I live 20 miles NW of Washingtion, DC. I work 10 miles NW of Washington, D.C.
If a WMD attack occurred in D.C., and for the sake of argument, let’s say it occurred in downtown D.C., near The Mall, is there any real threat to me or my families safety 10-20 miles out?
Let’s break the threats down:
Nuclear: A ten-megaton bomb would do the trick, but how about a Dirty Bomb? Smaller nuclear devices?
Biological: ?
Chemical: ?
Radiological: ?
If any of these pose an immediate threat, how much time do I have before I must leave? We have a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so worst case scenario we could literally “head for the hills”. How we would get there in a mass exodus is another matter, however.
If the damage caused by these WMD’s will not reach 10-20 miles out, I’m assuming the best action would be to stay put, right? From what I’ve read, the panic caused by people fleeing would cause more damage than the attack itself.
If this is correct, and the attack occurs during the day, during the work week, I’m trying to figure out how and when I should attempt to get back home to my family.
We have disaster kits at home, but now I’m thinking I should have one in my car as well.
From a 10 megaton bomb yes…your family is in trouble at 10 miles out and probably in trouble 20 miles out. Luckily (I use that term loosely) most nuclear weapons are not that big. Yes, bigger ones have been built but IIRC 10 megatons has been deemed the largest useful sized bomb and most are even smaller than that (in fact most are less than 1 megaton…turn out you can get more effective destruction with a few smaller bombs than one monster one).
Here is an interesting calculator you may be interestd in. It only shows up to the effect of a 4 megaton blast on Washington and a few other cities but you may find it interesting nonetheless. The second link is for fallout pattern using the same map. You can change the data inputs to get a sense of where it will all go.
As for the rest so much depends on the thing in question (type of chemical, type of biological agent, amount of whatever it is used, method of delivery, prevailing winds, other weather conditions such as rain and so on) that it is impossible to say how far away you have to be to be “safe”.
You are pretty much upwind of the effects of a WMD attack on DC. It would take both a mighty big attack and wind coming from the other direction to harm Reston or wherever it is you are.
The problem with a “good” (ie well-planned) biological attack is that you could be exposed hours or days before symptoms ever appear. Most of the others you mentioned are subject to prevailing winds, and you seem to be in the right place for those. Have a rendezvous point designated for your family and meet there if you have to bug-out.
Here is some more detailed info regarding a 10 megaton nuclear blast. The effects listed here are approximate and assume an ideal air burst (ideal for maximum damage anyway…bombs exploded on the ground lose a noticeable amount of their damage potential).
Of course fallout is dependant on prevailing winds. There is an initial burst of radiation (prompt radiation) and residual radiation (fallout). I am unsure of the area of effect of the prompt radiation on a 10 megaton bomb. I am pretty sure it drops pretty rapidly with distance though so likely several miles from ground zero is certain death in the near future from radiation poisoning and it goes down from there. Fallout will depend on weather and wind. Obviously you do not want to be under it but as others have mentioned you seem likely to be upwind of an explosion in downtown Washington.
Of course, if you are theorizing a terrorist nuke, the chances of it being in the megaton range and an air-burst are pretty much non-existant. A pony nuke in a panel truck is more like it, or one in a freighter going to Baltimore.
The risk of being affected by a radiological bomb is probably low, but varies with the materials used in the device. Even if a plume heads your way, the risk comes more from long term exposure than taking one whiff of a plume; contamination of property is generally the bigger concern than casualties.
I see no reason why you should worry about a chemical attack whatsoever. Generally speaking, these agents disperse with winds, becoming less and less effective at greater and greater ranges. The most dangerous types of CW are meant to be persistent, that is, they don’t just blow away with the wind, and can stay in one place for long periods of time, which, as you could expect, is good news for you. These types of (highly sophisticated) agents would basically leave a greasy and highly lethal coating on the ground and other surfaces.
But the reality is that any CW attack would most likely be extremely small, localized, and concentrated. It boggles the mind how terrorists could release tens of thousands of gallons of CW, which would be something for you to worry about if it was in any way feasible.
The release of industrial chemicals, on the other hand, is something that could be potentially catastrophic, is much more likely than a terrorist attack, and could happen in a large number of places. Think Bhopal.
People will inevitably come in and make fun of the site, but as general advice, it is about as useful as it can be considering the unpredictability of a potential event along these lines.
For example, many modern buildings are well insulated, and don’t “breathe” a whole lot. If a toxic cloud is passing through an area, it may be that sheltering in place is advisable to fleeing the building directly into the plume. If you didn’t know that sheltering in place was even an option, your decision-making in an emergency would be considerably less informed. Yes, the web site can’t give you specific directions on when to stay put and when to flee, but it is better than listening to know-it-alls in your office who may have no more experience in disasters than having watched “Towering Inferno” 20 years ago.
