Nuclear Bomb: You're Stuck In Traffic When It Hits (14 Days) — Transcript

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1. 0:00The inside of your car turns white. No
2. 0:02sound at all, just light, brighter than
3. 0:05the sun. A nuclear bomb has just gone
4. 0:08off 12 miles ahead of you, and you are
5. 0:11stuck in traffic 8:14 on a Tuesday
6. 0:14morning. You were looking down at your
7. 0:16phone. That is the only reason you can
8. 0:19still see four lanes of ring road.
9. 0:21Nothing has moved for 10 minutes.
10. 0:24Nothing is going to. The light is
11. 0:26instant. The blast is not. Whatever is
12. 0:29coming is still on its way. So, you fold
13. 0:31yourself below the dashboard and you
14. 0:33count. Like thunder, 5 seconds for every
15. 0:37mile. 20, 40. You start to think it is
16. 0:40not coming. At 60 seconds, the whole
17. 0:43road jumps. Windscreens go white with
18. 0:46cracks. Every car alarm in four lanes
19. 0:48goes off at once. 60 seconds, 12 miles.
20. 0:52When you sit up, there is a cloud
21. 0:54standing where the city center used to
22. 0:56be. It is still climbing.
23. 0:59You are not hurt. Your engine even
24. 1:01starts. It does not matter. Nobody in
25. 1:04front of you is going anywhere.
26. 1:07Here is what most people get wrong. At
27. 1:09this distance, the blast is over. What
28. 1:12kills now comes later, and it falls like
29. 1:14sand.
30. 1:15Thousands of tons of dirt went up inside
31. 1:17that cloud. It is radioactive now, and
32. 1:20it has to come down somewhere. It needs
33. 1:22time to fall. Official guidance says you
34. 1:25have at least 10 minutes. Nobody can
35. 1:27tell you how many more.
36. 1:29Problem one, you are sitting in the
37. 1:31worst shelter there is. Glass and thin
38. 1:34steel stop almost nothing. What stops it
39. 1:37is mass, earth, concrete, lots of it.
40. 1:41From the road, you can see three things:
41. 1:43a petrol station, all glass, a row of
42. 1:46wooden houses, and a shopping center
43. 1:48with an underground car park 600 m down
44. 1:51the exit ramp. 600 m, 5 minutes if you
45. 1:55run.
46. 1:56Problem two, you have nothing. Half a
47. 1:59bottle of water, one cereal bar, and a
48. 2:01phone that cannot find a signal.
49. 2:04The woman in the next car has her boot
50. 2:05open, red glasses. She is lifting out a
51. 2:08bag she packed years ago for a day she
52. 2:10hoped would never come. Two gallons of
53. 2:13water, a blanket, a wind-up radio. She
54. 2:16looks at you and says one word, "Run."
55. 2:21Some people stay in their cars and wind
56. 2:22the windows up. Some start walking
57. 2:25toward the city, toward it. A van driver
58. 2:28in a flat cap is leaning on his horn,
59. 2:30trying to force his way onto the hard
60. 2:31shoulder. He is going to drive out of
61. 2:34this. It is the natural instinct, keep
62. 2:36moving.
63. 2:38In the next hour, it is the worst thing
64. 2:40you can do. The open road is exactly
65. 2:42where the dust lands. You have minutes
66. 2:44to put a building between you and the
67. 2:46sky. The car park ramp. Level one still
68. 2:49has daylight on the floor, not deep
69. 2:51enough. Level three, the bottom. Round
70. 2:54two corners from the ramp because
71. 2:56radiation travels mostly in straight
72. 2:58lines, and concrete corners stop it. 11
73. 3:01minutes since the flash. A few dozen
74. 3:03people made the same choice. Most of the
75. 3:05road did not.
76. 3:08You do not see it arrive. Nobody
77. 3:10underground does. Up on the road, it
78. 3:13starts to come down, gray grit, like
79. 3:15sand, like dirty snow. You cannot smell
80. 3:19it. You cannot feel it. The people still
81. 3:21sitting in their cars have no idea how
82. 3:24much they are taking.
83. 3:25But fallout has one weakness, and it is
84. 3:27the most important number in this video.
85. 3:30It dies fast. Every time the clock
86. 3:33multiplies by seven, the radiation drops
87. 3:36by 10. 7 hours, 1/10. 2 days, 1/100. 2
88. 3:41weeks, 1/1000.
89. 3:43So, the whole job is this, sit under
90. 3:46concrete and let the clock do the work.
91. 3:50Footsteps on the ramp, slow ones.
92. 3:53It is the van driver. Flat cap. He sat
93. 3:56in the jam for half an hour with the
94. 3:58dust coming down and then he walked. He
95. 4:01is gray from head to foot. 30 minutes in
96. 4:04the open.
97. 4:05She looks at you and you know the
98. 4:07question. Is he dangerous to us? No.
99. 4:10Radiation sickness does not spread. He
100. 4:13is not the danger. The dust on him is.
101. 4:16So, he does not come down yet. One level
102. 4:19up, he takes off his outer clothes. That
103. 4:21alone removes about 90% of it. The
104. 4:24clothes go in a bag. The bag gets tied.
105. 4:27The bag stays up there. Then soap and
106. 4:29water, top to bottom. No scrubbing and
107. 4:32no conditioner. Conditioner glues the
108. 4:34particles to your hair. It costs you a
109. 4:36gallon, half of everything you have. It
110. 4:39is the best gallon you will spend. Three
111. 4:42people now.
112. 4:44An hour later, he is sick. Suddenly and
113. 4:48badly. Her radio finds one station. A
114. 4:51calm voice reading a list on a loop.
