Originally Posted by
josh1980
First, you have a typo. Iodine 131 is a concern from nuclear reactors.
Iodine contamination can lead to thyroid cancer if ingested. If you are likely to be exposed to it, your government will likely issue iodide pills. The pills will saturate your thyroid with iodine. Any additional iodine you might be exposed to(radioactive type) will not be able to be processed by your body and will be expelled through natural means. Radioactive Iodine 131 has a 1/2 life of about 8 days. So within a month or so Iodine will no longer be a significant concern.
Caesium 137 is the nasty stuff that is around chernobyl. Lucky for you the wind blows predominantly to the east. This would blow the majority of any contaminants in the air out into the open ocean. This will disperse the radioisotopes and will lower the contamination in the area. It sticks around for a while (30 years) so it can do some long term damage. It also is soluble in water, so it can potentially affect the water table. When Chernobyl happened it was expected that the water table would be contaminated. Instead the caesium collected in the soil and will have decayed away before reaching the water table.
Big picture, anything more than about 10 miles away is pretty safe as long as the winds aren't blowing it towards you. The direction of the winds and rain in the area will play a big part in where the contamination will go. I'm not an expert at contaminations and releases though. It's generally considered bad to have fuel leaking into the environment. So our training doesn't discuss the full lifespan of the isotopes released from a leaking reactor.
Edit: I had read somewhere that the highest radiation levels seen from the accident was about 150mrem/hr. The levels have dropped to around 2 to 3 now. It takes between 200 and 1000rem to start having fatal levels. But if you could have stayed in the highest radiation levels seen thus far AND the radiation levels didn't drop(which are pretty much guaranteed to drop anyway) until a conservatively fatal level of 200rem was reached, you'd have to stay in that area 24 hours a day for 54 days. All this hoopla about "high" levels is overrated. I've been looking at the radiation levels(the numbers, not this BS "1000x background) to figure out how "bad" it is. We've got a ways to go to see "real bad".