Study: U.S. Cities Unprepared for Nuclear Attack

The likelihood of a nuclear weapon attack in an American city is steadily increasing... consequences will be overwhelming — Cham Dallas, director of Center for Mass Destruction Defense

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March 21, 2007
By Dorie Turner
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA - The largest U.S. cities are catastrophically unprepared for a nuclear attack and the widespread medical emergencies that would result, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

The three-year study - produced by UGA's Center for Mass Destruction Defense and published in the most recent edition of the International Journal of Health Geographics - paints a horrifying picture.

Millions dead. Hundreds of thousands more wounded with burns and radiation poisoning. The most critical hospital infrastructure in downtowns destroyed and outlying medical facilities unable to cope with the mass burn injuries.

"The likelihood of a nuclear weapon attack in an American city is steadily increasing, and the consequences will be overwhelming," said Cham Dallas, center director and co-author of the study. "So we need to substantially increase our preparation."

"It would be hard for me to see how we'll make it more than 10 years without a nuclear weapon being detonated on American soil," said Cham Dallas, center director and co-author of the study. "We've got to prepare."

The study looks at four cities - Atlanta, New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. - and simulates the impact a 20 kiloton and a 550 kiloton nuclear detonation would have. To compare, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II ranged from 12 to 20 kilotons.

In the most extreme of circumstances where the 550 kiloton bomb goes off in during a busy weekday in a downtown area, up to 90 percent of the city's population could be affected from either direct contact with the bomb or wind-carried radiation, the study says. Combine that with the destruction of hospitals and thousands of dead or sick medical workers, and cities would be crippled, the study says.

The study calls for states to stock thousands of mobile hospital beds in rural areas and make plans for fast transport of the equipment if there is an attack. It also calls for the storage of medical records away from city centers so that they could be accessed if the hospital is destroyed.

Cities also should buy geographic information system devices that pinpoint where toxic chemical or radioactive agents have been released, equipment that could be useful in natural disasters like tornadoes and floods, the study said.

Jon Wolfsthal with the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said none of the studies' findings should come as a surprise. Even at the height of the Cold War, the United States was woefully unprepared for nuclear attack, and 30 years hasn't improved that position, he said.

"We had a week to prepare for (Hurricane) Katrina - the crisis was developing in slow creep," he said. "It took us a week to get Army units in New Orleans, and it's still a shadow of its former self. This is a catastrophe that would happen without warning, instantaneously. The ability of the United States to respond would be overwhelmed."

Though it's important for the country to be prepared within its borders, Wolfsthal also pointed to need for the United States to secure nuclear threats abroad.

"If we spend literally $1,000 on a fence on a nuclear facility in a third world country, it could save us billions of dollars in cleanup after a nuclear attack," he said.

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On the Net: Center for Mass Destruction Defense: http://www.cmadd.uga.edu/
Center for Strategic and International Studies: http://www.csis.org/

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