If an asteroid was about to hit your town within a day, how big would the predicted blast radius have to be, in order for you to decide not to bother trying to escape?

I would escape into the past. It would have to be a multi dimensional asteriod hit for me to quit running.

i thought about this for a while before answering and couldn’t come up with a size big enough to keep me from running. This is generally a more rural area so clogged roads are not as likely as places with pinch-points like bridges or tunnels I’d be on the road with my Tahoe loaded with 50 gallons of extra gasoline, at least 2 weeks worth of food, clothes, documents, ropes, tarps, blankets, cash, and, of course, weaponry.
I just could not give up and wait for it. That would be torture for me.

I agree with @LuckyGuy. Load up the SUV and drive like hell. We go down swinging.

The blast radius would have nothing to do with my decision to leave. How crowded the roads would be would be my determining factor.

In all reality I would probably stay regardless, not going to lie. Like tornados, we dont leave if they head our way, we prepare and wait.

5.53 meter.

^ @rebbel I ran your number through the University of Arizona’s Earth Impact Effects program.
If you are 40 km away you would barely notice the effect. It would take 3 minutes for the small air blast to reach you.

Surprisingly Earth is hit by meteors of this size once every 1.3 years on average! .

Ohhhh, I thought 5.53 meters away from me, the asteroid.

“Within a day….” does that mean I have a 24 hour head start? I could get a long, long long ways away in 24 hours.

@KNOWITALL We don’t really have much choice with tornadoes. We have no clue when one is going to hit. It’s kind of like earthquakes too. If I knew for certain one was going to hit my house in 24 hours I’d leave.

….although when I stepped outside on a certain day in 1999 I just froze. The pressure and the humidity stopped me in my tracks. I thought “Somebody’s gonna get it today!” A few hours later…..

If an asteroid the size of an 18 wheeler semi tractor truck was heading for Tacoma my wife and I could easily be 200 miles away in Salem Oregon in 24 hours (probably quite a bit further). How? Bicycles.

1,000 miles

.0000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000001% chance of survival is still better than 0%

I lived through a real experience of something similar to this. On the morning of January 13, 2018 at about 8:00AM, my phone made a very loud noise, and a message appeared on the screen stating that a missile was inbound and that I should take cover. The message added ominously “THIS IS NOT A DRILL”.

I was bewildered at first, and then I began to think. There were no corroborating sirens, which Civil Defense had only that very month begun testing with new sounds for missile warnings. I immediately began to search online for any type of information that may back up the emergency message I’d received. I could find nothing.

I then decided to ignore the warning and went to my dentist appointment as scheduled. About 30 minutes after the initial alert, the all clear was announced, and it was explained that the alert had been issued in error.

My reasoning since the occurrence is that I live on an island. I cannot escape.

If an asteroid was on the way, I would want to know how certain the experts were that it would hit Honolulu. How had they arrived at their determination? Then I would decide on a course of action. By then, it would probably be too late to buy a plane ticket to another island or the mainland, so I would look for the best possible place on the island to be safe. I would try to put mountains between myself and the asteroid.

I’m pretty sure they can predict it days and days in advance.

@raum In fact those odds of survival are infinitely greater. :-)