What a Nuclear Attack in New York Would Look Like

New York Magazine ^ | 06-12-2018 | Ferris Jabr etc.

[NRx]

...But the current state of dread, while entirely understandable, has overshadowed two crucial realities about the threat of a nuclear calamity. First, a nuclear attack on the United States could well come not from the skies but from the streets. Experts warn that it would be relatively easy for terrorists to build an “improvised nuclear bomb” and smuggle it into America. Building a ten-kiloton bomb nearly as destructive as the one dropped on Hiroshima would require little more than some technical expertise and 46 kilograms of highly enriched uranium — a quantity about the size of a bowling ball. The second reality we have failed to understand is what a nuclear detonation and its aftermath would actually look like. In our imaginations, fueled by apocalyptic fictions like The Road and The Day After, the scale and speed of nuclear annihilation seem too vast and horrific to contemplate. If nuclear war is considered “unthinkable,” that is in no small part because of our refusal to think about it with any clarity or specificity. In the long run, the best deterrent to nuclear war may be to understand what a single nuclear bomb is capable of doing to, say, a city like New York — and to accept that the reality would be even worse than our fears.

...When such a bomb explodes, everyone within 100 feet of ground zero is instantaneously reduced to a spray of atoms. There are photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki showing eerie silhouettes of people cast against a flat surface, such as a wall or floor. These are not, as is sometimes claimed, the remains of vaporized individuals, but rather a kind of morbid nuclear photograph.

[Steely Tom]

Maxine Waters is very worried that a nuke attack on the United States might cause Donald Trump to start a war.

If a nuclear attack against NYC happened, I wonder if the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists would advance the doomsday clock.

[JimRed]

To make America America, New York and San Francisco or LA must go

And Chicago, St. Louis, Newark...

[matt1234]

Nice timing on the article, fellas.

Maybe they just dusted off an old article from the Reagan years.

[Mouton]

Newark already Lois like it’s been hit.

[shanover]

Wow, we are back to the 80’s! Same song and dance from the usual idiots. The parallels between how Reagan and Trump are vilified is so pathetic.

[Ancesthntr]

“What would it look like? At least ten million dead I would say. And a clean-up that would take decades.”

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Yes to the clean-up. That part of NYC might even be abandoned permanently.

A resounding NO to the 10 million dead. First off, the entire population of NYC (including the outer boroughs) is about 8 million. A 10 KT bomb exploded at ground level in Greenwich Village in Manhattan is way, way too small to do much beyond about 2.5 km - and would produce about 103,000 deaths and about 213,000 injuries. NO effects beyond the island of Manhattan, and you wouldn’t even have windows in the Empire State Building broken.

Check out this site: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ for the details of any sized-bomb in any locality. It ain’t pretty, but it isn’t some all-consuming disaster, either.

[Lonely Bull]

To make America America, New York and San Francisco or LA must go

The World Trade Center and the Pentagon, though the leftists would prefer Trump Tower.

[Mears]

it’s MUCH worse for Trump,much worse,and it started the day he was inaugurated.

.

[Mears]

The UN building———poof !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.

[Vlad The Inhaler]

A New Dawn
http://www.johnpitre.com/gallery

[Rome2000]

What the reaction to a nuclear attack on DC would look like

[Pollster1]

Is 46 kilograms about 100 pounds? Seems like a lot.

That is a lot, unless these nuclear terrorists are shockingly incompetent. Are they hiring real nuclear physicists and engineers to design their weapon or just Gender Studies majors?

[Gator113]

At the risk of sounding insensitive, xx xxxx, x xxxx xxx’x xxxx (self censored).

[null and void]

I work in the Poconos, and after the Iran deal went through, I half expect to see a mushroom cloud over NYC one day.

You stopped expecting it because obama chilled them out, or why?

[null and void]

What you said.

[DoughtyOne]

Utter nonsense that Trump has brought back the cold war.

If the Left can think back two years, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and others were advocating open hostility against Russia.

That wasn’t toying with nuclear war? It sure as hell was.

That was under Barack Hussein Obama.

Leave Trump along you mentally challenged idiot sticks.

[EvilCapitalist]

I still expect to see it someday.

[Ancesthntr]

“The second reality we have failed to understand is what a nuclear detonation and its aftermath would actually look like. In our imaginations, fueled by apocalyptic fictions like The Road and The Day After, the scale and speed of nuclear annihilation seem too vast and horrific to contemplate. If nuclear war is considered “unthinkable,” that is in no small part because of our refusal to think about it with any clarity or specificity.”

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One of my pet peeves is the unwillingness - either because of lack of courage or due to a deliberate attempt to avoid rational consideration of the problem - to consider the actual, scientific facts concerning nuclear weapons and their effects. Such lack of thought is, to say the least, rather unbecoming of members of the species that is at the top of the food chain on this planet - and it got there BECAUSE of its vast intellectual superiority over all other species (well, as a group - there are CERTAINLY exceptions, and most of them vote Democrat). This lack of rational consideration actually prevents the design and implementation of plans to significantly ameliorate the impact of such a horrible event as a nuclear detonation in a city.

HERE are the effects, for any locality, for any size of bomb, for ground- or air-bursts: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Another interesting site that I found deals with the actual amelioration of the effects of a nuclear blast: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/simple-and-affordable-defences-against.html

[Ancesthntr]

One of my favorites...I’ve even been able to work that into a few conversations over the years (though not with anyone named Norm - that’s a bit much to ask). Tanks for the memories....

[logi_cal869]

I saw the cover photo and hit the back button.

There’s a movie I cannot recall which more-accurately portrays such a vehicle: It’s a facsimile of a police van.

It could also be a school bus...anything but a decrepit vehicle begging for a bored officer to pull it over (ala Timothy McVeigh).