Minute By Minute Of What Happens If A Nuclear Bomb Hits & How To Survive It

5 survival moves based on the actual physics of nuclear detonations. Most people outside the blast radius die from the wrong first decision.

With Annie Jacobsen

"Nearly every instinct you have about a nuclear event is wrong. You evolved to escape fire and predators. You did not evolve to escape gamma radiation. The people who survive are the ones who override instinct with physics."

Annie Jacobsen, on the episode

This episode walked through the minute-by-minute reality of a nuclear detonation — not the fantasy version, the actual one. Most people assume a nuclear event is unsurvivable. Outside of the immediate blast zone, it often isn't. What kills people in the fallout phase is almost always a bad first decision made in the first ten minutes, usually based on instincts that would have worked in every previous kind of emergency and are catastrophically wrong here. The guests weren't trading in fear. They were trading in specifics. Watch it once. Learn the protocols. Move on with your life.