Devon and Cornwall will be inundated with refugees? Ifs, maybes, and conjecture

[Devonian]

But what type of event do you envisage would cause circa 20M people from the South East, to still be alive, and to just up and leave everything behind, AND for the rest of the UK to be uneffected?

You (or someone else) previously mentioned a dirty bomb, but that would only affect a VERY small area and would not cause mass evacuations?

A full on nuclear attack would wipe out the popultion anyway, as would a Tsunami. Anything that is not immediately life threatening would be ignored by many.

Whilst the numbers being quoted may be correct, the scenario's are are not. I cannot see any 'realistic' reason for the whole (or even a large part) of London and the South East to be evacuated.

[Lightspeed]

If Joe Soap and his family had the wherewithal to get out of the city before the general stampeed, this would show that Joe or someone in his party have some situational awareness.

Getting gridlocked at say Swindon would therefore reinforce the correctness of their decision to evacuate. It would also motivate them very strongly to keep moving away from danger.

Maybe the gridlock would force the Soaps to draw breath and re-appraise their plan, and take note of the numbers of other people with the same idea as them. Either they would adapt their plan or with no other options press on.

Its all about motivation and expectation. If they are motivated to keep putting distance between themselves and the City, and have an expectation of being able to make a go of it at their destination, they will press on.

BTW re blockading Devon. Am I right in remembering that Devon has the longest road network of any county in the UK... something like 7,500 miles worth I think? That's a lot of roads to block.

[bigpaul]

(25 March 2014, 13:30)Devonian Wrote: But what type of event do you envisage would cause circa 20M people from the South East, to still be alive, and to just up and leave everything behind, AND for the rest of the UK to be uneffected?

You (or someone else) previously mentioned a dirty bomb, but that would only affect a VERY small area and would not cause mass evacuations?

A full on nuclear attack would wipe out the popultion anyway, as would a Tsunami. Anything that is not immediately life threatening would be ignored by many.

Whilst the numbers being quoted may be correct, the scenario's are are not. I cannot see any 'realistic' reason for the whole (or even a large part) of London and the South East to be evacuated.

most people will just sit tight and wait for the govt to come and save them, NOT become refugee's overnight, this is NOT France in 1940, the British population do not have the mindset for it, and most if not all will sit tight and moan.

[Lightspeed]

Devonian,

Why do you thing a dirty bomb in London would not cause mass evacuation?

For sure the authorities would try to keep as many people in place as possible, but who's going to sit tight with invisible and lethal radioactive material in the nearby environment?

I think huge numbers of people would assert their independence of authority and get the hell as far away as possible.

Bomb in London. Prevailing wind generally from the West. So heading into the wind would be the logical safe direction to flee.

[bigpaul]

that's assuming people think logically, and we all know they don't!!

[Devonian]

Where would terrorists set off a Dirty Bomb??

My guesses would be either:

1. A Transportation Hub
2. The financial District
3. A sports Arena
4. Shopping Centre/Street
5. Tourist Attraction (Trafalgar Square??)
6. Near the Houses of Parliment

Dirty bombs does not have massive (nuclear) explosive power, conventional explosives would be used, the radiation spread is again faily limited due to the nature of the device and the type of radio active material used.

Do some research on Dirty Bombs, they are crude devices and will not be affecting large parts of the citys, it will not be like Hiroshima!!

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(25 March 2014, 13:38)Lightspeed Wrote: If Joe Soap and his family had the wherewithal to get out of the city before the general stampeed, this would show that Joe or someone in his party have some situational awareness.

Getting gridlocked at say Swindon would therefore reinforce the correctness of their decision to evacuate. It would also motivate them very strongly to keep moving away from danger.

Maybe the gridlock would force the Soaps to draw breath and re-appraise their plan, and take note of the numbers of other people with the same idea as them. Either they would adapt their plan or with no other options press on.

Its all about motivation and expectation. If they are motivated to keep putting distance between themselves and the City, and have an expectation of being able to make a go of it at their destination, they will press on.

BTW re blockading Devon. Am I right in remembering that Devon has the longest road network of any county in the UK... something like 7,500 miles worth I think? That's a lot of roads to block.

No one is saying people won't get here, of course they will, its the numbers that are being disputed and the fact the rest of the country would also be affected.

With regards to blocking roads, the M5 stops at Exeter and then is a dual carriageway onto Cornwall, the A30 is also Dual Carriageway, after that every thing else is single carriageway and the vast majority of the 7000 miles of roads are single track and are not wide enough for 2 cars to pass. We do not have the road infrastructure that exists in the South East and Midlands.

Why do you think 8 hour tailbacks are "already common" on the roads into the South West during the summer!

[Lightspeed]

I get what you are saying Dev,

I agree that such a device would be set to damage the infrastructure as you describe.

But who's going to listen to authorities telling then that it was just a tactical device, that they should stay in their homes and await further instruction?

I'll tell you how urban London populations will think ( aided by irresponsible media reports), it'll be something like. " Sh1T an atom bomb has gone off in central London.... moments later images of Hiroshima mushroom cloud, closely followed by images of abandoned urban landscape of Chernobyl.... That'll be the call to action, there will be little more thinking, just an overwhelming desire to get themselves and their families out of there as fast and as far as possible"

The trouble is that radiation is silent, odourless, invisible and lethal... Because of its invisibility the fear factor it elicits is very high indeed.

People will run from it I'm sure. There will be no persuading them to stay with logical argument.

