It was with more than passing interest that I noted recently the public admission of the certainty of a “dirty-bomb” strike against an American target at some unspecified future date. Such a scenario has long been a staple of science fiction. Stories of this genre usually focus on the event itself as it affects a central character and his or her family and friends. The story ends with the central character/family by some means coming through the calamity and starting to face a new and uncertain future. Variations on this basic theme often begin at some point well removed in time from the event as the survivors (or descendants) seek to cope with a life built on the fragments and ruins of largely forgotten technology.
The article in point described in quite limited terms the difficulty that such an event would pose for this country. There was no attempt to address the longer term issues or the more basic question of, “Will this country, even survive such an attack?” The attack pos-tulated the destruction of a single metropolitan area. It compared the subsequent dis-ruption with what happened to New Orleans as a result of hurricane “Katrina” in 2005. There were many similarities and some significant differences. One of the similarities was the large scale panic evacuation.
Most of the evacuees were the more affluent who had private automobiles or the funds to buy a ticket on commercial transportation. One peculiarity of New Orleans is the near “one route out” feature that the topography of the area imposes. Since the unnamed, but assumed target will be somewhere along the eastern seaboard, that particular fea-ture is not likely to be repeated. What will be repeated is the inevitable crush along all roads leading away from the point of detonation.
Given that the impending strike against this country will almost certainly come without any prior warning, only survivors on the periphery of the blast site will be in a position to flee. It is inevitable that families will be separated. The prime concern will be the saving of those still alive after the shock waves subside. Exactly how much control either civil or military authorities will have is pure conjecture. The questions of how to evacuate nursing homes and hospitals with whatever resources survive has already been the subject of numerous studies. Ditto for school age children. The movement of prison and jail inmates will be a real nightmare.
Longer term problems will also have to be addressed. The unavoidable separation of families has a parallel in the vast dislocation of entire populations in the wake of World War II. In the months following the end of the war, large numbers of “DP's” (displaced persons) roamed Europe. While many were never able to find any family members, many others were successful by the expedient of returning to the general locale of their pre-war years and adding their names and current abode to the large lists that were publicly displayed on bulletin boards, power poles and the like. That situation was pos-sible because American military muscle kept the Russian Bear at bay while large scale American aid flooded into western Europe to boost the recovery. Hurricane Katrina taught us that the rest of the world views us as having unlimited resources. There was no rush of outside help to aid the victims of Katrina. We were almost totally on our own. And, in truth, we were able to handle that disaster with our own resources. But a large scale attack along our eastern seaboard, for instance, will completely outstrip even our considerable capacity to send aid. And there is every reason to believe that multiple cities will be targeted. The most likely targets, north to south, will be Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. And if that attack is only the first salvo in a larger attack against all of western culture, the rest of the nations of western civilization may well be completely swamped by efforts to hang onto their own territorial sovereignty.
Population dislocations of the above named cities will virtually bring this country to a halt. The government contingency plans addressing a surprise nuclear attack were first form-ulated in the 1950's when the obvious enemy was the Soviet Union. An attack by a na-tion-state automatically defines a specific set of targets in that nation-state. An attack by a shadowy an ill-defined group without a specific national identity is another matter alto-gether.
But the immediate domestic problems will be enormous. New York is the financial nerve center of this country. If that is destroyed, it will immediately call into question the value of that indispensable commodity-money. The bills we carry in our wallets are only paper-worthless in and of themselves. We can use them in everyday life because we trust the government that backs them. If that government is paralyzed people will quick-ly begin to demand payment in some other commodity of value-food, clothing, etc.