Cheap, in a 20 pack, you can use them while cleaning, & from what I recall, both chem & bio weapons are sprayed while mixed/bonded to fine dust partiicles as a carrying agent. Ordinary masks like these may greatly reduce your exposure, at low cost. Giving you enough slack to get away.
Not perfect, maybe not sufficient, but a low-cost thing to have that might be just good enough to save your fanny.
Also, most “Weapons of Mass Destruction” have an effective radius of more like 20 feet than 20 miles. Think, for example, of the sarin attacks in the Tokyo subway a few years ago. That’s pretty close to a worst-case scenario for a terrorist poison gas attack: A potent nerve agent, in one of the highest population density cities in the world, in an enclosed underground space, during rush hour. There were all of twelve fatalities.
Anthrax functions very much like a chemical weapon, rather than a biological one, since the spores degrade quickly in sunlight, and it’s not very contagious from person to person. The more dangerous things like smallpox could potentially spread very far indeed if not contained, but few terrorists even would be crazy enough to use smallpox, since it would also be very likely to affect their own homes and families.
A dirty bomb (regular bomb with radioactive shrapnel) is also very much like a chemical weapon, except that it’s much less likely to cause immediate deaths (any immediate deaths would be the result of the conventional explosive, not the radiation), leaving time for treatment, and it’s much easier to clean up.
A true nuclear weapon (explosion powered by a nuclear reaction) is the only one that really qualifies for the title of “mass destruction”. If a terrorist group gets ahold of nukes, then yes, there’s a problem. Even there, the first weapons a group is going to get will be fission bombs, not fusion, and probably not even very large fission bombs. A terrorist nuclear bomb would probably be less than a kiloton, and the Davy Crockett, an example of the sort of bomb it would be easiest for a terrorist to obtain (or the Soviet equivalent, of course), has an estimated lethal radius of a mere quarter-mile.
So no, I don’t think there is any particular reason to worry.
This is the reason most militaries have not used biological weapons and only barely used (relatively speaking) chemical weapons. The effects are ultimately dodgy and worse, from a military perspective, can pose as much threat to your own side as it does to your enemy (e.g. release gas on a battlefield and the wind changes direction or set a bio agent on your enemy only to have your own people infected).
Mostly bio and chemical weapons are generally more useful as terror weapons than for their actual ability to cause destruction. Of course that is precisely what terrorists are after but they must consider that the response to such an attack would be far more considerable than “just” detonating a normal bomb in a cafe is. The payoff for them just may not be there just as it is not really there for militaries.
But as Chronos alluded to there can always be a few nutters out there willing to try this but frankly you are probably in FAR more statistical danger of being hit by a car or killed in a robbery or probably even be struck by lightning than to meet your doom this way.
Wow, thanks for the wonderfully concise, comprehensive responses!
As I suspected, the WMD threat for me is minimal, even in a worst case scenario (if we disregard the ten-megaton nuke scenario).
What about the “panic” situation? I’m assuming that if any one of these events happens in downtown D.C., widespread panic (RIP Michael Houser) will ensue. The majority of people will not realize what the area of effect really is and will attempt to flee in droves. Would this be safe to say?
Elaborate, please. Anyone else knowledgable regarding this, please feel free to chime in.
Sorry, I’m going to have to nitpick you here on a few points.
Not even close. The sarin used in the subway attacks was extremely crudely made by the cult the carried out the attacks. No effort was made to disperse the agent in a gas form- bags of liquid agent were punctured by cult operatives with sharpened unbrellas. Had the agent been allowed to properly volatilize, there would have been far more casualties. A determined terror group or cell would certainly have studied this case and learned from the Shinrikyo cult’s mistakes.
Bacillus anthracis spores do not function like chemical weapons. The methods of delivery are different, as are many of the characteristics. Rather, it is highly typical of what bioweapons researchers strove to achieve during the cold war. Its not contagious at all from person to person, so the effect can be controlled, which a contagious pathogen would not allow. And the envelope attacks in 2001 were carried out using very sophisticated formulation methods. Although you are right about sunlight, had those spores been dispersed in the air they would have been quite deadly indeed. Anthrax differs from chemical weapons in that it is not persistent, and can be readily treated with antibiotics for a time after exposure.
-CynicalGabe
Master’s candidate in Nonproliferation Studies
[nitpick]Very small nuclear weapons, like the “Davy Crockett” recoilless rifle shell or the SADM (Small Atomic Demolition Munition) are actually quite sophisticated and advanced implosive method designs that require thin shell “cores” and tightly controlled explosive lensing in order to achieve supercriticality with very small masses. Although the technology certainly exists outside the United States (the computing power needed to process the “hydrocodes” used to model the detonation was once the domain of supercomputers but is now available in a desktop machine, and the machining technology is essentially the same as that used in a lens-grinding shop) it is fairly unlikely that some errant terrorist group is going to be able to acquire the needed expertiese to design such a weapon. Up and coming nuclear powers, such as India or Pakistanmight develop such weapons but owing to the destabilizing nature of so-called tactical nuclear weapons are unlikely to offer them for sale or use by any third parties, and hopefully will secure their deployment such that theft or loss isn’t a serious possibility. (Nations like North Korea or Iran are unlikely to develop such weapons any time soon, owing to their rather backward and limited nature of their development programs–or so we hope, anyway.)