115. 4:54Stay inside. Stay tuned. If you are
116. 4:57outside, remove your outer clothing and
117. 5:00wash. One item on the list is about
118. 5:02this. How soon someone is sick tells you
119. 5:05how much they took. Under an hour means
120. 5:08a very large dose. He was sick at 90
121. 5:11minutes. Nothing down here treats it.
122. 5:13Water, rest, keeping him clean. That is
123. 5:17the whole list.
124. 5:20Seven hours. Up on the road, the
125. 5:22radiation is already down to a tenth.
126. 5:25Down here, you count. One gallon, three
127. 5:28people, one cereal bar. Problem three is
128. 5:32water and the answer is standing by the
129. 5:34lifts, a vending machine. Every bottle
130. 5:37in it was sealed in a factory. A tire
131. 5:39iron from somebody's boot. 41 bottles.
132. 5:43The rule is simple. Sealed is safe.
133. 5:46Anything that sat open under that sky is
134. 5:48not, and you do not go up to look. The
135. 5:51first day is the one that kills.
136. 5:5449 hours, 1/100 of what it was. Not safe
137. 5:59to live in. Safe enough for one short
138. 6:01trip.
139. 6:02Problem four is food, and the food is
140. 6:05directly above your head. Three floors
141. 6:08up, there is a supermarket with a glass
142. 6:10front. The glass is gone. There is a
143. 6:13gray skin on the first 10 m of floor.
144. 6:16You stay at the back. Do not sweep it,
145. 6:18do not stir it, do not stay.
146. 6:21You give yourself 10 minutes. Sealed
147. 6:23tins, sealed bottles. Nothing loose,
148. 6:26nothing from the bakery, nothing from
149. 6:28the open fridges. You wipe everyone.
150. 6:3112 gallons, 40 tins, one trolley with a
151. 6:34bad wheel.
152. 6:35On the way out, you look, once, through
153. 6:38the broken front. The road is still
154. 6:40full. Every car is gray. Most of the
155. 6:43doors are open. Yours is up there
156. 6:46somewhere, keys still in it.
157. 6:49Back underground, you do exactly what he
158. 6:51did. Coat off, bagged, hands and hair
159. 6:54washed before you go near the others.
160. 6:58It rains, and an underground car park
161. 7:00has one more problem. Everything that
162. 7:03falls on that ramp runs downhill to you.
163. 7:06Rain washes the dust out of the air and
164. 7:08gathers it. Gutters, drains, puddles.
165. 7:12That is where it ends up, and you are
166. 7:14living in the drain. You do not touch
167. 7:16it. You move everything to the high side
168. 7:18of the level, far from the stream, and
169. 7:21you stay dry. And down here, something
170. 7:24strange. He is better. He is eating. He
171. 7:27says he feels fine. The voice on the
172. 7:29radio has a name for this, too. She
173. 7:31turns the volume down so he does not
174. 7:33hear it.
175. 7:35Day five. Nine days of water, 12 of
176. 7:39food. For the first time, the numbers
177. 7:41are on your side. A man from the far end
178. 7:44of the level comes around with iodine
179. 7:46tablets, one tin of food each. Know what
180. 7:49they do. They protect one organ, the
181. 7:51thyroid, from one substance, radioactive
182. 7:54iodine. They do nothing for the rest of
183. 7:56you. Take them if the authorities tell
184. 7:58you to. The radio has not. You keep your
185. 8:01tins. You sleep in shifts. Nobody says
186. 8:04why.
187. 8:06On day nine, he does not get up. This is
188. 8:09the part nobody tells you. After a big
189. 8:12dose, the sickness goes away for a few
190. 8:14days. Then it comes back. Those good
191. 8:17days were not recovery. They were the
192. 8:19quiet part. He needs a hospital, fluids,
193. 8:22clean rooms, doctors. You have a car
194. 8:25park and a trolley of tins. And on day
195. 8:27nine, the radio changes. A new message.
196. 8:30Evacuation buses will run from the North
197. 8:33Bridge, starting on day 14. Five days.
198. 8:37You look at him and you start doing the
199. 8:39arithmetic.
200. 8:42Problem five. Three levels of ramp, two
201. 8:45miles of road, and one man who cannot
202. 8:47walk any of it. So, you build something.
203. 8:51The shopping trolley, the blanket, and
204. 8:53every coat you own. It is ugly. It
205. 8:56rolls. Then the route. Fallout travels
206. 8:59downwind in one long stripe. You do not
207. 9:02walk along the stripe. You walk out of
208. 9:04the side of it.
209. 9:06Two weeks. 1,000th.
210. 9:09The clock has done its work. Three
211. 9:12levels of ramp takes you 40 minutes. He
212. 9:14apologizes on every level. You tell him
213. 9:17to shut up on every level. Then the
214. 9:20road. 14 days of gray on everything.
215. 9:24Scarves over your faces. You touch
216. 9:26nothing you do not have to. There are
217. 9:28footprints in the dust. Hundreds of
218. 9:30them. All heading north. You follow them
219. 9:33to the river.
220. 9:34>> [music]
221. 9:34>> And at the river, you see why the
222. 9:36footprints stop. The North Bridge ends
223. 9:38halfway across. A few hundred people
224. 9:41standing in the dust looking at the
225. 9:43water. The buses are real. You can see
226. 9:45them. A row of headlights on the far
227. 9:47bank. 300 m of river. One man in a
228. 9:51shopping trolley. And she winds the
229. 9:53radio one more time.
230. 9:55>> The last bus leaves at dark.
231. 9:57>> It is 4:00 in the afternoon.