# How long would a dirty bomb render an area inaccesible **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 27, 2002, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203 "2002-06-27T09:46:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Kahuna_Burger)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203/1 "2002-06-27T09:46:14Z")
At lunch today some co-workers and I were talking about _Sum of All Fears_ and this led to talking about dirty bombs. I said the economic effects would be the worst, because they could set it off at O’Hare or Wall Street and they wouldn’t be accesible for 50 years. Then one of the guys I was sitting with said it would be 100 years. Another said 10 years. So what is it? ---
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203/2 "2002-06-27T12:57:41Z")
1 to 2 years at most. Look at the WTC site. You go in, trash everything and rebuild. It’s only surface contamination. Or you could just wash everything off and go back right away. You’ll miss a little and the cancer rate will be slightly higher but that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203/3 "2002-06-27T13:44:02Z")
From what I heard on NPR a couple of weeks ago, the increase in the cancer rate would be negligible. (Of course if you were the one person in 10,000 who was affected, that’s not much comfort.) Dirty bombs were found to be militarily useless, but since people are terrified by radiation and cancer it makes a good terror weapon. ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Kahuna_Burger)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203/4 "2002-06-28T02:41:29Z")
Wow, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203/5 "2002-06-28T03:15:14Z")
Are we talking a dirty bomb with respect to just people? Let’s see, … a dirty bomb in Washington DC … Imagine decontaminating the Library of Congress? The Smithsonian? ---
**Author:** ![rubberdemon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e4f/32.png) [@rubberdemon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rubberdemon)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203/6 "2002-06-28T03:21:29Z")
What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? People not only continued to live there after the blast, but rebuilt the city and live there today. Those weren’t ‘dirty bombs’ per se, but I believe that the state of the art in 1945 would have produced a lot of fallout. Of course, cancer rates are higher, but the area was never inacessible… I also remember a great wired article a few years back about the people who have moved back to the contaminated area around Chernobyl (a big ass dirty bomb, if there ever was one). It’s a very good piece of writing, and thought provoking about radiation, people’s attitudes to it etc. > **[The Day After Technology](https://www.wired.com/1996/03/day-after/)** > > A decade later, the contaminated zone surrounding Chernobyl has become a haven for those whose future has been taken away - by the disaster or by war, age, illness, or their own demons. R. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-a-dirty-bomb-render-an-area-inaccesible/116203/7 "2002-06-28T05:47:16Z")
Well, cobalt bombs have a half life of ~ 20 yrs so it would depend on the level of backgorund radiation but at most, 50 yrs I guess.