8.1 Short-Term Impact
77
Elected and appointed officials as well as the Incident Commander will also have
to decide whether public health and safety is best served by initially sheltering in
place or evacuating the public. While the initial impulse is normally to move people
out of harm’s way, it is important to remember that radiation is only one of multiple
risks that would be faced during an evacuation; evacuation might not be a course of
action that minimizes the overall risk to the public. For this reason, some cities have
concluded that the immediate recommendation to members of the public should be
to shelter indoors (provided the building is stable and not on fire) until conditions
have stabilized to the point at which they can be evacuated safely.
8.2 Long-Term Impact
As serious as the initial impact of a radiological attack might be, such an attack is
likely to continue to have repercussions for years or even decades, and the nature
of these impacts is likely to change as time goes on. In the weeks, months, and
years following an attack the focus of a city’s response efforts will evolve away from
stabilizing the scene and saving lives and towards attending to the long-term health
and safety of residents as well as towards recovering from the attack and restoring
access to the impacted areas.
8.2.1 Public Health
Many deterministic radiation injuries take days to weeks to manifest; thus, radiation
sickness, skin burns, and the like can continue to appear for some time after an
attack occurs, and even those who manifest deterministic effects early can continue
to develop new symptoms for months or years [12].
In addition to the deterministic effects, leukemia and other blood cancers can begin
to appear about five years or so after initial exposure with solid tumors beginning
to arise about a decade post-exposure and continuing to appear decades later [13].
In this, the public health impact of a radiological attack is likely to parallel that of
the attacks on September 11, 2001, which saw (and continues to see) a continuing
stream of responders and members of the public being affected by the materials they
inhaled on the day of the attack and the days following the attack.
Having said that, the rates of cancers in the aftermath of the Chernobyl, Three Mile
Island, and Fukushima nuclear reactor accidents have not increased appreciably in
the time since those respective accidents, and there was not a statistically significant
increase in cancers among the lowest-dose cohorts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki [26]
. This does not mean that there were no cancers induced by radiation exposure from
those events, just that, if there were, they did not appear in high numbers. This
is consistent with a statement in the 2008 report by the United Nations Scientific
Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation in which it was noted that a study
77
Elected and appointed officials as well as the Incident Commander will also have
to decide whether public health and safety is best served by initially sheltering in
place or evacuating the public. While the initial impulse is normally to move people
out of harm’s way, it is important to remember that radiation is only one of multiple
risks that would be faced during an evacuation; evacuation might not be a course of
action that minimizes the overall risk to the public. For this reason, some cities have
concluded that the immediate recommendation to members of the public should be
to shelter indoors (provided the building is stable and not on fire) until conditions
have stabilized to the point at which they can be evacuated safely.
8.2 Long-Term Impact
As serious as the initial impact of a radiological attack might be, such an attack is
likely to continue to have repercussions for years or even decades, and the nature
of these impacts is likely to change as time goes on. In the weeks, months, and
years following an attack the focus of a city’s response efforts will evolve away from
stabilizing the scene and saving lives and towards attending to the long-term health
and safety of residents as well as towards recovering from the attack and restoring
access to the impacted areas.
8.2.1 Public Health
Many deterministic radiation injuries take days to weeks to manifest; thus, radiation
sickness, skin burns, and the like can continue to appear for some time after an
attack occurs, and even those who manifest deterministic effects early can continue
to develop new symptoms for months or years [12].
In addition to the deterministic effects, leukemia and other blood cancers can begin
to appear about five years or so after initial exposure with solid tumors beginning
to arise about a decade post-exposure and continuing to appear decades later [13].
In this, the public health impact of a radiological attack is likely to parallel that of
the attacks on September 11, 2001, which saw (and continues to see) a continuing
stream of responders and members of the public being affected by the materials they
inhaled on the day of the attack and the days following the attack.
Having said that, the rates of cancers in the aftermath of the Chernobyl, Three Mile
Island, and Fukushima nuclear reactor accidents have not increased appreciably in
the time since those respective accidents, and there was not a statistically significant
increase in cancers among the lowest-dose cohorts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki [26]
. This does not mean that there were no cancers induced by radiation exposure from
those events, just that, if there were, they did not appear in high numbers. This
is consistent with a statement in the 2008 report by the United Nations Scientific
Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation in which it was noted that a study