Creator of "Duck and Cover" dies in hospital

[Silencer]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ob...mond_j_mauer_wrote_script_for_duck_and_cover/

Raymond J. Mauer; wrote script for 'Duck and Cover'

By Associated Press | February 18, 2006

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- Raymond J. Mauer, who wrote the script for the landmark civil defense film, ''Duck and Cover," died Wednesday at Bridgeport Hospital after a long illness. He was 89.


Millions of schoolchildren in the 1950s saw the film.

In the case of an atomic attack, children were advised to duck beneath a table or desk and cover their heads.

Mr. Mauer, a Stratford resident, wrote the script for the film during a brief foray into the film production business with Archer Productions in the early 1950s.

Born in Detroit on Jan. 2, 1917, Mr. Mauer graduated from the University of Detroit with a degree in marketing in 1940. He married Gertrude (Sherry) Sheridan in 1942 and embarked on an advertising career with Campbell-Ewald, moving to Greenwich and the company's New York office in 1950.

He enjoyed a long career as creative director/copy chief with Cunningham and Walsh, BBDO and as vice president and creative director of Geyer Oswald, later Lennen & Newell. Retiring in 1982, Mr. Mauer enjoyed greeting residents at the beach pass station at Greenwich Point, where he had sailed his sailboat many years before.

In addition to his wife of 64 years, he leaves by three sons, two daughters, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. today in St. Mark's Church in Stratford. Interment will be private.

Spotted this at DaC

 

[alec]

In the case of an atomic attack, children were advised to duck beneath a table or desk and cover their heads.

Yes, I see how that would increase their chances of survival.

 

[SuAside]

thought the founder of DaC had died when reading the title...

anyhow, 89y, had a wife 25 years younger than himself, and by looking at his career, he had a good life. RIP, old man.

 

[Carib FMJ]

So did I... Ha, oh, well. I suppose those at the Dac forums will have a moment of silence before they go at it again.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

I thought you meant the website "Duck and Cover" too. Oops!

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Xavierblazer]

Yep, its worded oddly and I thought that too

If your 89, toe only suprise is waking up in the morining

 

[drachton]

In the case of an atomic attack, children were advised to duck beneath a table or desk and cover their heads.

Yes, I see how that would increase their chances of survival.

I know Duck and Cover is a regular target of ridicule, but while I agree the tone of the film itself is rather surreal, I'm not convinced the advice given therein is not effectively the best course of action in case of nuclear attack.

From The Effects of Nuclear War:

Chapter 2[/url]]For example, consider the effects of a 1- megaton (Mt) air burst on things 4 miles [6 km] away. The overpressure will be in excess of 5 pounds per square inch (psi), which will exert a force of more than 180 tons on the wall of a typical two-story house. At the same place, there would be a wind of 160 mph [255 km]; while 5 psi is not enough to crush a man, a wind of 180 mph would create fatal collisions between people and nearby objects.

Table 3 in this same chapter says that at a range of 4.4 miles ([6 km] -- 5 psi), "Lightly constructed commercial buildings and typical residences are destroyed, heavier construction is severely damaged". If we assume that a typical brick-walled school is more sturdy than a "lightly constructed commercial building", then ducking and covering should prevent some loss of life caused by collisions or flying glass/debris.

Finally, table 4 indicates that, assuming a 1 Mt surface burst on Detroit, the ~5-psi ring woud range from 1.7 to 2.7 miles from ground zero, which translate to a population of roughly 250,000 people (I'm guessing this is not accurate nowadays, the study was published in 1979), 130,000 of which would be fatalities, 100,000 injuries and 20,000 more or less unscathed. I think it's not unreasonable to think that even if ducking and covering only slightly increases one's chances, on the whole it could translate to a significant number of saved lives.

I know that there's very little that can be done for people within the radius of incineration, and I may be wrong in thinking that ducking and covering would have a statistical impact on the number of survivors, but assuming the advice is good, I tend to think that inducing a certain level of "paranoia" (a common accusation vs. the film) is worth saving a couple tens of thousand lives.

 

[Roshambo]

thought the founder of DaC had died when reading the title...

So was I, and it doesn't seem so long ago that Jay went to college. Good to hear it wasn't him, but onto the discussion.

Duck and Cover served more than one purpose. Children need to be SCARED to understand things like the stove is HOT. So you can teach them to avoid bad things by saying "HOT" as a connection, because the trauma sticks. Once you try and explain complex things to children, without telling them that they might only have a minute or so to live after the siren, or might be vaporized along with the building, it needed to be a school drill much like a fire drill.

What else could they do, really?

What would you use to get across that they shouldn't look into a blast, and that they would have a higher chance of surviving debris if they took common hurricane/earthquake safety? That makes it quite complicated, so they had to come up with something that the cattle would be able to follow en masse and not second-guess, while only having prospectively less than a minute to live.

So, while Duck and Cover was ridiculed for what it claimed, FEMA knew that those at ground zero and a bit aways would be dead, but those who were just out of the danger zone would be safest if they were expecting to take the full impact. It would possibly save them from flying debris, and from being instantly sliced apart from a shattering window. Their only other alternative is to be exposed when the nuke goes off, while they tried to drive into the packed freeway, to be stuck there exposed. Cars make quite lethal projectiles, so the streets were deemed the unsafest place to be, as the Nevada Test Site results showed.

A traffic jam of fleeing people would be little else than a meat grinder.

 

[meatbot]

Duck and cover isn't nearly as foolish as it sounds. The entire object behind the duck and cover idea was to reduce the amount of surface area exposed to the direction of the blast. The cover, quite simply, was to prevent obvious head injury from debris. Simillarly, it was suggested in the film that children take cover under the desks for the same reason. When I was in the Army (92 last year of service) the instructions in case of nuclear attack hadn't changed much. Lie flat on your stomach towards the direction of the blast, face down, with your hands on the top of your helmet. Thus a) reducing surface area subjected to high winds and blast pressure, and b) to give yourself as much protection as possible. Of course, that was an instruction for being caught in the open, but the principal remains the same.

Those caught within the blast radius/ extreme blast pressure radius, are pretty much gone anyway. Those on the periphery of the blast have a much better chance when following the instructions.