankful that she didn't get the job assigned to her friend, who is on corpse duty, which is paritcularly difficult considering that they haven't been issued with body bags. I can see some argumnets happening as Burçak tries to arrange her corpses in a way that disturbs Nalan's carefully dusted bombs.
The prinicipal at Nalan's school has said that they'll do a drill some time next week. Nalan's comment was "Fine - assuming we're still alive to do it."
A rising and falling tone means "Get your ass to the shelter now!" Intermittent bursts of siren means fallout, or in other words, you're totally screwed, but go to the shelter anyway, though there is helpful advice about what to do if you're outdoors or in your car, like covering exposed skin (obviously no one here took high school physics - gamma rays will go through your sweater without even noticing it).
In the unlikely event that we are subjectged to an Iraqi or American attack, I probably won't go to the shelter (which is not a real shelter, but just the basement of one of the buildings) but take a nice stroll into the neighbouring hills. Modern chemical weapons use paritcles of gas which drop on the gournd then rise up, but the Iraqis, if they have any chemical weapons left, seem to use old-fashined things like mustard gas, which are heavier than air.
Nalan has just been given her civil defence duties. She got the bomb squad role. Apparently, if she finds an unexploded bomb or area of chemical or biological contamination, she's supposed to clean it up. Instructions on how to clean up ricin or anthrax were not provided, let alone how one is supposed to clean an unexploded bomb (dust carefully?). She also has to direct traffic and prevent people from making demoralising comments (like "Why the hell are you dusting that bomb?"). Although this sounds stupid, she is thankful that she didn't get the job assigned to her friend, who is on corpse duty, which is paritcularly difficult considering that they haven't been issued with body bags. I can see some argumnets happening as Burçak tries to arrange her corpses in a way that disturbs Nalan's carefully dusted bombs.
The prinicipal at Nalan's school has said that they'll do a drill some time next week. Nalan's comment was "Fine - assuming we're still alive to do it."
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how very pleasant
Date: 2003-03-20 04:56 pm (UTC)best wishes.
Re: how very pleasant
Date: 2003-03-22 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-21 06:38 am (UTC)