Re: Americans Unprepared for 'Dark Winter' . . .
In Real Life, radiation is a lot less scary than the media has portrayed it through the years. This is, of course, little consolation if you are caught in the middle of a panicked uneducated mob fleeing somebody waving a radium watch dial around.
As far as smallpox is concerned, world health authorities had a lot of experience containing outbreaks in other countries. It might not be that difficult to contain an outbreak here, either. I don't know how much residual immunity would be left in all the older people (like me) who had their shots already.