Free Survive Infinite Dangers: The Family Survival Guide of 21st Century Dangers by Gary Yantis Page A

would be spotted in seconds; not so with anthrax. Unless the aircraft or other means of delivery was spotted and quickly identified first indications that anthrax had been sprayed over a wide area would be a sudden influx of people rushing by the thousands to emergency rooms who would quickly become almost useless unable to handle thousands of people with the typical sized staff of an entire hospital, much less just the emergency room. By this time those most infected are probably hours away from death and cannot be saved. As soon as the poison is identified as anthrax and the authorities immediately begin to react (they DO have thorough and well planned out reaction plans to many types of WMD attacks including anthrax but time is NOT on their side. Within minutes the “command post” in that particular city has mapped out the area where the spraying was done, the direction and speed of the cloud or clouds of anthrax that has not yet reached the ground and much information that will save lives. Their goals (for anthrax) will be (1) notify the people as fast as possible with facts of what happened and what each person should do and (2) begin to transport (for anthrax) the antibiotic Cipro to areas that need it most. Cipro administered very early can render anthrax no more harmful than baking soda. What to do will probably be to immediately go to the lowest location possible, a sub-basement with poor outside ventilation for instance. The more concrete and other solid material between you and the falling anthrax the better but this is not correct if the anthrax was disbursed in that low level area (such as a subway). Information from the authorities becomes critical in such a time. Was it an aircraft, a balloon or released in a subway or the ventilation system of a large building? Knowing that will tell you where you do NOT want to be and where the best places to be are. In times of gas attacks (i.e. mustard gas or anything poisonous) ventilation and air movement is the LAST thing you want to have happen. Hopefully, building owners, city subways and all other man-made means of ventilation have “kill switches” that not only STOP ventilation but isolate areas into “compartments” as small and as many as possible. Unfortunately, the author is only aware of such isolation system in military and high security buildings.
     
    Every major city and most cities above the size of a small town now have at least one person in charge of “emergency preparedness”. Large cities have departments of as many as hundreds of people. “First Responders” such as police, fire and paramedics as well as “Second Wave Responders” such as National Guard receive training on all dangers covered in this book as well as other training meant to save lives. The federal government also has their own people stationed in many cities (mostly FEMA) who work in coordination with local authorities.
     
    IF the disaster is anthrax then FAST distribution of Cipro will become paramount. This author has yet to see a government plan of distribution that factors in mass panic that is part of human nature. The authorities (mostly FEMA) are still working on this difficult problem. The author believes strongly that human nature (especially in a life or death situation) must be a large part of any plan be it preparation, protection, saving lives and so forth. The most recent proposal heard is to have the post office go door to door distributing a few days of Cipro to each resident. To the author that assumes a calm and reasoned population who will patiently wait in their homes for the mailperson to show up as they know anthrax is filling their lungs and every extra minute without Cipro is one minute closer to death. To the author this plan illustrates government bureaucracy at its worst.
     
    The government is concerned with having ANY antibiotics in the hands of the general population. They are concerned people might take their supply of Cipro to treat a cold