Abbreviations and Definitions of Terms Commonly Used in Civil Defense

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Department of Defense, Office of Civil Defense, 1968 - 23 pages

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Page 10 - Major disaster" means any flood, drought, fire, hurricane, earthquake, storm, or other catastrophe in any part of the United States which, in the determination of the President, is or threatens to be of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant disaster assistance by the Federal Government to supplement the efforts and available resources of States and local governments in alleviating the damage...
Page 10 - Major disaster" means any hurricane, tornado, storm, flood, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, drought, fire, explosion, or other catastrophe in any part of the United States which, in the determination of the President, causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under this Act, above and beyond emergency services by the Federal Government...
Page 4 - civil defense" means all those activities and measures designed or undertaken (1) to minimize the effects upon the civilian population caused or which would be caused by an attack upon the United States...
Page 12 - Nuclear Weapon (or Bomb): A general name given to any weapon in which the explosion results from the energy released by reactions involving atomic nuclei, either fission or fusion or both. Thus, the A- (or atomic) bomb and the H- (or hydrogen) bomb are both nuclear weapons. It would be equally true to call them atomic weapons, since it is the energy of atomic nuclei that is involved in each case. However, it has become...
Page 20 - TNT Equivalent — A measure of the energy released in the detonation of a nuclear (or atomic) weapon, or in the explosion of...
Page 6 - The term dose is often used in the sense of the exposure dose, expressed in roentgens, which is a measure of the total amount of ionization that the quantity of radiation could produce in air. This should be distinguished from the absorbed dose, given in reps or rads, which represents the energy absorbed from the radiation per gram of specified body tissue.
Page 17 - ... some distance away. As a result of scattering, radiation (especially gamma rays and neutrons) will be received at such a point from many directions instead of only from the direction of the source.
Page 13 - ... and the determination of the proper apportionment and allocation of the total civil transportation capacity, or any portion thereof, to meet over-all essential civil and military needs.
Page 5 - CONTAMINATION: The deposit of radioactive material on the surfaces of structures, areas, objects, or personnel, following a nuclear (or atomic) explosion. This material generally consists of fallout in which fission products and other weapon debris have become incorporated with particles of dirt, etc. Contamination can also arise from the radioactivity induced in certain substances by the action of neutrons from a nuclear explosion.
Page 7 - The Emergency Broadcast System consists of broadcast stations and interconnecting facilities which have been authorized by the Commission to operate in a controlled manner during a war, threat of war, state of public peril or disaster, or other national emergency.

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