Time for a road trip

December 23, 2017 11:29 AM

Tell me how Trump’s North Korea gambit ends. Rex Tillerson suggests diplomatic negotiations but the white house sends the opposite message. 58 retired military generals think it's worth writing a letter about. If North Korea has the capability to hit the US west coast with nukes, might be worth keeping my car fueled up and a bag packed.

Amazon sells potassium iodide tablets.

posted by vs (4 comments total)

I could give a shit about NKs nukes. China's, on the other hand, are very real and driving a bit isn't going to do shit.
posted by Artw at 11:39 AM on December 23, 2017

The whole NK situation is problematic and is not being handled well IMO and is scary as hell. And I (and probably everyone reading this) feel entirely powerless to do anything to make it better.

Sadly, if you live in a place along the west coast that is targeted, there is no way you'd have enough time to drive far enough away, especially with everyone else doing the same thing in that 20 minute window or whatever. Maybe just start doing duck and cover drills?
posted by hippybear at 11:40 AM on December 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

If you knew where it was going to detonate, 20 minutes at 20 mph would move you from being instantly vaporized by a ~150kt blast to having good odds of surviving. If you knew the detonation point, just jogging away for 20 minutes would make a real difference in your odds and might well get you out of the overpressure zone.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:58 AM on December 23, 2017

I think war with NK is inevitable, regardless of who's in the WH, but my whole understanding of the situation comes from a war sympathetic media, so hopefully I'm just ignorant of other realistic outcomes.

Also, we have a State which is much closer to NK than the West coast. Just saying.
posted by Beholder at 11:58 AM on December 23, 2017