Stay put
You are told to stay indoors
The advice is the same in every country we cover, and it has been the same for fifty years, because it works.
Rare. Chemical spills, large fires, industrial accidents and severe weather all produce this advice, usually for a few hours, usually across a few streets.
Go in. Stay in. Tune in.
Go inside the nearest building. Close the windows and doors. Turn off anything that draws air in from outside, which usually means extractor fans, air conditioning and trickle vents.
Then find out what is going on from an official source, and wait to be told it is over. That is the whole procedure.
Why staying in beats driving away
A building, even an ordinary one, filters and dilutes a great deal. A car does not, and a road full of cars leaving at once stops the people who are trying to fix it from getting in.
If the advice is to leave, you will be told to leave, clearly, by the people whose job it is.
Where to get the actual instruction
- Your phone alert. Leave it switched on.
- A radio, if the power or the network is out.
- The official account of your national or local emergency service. Follow them now, on a normal day, so you are not searching for them on a bad one.
Wireless Emergency Alerts, plus NOAA Weather Radio, plus your local emergency management social accounts.
On radiological advice specifically
If there is ever a radiological incident, the only instructions to follow are the ones issued by your own national authority at that moment. Do not take iodine tablets, or anything else, on the say-so of a website, an influencer or us. Timing and dose are the entire point, and getting them from the wrong source does harm.
Going indoors, staying indoors and listening covers the first and most important hours in every official plan in Britain, Europe and the United States.
If life is at risk, call 911 first. Everything on this page comes second.