[bigpaul]

according to some quick research I have just done, a dirty bomb does not have the explosive capacity of a nuclear bomb, and at most will encompass anything from a city block to several square miles, so we are not talking e.g. the whole of London, but most like a square mile around the financial district, question: how many people actually LIVE in the financial district?(rather than those commuting in from outside). as for motorways in Devon, the M5 stops at Exeter(I have said this before), me myself am 30 miles from that end of the motorway, Plymouth is 42 miles from it and Cornish towns even further, there are only 2 Cities in Devon and they are very small compared to others, anyone coming to those cities expecting to find food and water will find all the stores empty long before they get there.as Devonian says there is also Dartmoor and Exmoor to either cross or detour around, this would have the effect of dispersing the incomers even further. how many of these people actually know where they are going? or are they just wandering about looking for someone to take them in? some hope!! most of Devon is peppered by small lanes, some virtual farm tracks, we don't have the major road systems of the South East and elsewhere, and the ones we do have tend to go south and north not east or west, you have the A38 to the coast, the A30 down into cornwall and the A361 North Devon link road, with deep devon lanes filling up the area in between.

[NorthernRaider]

Devonian
RE: Devon and Cornwall will be inundated with refugees? Ifs, maybes, and conjecture
But what type of event do you envisage would cause circa 20M people from the South East, to still be alive, and to just up and leave everything behind, AND for the rest of the UK to be uneffected?
You (or someone else) previously mentioned a dirty bomb, but that would only affect a VERY small area and would not cause mass evacuations?
A full on nuclear attack would wipe out the popultion anyway, as would a Tsunami. Anything that is not immediately life threatening would be ignored by many.
Whilst the numbers being quoted may be correct, the scenario's are are not. I cannot see any 'realistic' reason for the whole (or even a large part) of London and the South East to be evacuated .
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Your mind appears to be a bit closed I feel, you are simply trying to ignore anything that could be inconvenient, you must be able to consider multiple threat scenarios not just the convenient ones. No one is saying ALL 20 million will up and leave, which bit can you not grasp.

Invasion, Fatal epidemic such as the deliberate release of something horrible like Ebola or Hanta virus, Invasion, Tsunami alert, Quake, Economic collapse an EMP burst, etc etc all could see cities empty, Sarajevo and many other cities emptied in weeks after the other side started slaughtering people. London ALONE cannot FEED itself, it cannot provide any FRESH WATER, it does not GENERATE any POWER it is utterly reliant on everything being imported. a major economic collapse of Mega recession will see MILLIONS migrate, not all to the SW but enough to completely overwhelm it.

NO ONE IS SAYING the rest of the country will be unaffected, we are saying the south west is right next door to the south east and the topography and geography makes it very inviting for the vast majority of refugees, its just much easier for the population of the home counties to move south east than north or west.

You for example SAY and KNOW a small improvised home made dirty bomb has limited effective range, SO DO THE TERRORISTS so its a fair assumption they will set of MANY devices across the cities, not just one. LEARN from history on 7/7 the muslim terrorist knew they could not achieve total destruction but they DID know they could compound the damage by first setting off the bombs on the tubes which drove people out of the stations and onto the buses, then the last bomber blew up the busiest bus he could find. The IRA phoned the media on more than one occasion to say they had set a bomb in section (A) of the town thus making the authorities evacuate the shoppers to section (B) of the town where the real bomb was waiting.

A full on nuclear attack would NOT wipe everyone out, nor would a tsunami.

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I suggest it is YOU Sir who needs to do more research on various issues including dirty bombs.
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"Where would terrorists set off a Dirty Bomb??
My guesses would be either:
1. A Transportation Hub
2. The financial District
3. A sports Arena
4. Shopping Centre/Street
5. Tourist Attraction (Trafalgar Square??)
6. Near the Houses of Parliment
Dirty bombs does not have massive (nuclear) explosive power, conventional explosives would be used, the radiation spread is again faily limited due to the nature of the device and the type of radio active material used.
Do some research on Dirty Bombs, they are crude devices and will not be affecting large parts of the citys, it will not be like Hiroshima!!

ALL your choices are wrong, the exact issue of dirty bombs has been discussed both on TV, by the media many time and by the government. The ONLY criteria the bomber needs is as much altitude as sensible and a WINDY DAY.

The munitions could be a home made explosive and a radiological material stolen from hospitals, colleges, labs, research facilities, metallurgy centres, industrial X ray specialists, the oil industry or smuggled in. All they have to do is detonate the device at a few dozen to a few hundred feet say from a tower block roof on a windy day and even a small device could easily contaminate an area in excess of over half a square mile. It does not have to be like Hiroshima it doesn't need to be it just needs to be radioactive enough to be a clear health risk. The TV program that discussed it a few years ago with some academics and security experts estimated even a single small device could cost over £30,000 just to decontaminate one hundred square yards. The terrorists could be many hundreds of meters away from the target area just UPWIND.

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And imagine if there was 4 terrs like on 7/7 or 19 like on 911 all setting off home made cheap DIY dirty bombs from the tops of tower or office blocks, Mosque minarets, or dropped from a light aircraft. The Terrs are not daft if they can only produce small but horrendously expensive to clean up after dirty bombs they are not going to set off one.

Also studying the recent behaviour of Islamists and Irish terrorists they tend to like to hit vulnerable targets like schools, hospitals and shopping areas, So say they set off a few near schools in London, how many parents are going to take the change THEIR kids school, church etc is next.

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FYI a terrorist willing to die for his cause all he has to do is get infected with something like Ebola niger, or ziare and spend the next week riding the buses, tube and eating in fast food resteraunts, to start an outbreak of terrifying proportions.

[Lightspeed]

NR Wrote:

FYI a terrorist willing to die for his cause all he has to do is get infected with something like Ebola niger, or ziare and spend the next week riding the buses, tube and eating in fast food resteraunts, to start an outbreak of terrifying proportions.

Is that your own though NR or is it something that's been discussed elsewhere? ( Bloody terrifying scenario that. I'm intrigued at how that could pan out. Maybe create another thread to discuss?