Very similar to a scenario I read pertaining to Seattle. It was published in the Seattle Times in the 1982, when Ronald Reagan was talking seriously about the concept of "Survivable Nuclear War". Fortunately for the world, the preliminary paper on "Nuclear Winter" was released less than a year later (by Richard P. Turco, Owen B. Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack, and Carl Sagan) and most discussions of the concept were dropped. Unfortunately, the Seattle Times archives only go back to 1996, so I will not be able to post the original article and will have to depend on memory.
Seattle Map
In the scenario, there is an air burst of a 1 megaton device, 1000 feet above Lake Union (just north of downtown) during evening rush hour. Within a fraction of a second (9 nano-seconds to initiate and complete both fission and fusion reactions. "Three shakes of a lamb's tail" it is sometimes called by nuclear physicists.) everyone (approx. 200,000 including Craig) and all human constructs within one mile radius of the hypocenter of the blast, would be vaporized. Fortunately these people would never feel a thing, as the gamma/x-ray pulse from the detonation, would destroy their nervous systems before any sensation can be received by their brains. Others are not so lucky.
The heat effects of the blast would extend outward to approximately 5 miles from the hypocenter, igniting structures as far away as Mercer Island, the SODO district, West Seattle, Ballard/Magnolia and the neighborhoods immediately north of Greenlake. Regrettably, the people in this zone would not receive enough of the gamma/x-ray pulse to die outright and would probably succumb to the heat and blast effects. If not, the odds are very poor (for those within two miles of the blast) on surviving the massive cellular damage caused by the gamma/x-ray pulse.
The third zone is the one I live in and it is the blast effect zone. It would extend approx. 8 miles out from the hypocenter (I'm 6 miles out, in the Greenwood neighborhood) and would almost reach the Seattle city limits on the northern limits (145th St.) and Boeing Field to the south. Most wood or brick veneer structures in this zone would be heavily damaged or destroyed and concrete structures would fair only slightly better. Needless to say, this house would probably be destroyed (maybe Phinney Ridge would divert the blast....nah). The people in this area would suffer crushing injuries, flash burns, blindness and would probably die from radiation sickness within two weeks (if treatment for the other injuries were received), if they weren't killed outright. Most hospitals in the city of Seattle would be destroyed and the hospitals in the Puget Sound region (or the entire West Coast) would be overwhelmed. Total dead within a month, over 350,000.
During that period of time, it was stated that the Puget Sound area had 20 primary targets (heck, the Trident submarine pens at Bangor are only 8 miles west by northwest from me) and that the Soviets would probably deliver 3 devices to each target, due to lagging technology in the area of missile guidance. Needless to say, this area would lose its natural beauty for....say, hundreds of years.
Suffice it to say, I
really wish we could put the genie back in the bottle. But we can't. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif The best we can do is reduce our own stockpile, while trying to prevent their proliferation elsewhere. We currently are working with the former Soviets in arms reduction, security and the reprocessing of weapons grade material into reactor fuel rods. I hope that its not "a little too little, too late".
Peace out,
Dan
