Science: What if a nuke goes off in Washington, D.C.? Simulations of artificial societies help planners cope with the unthinkable
At 11:15 on a Monday morning in May, an ordinary looking delivery van rolls into the intersection of 16th and K streets NW in downtown Washington, D.C., just a few blocks north of the White House. Inside, suicide bombers trip a switch.
Instantly, most of a city block vanishes in a nuclear fireball two-thirds the size of the one that engulfed Hiroshima, Japan. Powered by 5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that terrorists had hijacked weeks earlier, the blast smashes buildings for at least a kilometer in every direction and leaves hundreds of thousands of people dead or dying in the ruins. An electromagnetic pulse fries cellphones within 5 kilometers, and the power grid across much of the city goes dark. Winds shear the bomb's mushroom cloud into a plume of radioactive fallout that drifts eastward into the Maryland suburbs. Roads quickly become jammed with people on the move—some trying to flee the area, but many more looking for missing family members or seeking medical help.
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WNU Editor: Thinking the unthinkable. Such an event would put the world at the brink of a major nuclear war, and (I would not be surprised) retaliation will be swift. Speaking for myself .... I have already planned out what to do in the event of such a possibility .... a nuclear event in Washington DC/New York City/London/etc.. If I am in Moscow ..... drop everything and rush to my parents country home 100 km. west of Moscow. In Montreal .... rush to my chalet 200 km north into the Laurentians. And while this is no guarantee that I or anyone else would survive a global nuclear war .... in the event that war does not happen, I do know that there will be global panic and one that will last a long time. In that case .... it would be best to be far away from urban centers ... well stocked and armed. And yes .... I would continue to post for as long as I can.
