How Far From a Nuclear Power Plant is "Safe"

[GP100]

Question: is where I am in Illinois (37-40 miles away from 1 Nuke Plant, 45 miles away from another Nuke Plant) "safe" ? I'm talking given an EMP-power-outage-backup-power-to-Nuke-Reactor-outage situation, how much danger am I in? I realize I'm not in an ideal spot. But is it doable?

[Reef Badlaw]

I'm tempted to speculate on being downwind during a meltdown-event. The particles will be heavier than air. You'd still have to relocate beyond a 100-mile radius to be safer, I think. If that's what you're asking.

[GP100]

Yeah, no matter what the distance there could always be trouble. At 35 mi I figure I could take some action and get to safety if need be. Just curious as I've been looking into all the bad consequences of EMP / solar storm stuff. Nuke melt is definitely one potential bad thing.

[TC]

Chernobyl radioactive particles remained suspended in the atmosphere for many days and were distributed as far as Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and Greece.
Distance between Chernobyl and Stockholm is greater than one thousand miles, but Sweden was more polluted than neighboring Belarus countries due to predominate west bound winds. In fact the cesium remained in dairy milk for over a year after.

[lycanox]

Probably as close as possible. So you can know when it is time to flee.

[pico]

You should have some KIO pills on hand, and have road maps to get out of town. I would plot safe routes out to the north and to the south for you, and guessing IL I would think the south would be the way to head to avoid the urban areas of the windy city.

[stonesmith]

After the earthquake in Japan they ordered a 12.4 mile evacuation radius around Fukushima.

[Rockytrawn]

About 3000 miles of ocean might help... oops what just wshed up on California beaches after the last big Japanese Tsunami...

So drink lots of milk, eat cheese so you have Calcium to displace strontium, Sushi and seaweed for iodine, zinc for cations, then hide in basement until the Radon gets you....