{"id":27,"date":"2003-02-16T23:15:39","date_gmt":"2003-02-16T23:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:07:59","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:07:59","slug":"the_nooclear_risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=27","title":{"rendered":"The Noo-clear Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while ago, I played out a scenario<\/a> in which:<\/p>\n

One nice afternoon, I’m sitting here in my home office near the Palos Verdes peninsula when I notice a brilliant flash of light and some of my windows break.<\/p>\n

The power goes out, the telephones, cell phones, and computers don’t work. My backup AM\/SW\/SSB radio in the garage doesn’t work, and I step onto my driveway and look toward San Pedro and see a dark mushroom cloud.<\/p>\n

We’ll skip over the fact that all the electronics in the area are kaput because of EMP, and hypothesize a working TV or radio, which informs me that it appears that a small – 5KT – nuke has just exploded on a container ship in San Pedro harbor, along with another one in Red Hook, just across from Manhattan, and another one at the container yard in Seattle.<\/p>\n

We’ll skip over the hundred thousand or so who have just died or will die at each site in the coming week, from burns and radiation poisoning, or from one of the diseases or a lack of medical attention caused by the collapse of the public health system.<\/p>\n

My family and I are not in immediate danger, because I’m maybe 10 miles from the blast center, and shielded by the mass of Palos Verdes hill, and the prevailing winds are onshore, meaning they blow the radioactive dust inland and away from me, but the next few days are pretty chaotic.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, the local paper<\/a> just picked this up.<\/p>\n

WHAT IF?<\/b> <\/p>\n

SCENARIO: Experts say the Port of Los Angeles is vulnerable to nuclear terrorism that would bring mass casualties to the area and send shock waves through the national economy. Here\u2019s how it could unfold. <\/p>\n

By Josh Grossberg
\nDAILY BREEZE <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bright, clear morning in San Pedro.<\/p>\n

A slight sea breeze blows inland and the sun glints off the Pacific. Cargo ships idle in the water, while cranes swing back and forth unloading packages. Workers driving across the Vincent Thomas Bridge pay no attention to the ship just passing beneath them.<\/p>\n

Without warning, something hidden deep in the hull of the ship explodes. In less than a second, everything nearby is vaporized by temperatures hotter than the sun. The expanding fireball causes a shock wave of compressed air and winds strong enough to knock down or kill anything in its path. Miles away, the flash is bright enough to burn retinas. Windows shatter. Houses rock off their foundations.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Breeze goes on to talk<\/a> about some things you ought to do.<\/p>\n

Best plan in a disaster is to have one
\nGUIDELINES: Considerations include food and water supplies, contacts, meeting places and sources of information. <\/p>\n

By Josh Grossberg
\nDAILY BREEZE <\/p>\n

Don’t panic.<\/p>\n

During any catastrophe – man-made or natural – keep a clear head and plan ahead.<\/p>\n

“People should not make any rash decisions,” said Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles City Fire Department.<\/p>\n

Humphrey urges everyone to keep a supply of food and water available, maintain an out-of-state contact for all family members to call in case local lines are not working, devise a second route home and develop alternate meeting places for loved ones.<\/p>\n

And keep a working battery-powered radio nearby and know where the city\u2019s two news radio stations are located on the AM dial – KFWB at 980 and KNX at 1070. That\u2019s where officials will instruct people what to do.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, I forgot about radios…gotta pick some up. Probably inexpensive AM\/ FM\/ SW\/SSB’s.<\/p>\n

Take this in two ways. First, it’s mainstream acknowledgement of some of the things that I’ve been worrying about, which boosts both my ego and my anxiety level a bit. Second, it plus into the second part of my original post:<\/p>\n

Got the picture??<\/p>\n

So here are some questions for all parties.<\/p>\n

For the hawks: How strong is the temptation to nuke somebody – anybody – who might have had anything to do with this, regardless of whether it gets the people who really planned it?<\/p>\n

For the doves: How long after this happens does the first column come out in the New York Times that suggests that nuking Iraq won’t bring back our dead or rebuild our economy, and that we should pull in, buckle down, and take care of our own?<\/p>\n

See, I see two likely outcomes from an event like this, (which I ly don’t believe would be all that hard to pull off).<\/p>\n

One is that we go berserk, and turn the Middle East into a plain of glass.<\/p>\n

The other is that we surrender our role as leader of the world, the economic and security benefits that come with that, and attempt to retreat into a Fortress America.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, I see problems with both.<\/p>\n

What do you see as the outcome of a scenario like that? And how does it influence your thoughts on what to do today?<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, how does it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while ago, I played out a scenario in which: One nice afternoon, I’m sitting here in my home office near the Palos Verdes peninsula when I notice a brilliant flash of light and some of my windows break. The power goes out, the telephones, cell phones, and computers don’t work. My backup AM\/SW\/SSB radio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}