A simple, gun-type nuclear IND (improvised nuclear device) is unlikely to be smaller than 10kT, and would be too large to be transported in anything lighter than a semi-truck. A simple implosive-type weapon will be unlikely to have less yield (10-20kT is the usual estimate) but could be considerably smaller–possibly small enough to fit in the bed of a full-sized pickup. Boosted designs–those that use a small amount of deutrium (usually in the form of deutrium lithide) to start a very brief, incomplete fusion reaction that produces substantially more neutrons, thereby enhancing the fission reaction before the device blows itself apart–could increase the yield by as much as a factor of ten for the same size weapon. Extremely small “suitcase nukes”, though, are implausible as a terrorist weapon, Wag The Dog-style posturing notwithstanding.
Similarly, multistage “thermonuclear” fusion weapons require even more advanced designs and (generally) the inclusion of tritium for an efficient reaction, which is only available in quantity to nations or entities who can produce it themselves with a reactor. (Though with more efficient neutron generators like the Farnsworth fusor tritium production might be much cheaper and easier than it has been traditionally.) In any case, multi-megaton nukes are also unlikely as a terrorist weapon. Figure a range of 10kT to 150kT.[/nitpick]
Are nuclear weapons a serious terrorist threat? They are, as Chronos indicates, the only truely destructive class of WMDs, and proliferation of nuclear capability, especially amoung those nations with which we share a mutual animosity is increasing. Despite the current press to develop ABM systems to defend against nations like North Korea, such weapons are much likely to be delivered surreptitiously by sea, and detonated as a ground/sea burst in a port city (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle being some of the most likely targets). The immediate effect would be limited both by the size of the weapon and the attenuation of local geography, so unless you live in sight the harbor in question the immediate blast is unlikely to affect you. Your biggest concern is to secure yourself from the other panicked people around you.
Other WMDs are even less likely to be of immediate danger to you. Biological and chemical weapons degrade rapidly in most environmental conditions; their threat is more in the telling than the showing. The only reason mustard gas was so effective in WWI was because troops were concentrated in the low-lying trenches where the gas tended to accumulate. As a general area of effect weapon, gas toxins are of very limited, if indescriminate and difficult to shield from, action. In fact, the odds are more likley that you’d be injured or killed in the panic to escape, or die from starvation, disease, or exposure than from the weapon effects.
Infectious agents deserve some special mention; while people are much afraid of weaponized bacteria and viral agents (and certainly, the individual affects of these weapons are hideous), these are, in fact, probably the least durable and persistant of all weapons. Transmissiable infections (those that can go from person to person) require not only a reliable vector to spread but a significant latency period so that they can allow the carrier time to transmit the virus to others. An disease like Ebola incapacitates victims too quickly; one like smallpox just isn’t infectious enough to spread rapidly before quarantine limitations would inhibit it. The kind of concerted, widespread initial transmission (infecting tens of thousands) required to affect a significant amount of the population is probably beyond a terrorist group. And a fast acting virus is also going to be highly mutable, losing its potency in successive generations, for reasons that are obvious to anyone schooled in natural selection; a virus that is too effective at destroying its host will put itself out of a job, and indeed, a home. There is a reason why “childhood diseases” like chicken pox and measles are so readily tolerated by modern humans but were lethal to the original residents of the Americas.
Your basic disaster kit need not contain anything more than a couple liters of water, some water treatment/filtration device, some snacks, appropriate clothing for overland travel and weather, a first aid kit, and simple tools (knife, compass, local maps, maybe a small prybar or bolt cutters)…in other words, the stuff you should keep in your car anyway. Forget about weapons–in this situation you’re a rabbit, not a wolf–or elaborate survival gear, and be prepared to hole up and outwait the crowds, but move–by car, bike, foot, or any other means–when the opportunity presents itself.
On the whole, I’d be a lot more worried about being hurt or killed by a drunk driver or an unsanitary food service worker than a guy with a grudge and a nuclear hand grenade. If you want to have nightmares about what’s most likely to get you, check out the Morbidity and Mortality Report.
I should have clarified: There are two ways a terrorist group might get a nuclear weapon. They might make it, or they might obtain it from someone else who already has them. In the former case, I agree that they would not be able to make something as sophisticated as a “suitcase nuke”. A terrorist-made nuke would still likely have a low yield, but due to inefficiencies, rather than to size, and would probably require a truck, cargo container, or other large delivery mechanism.
I mentioned the Davy because of the other possibility, that the nuke might be obtained (bought or stolen) from one of the powers who already have them (or the remnants of such a power). A smaller device would be easier to smuggle out of its country of origin and into the US, so would be a more likely device for the terrorists to use.