WI: Nuclear explosion over North Carolina

Zoidberg12

So I saw this article here.

http://news.msn.com/us/atom-bomb-nearly-exploded-over-nc-in-1961-paper

Heres the article in a nutshell; According a recently revealed US document, in January of 1961 a B-52 bomber broke up in mid air over Goldsboro, North Carolina. However, this bomber was holding two hydrogen bombs more powerful than the bomb dropped over Hiroshima. Luckily, one low voltage switch prevented the possible disaster.

But what if it didn't? If this disaster really happened, what would be the consequences?

The article states that "Fallout could have spread over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and even New York City." If this where actually to happen here are some possible effects; the government would have to relocate, many would die, many survivors would have to be resettled, it would be a major humiliation to the country, and an environmental disaster. But what else?

How would this effect the rest of the Cold War, world politics, internal politics, etc?
 
Gan

Gan

Banned
One thing certain to come from this is an immediate ban on the military carrying nukes over US soil during military drills. We can also expect strong anti-nuclear sentiment developing, especially in the region.

Of-course, we have to hope that those in charge realize it was an accident on our part and not a Soviet attack. There is a chance this could kick off World War III
 
Mad Bad Rabbit

Mad Bad Rabbit

The accident occurred over a rural area, on a bitterly cold night. Almost everyone would be indoors, and the prevailing winds were blowing straight out to sea. Snow and rain would have limited the spread of forest fires.

As far as accidental 3.8 Mt nuclear detonations over populated areas go, this one would've been getting off very lightly.

That said, the casualties would have been roughly 5,000 dead and 21,000 injured. Not a pleasant phone call for JFK to wake up to, his first week in office.


A much nastier scenario would've been for this to occur a week earlier, on the 19th. South-southwesterly winds ahead of an approaching blizzard would have dumped the fallout onto Washington D.C. (packed with inaugural visitors).
 
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Carl Schwamberger

Zoidberg12 said:
So I saw this article here.

http://news.msn.com/us/atom-bomb-nearly-exploded-over-nc-in-1961-paper

Heres the article in a nutshell; According a recently revealed US document,
Click to expand...

MSN & the Guardian just discovered this story? "According a recently revealed US document," This is funny. I remember reading about this as a teenager in Readers Digest. Old news then. The USAF kept this one a true secret for about five minutes. It was well known in those days even before the original of the RD article was previously published. The H bombs lost on the Spanish coast were well known as well. A B52 & a air tanker going down in flames in broad daylight over a well populated farm town landscape were impossible to hide, as were the H bombs scattered across the fields & beaches.

Evidently the news networks managers have cut reporting staffs to the point we will only see news from the last century recycled as 'new'.
 

katchen

Banned
Maybe we need to give the Air Force credit for not being complete idiots and for timing their transport of nukes by air so that weather conditions would minimize damage if an accident DID occur. Perhaps someone in air logistics knew that if a B-52 crashed a bomb could go off if an arming switch also failed and so timed the flight for when weather conditions would blow the fallout out to sea instead of hitting the Northeast Corridor. If nobody was disciplined over the incident, that could explain why. Accidents will happen but maybe elementary precautions were taken.
 

Aber

Carl Schwamberger said:
MSN & the Guardian just discovered this story? "According a recently revealed US document," This is funny. I remember reading about this as a teenager in Readers Digest. Old news then. The USAF kept this one a true secret for about five minutes. It was well known in those days even before the original of the RD article was previously published. The H bombs lost on the Spanish coast were well known as well. A B52 & a air tanker going down in flames in broad daylight over a well populated farm town landscape were impossible to hide, as were the H bombs scattered across the fields & beaches.

Evidently the news networks managers have cut reporting staffs to the point we will only see news from the last century recycled as 'new'.
Click to expand...

The news bit is that 3 of the 4 safety devices didn't work; so 1cheap mechanism between sweeping up bomb fragments, and a large amount of fallout.
 

Alstein

I don't think the worst case scenario would have happened. That said, a realistic scenario

Eastern NC is panicked/evacuated. I suspect certain things on a social level would change.

NC/Eastern VA would be less conservative and more liberal today, due to greater federal involvment in a part of the state that is heavily red these days. A westward shift of government would dilute another red base (Charlotte is pretty red, and the suburban Triad is especially red)

NASCAR is butterflied away- that area is important to NASCAR.

The ACC, and perhaps college basketball is weakened heavily, I could see NCSU/UNC/Duke evacuated, and Duke declining heavily due to radiation concerns among rich elites. I wouldn't be shocked if UNC was moved into Greensboro using what was the Women's college as a base- along with the state capitol, and NCSU moved to Charlotte. That alone has major butterflies. Maybe Duke moves back to Trinity, NC.

It's possible to have snow in Goldsboro, but it most likely wouldn't be much- cold in NC in January is cold, but long-term snow just doesn't happen without a historic blizzard like in 2000. Guessing little to no snow cover in that part of the state especially. I checked Climo for Goldsboro, and very little snow that month there, and most likely none of it stuck for long.

This fallout might take out Seymour Johnson AFB, so there would be some military casualties, but that might help with fallout relief- as I would not be surprised if an AF Base was some precautions in mind.
 
Clandango

Clandango

I imagine sabotage would blamed, though the Pentagon might want to say it was an accident quickly or loudly. Blaming the Soviets would be fine if not for the chance of war.
 

Garrison

Donor
Carl Schwamberger said:
MSN & the Guardian just discovered this story? "According a recently revealed US document," This is funny. I remember reading about this as a teenager in Readers Digest. Old news then.
Click to expand...


And if you had read the article you would have found out that the newly released documents reveal the bomb was in far more danger of detonating than previously admitted.

Even if the physical damage were limited by the location and weather I suspect it would massively boost anti-nuclear campaigns both in the US and abroad.
 

Mysterion

RPW@Cy

"Safety device worked, accident didn't happen" isn't much of a story, even for the Guardian. This sort of thing is the reason why multiple safety devices are used in the first place after all - in case one or more fails.

If you're going to ask what would happened if the bomb got knocked about so badly that all the safeties failed, then you really need to answer another question first - would the bomb have gone off? IANA bomb designer, but it's my understanding that nukes are actually fairly fragile, complicated things that in order to work need a lot of rather tricky and complicated things to go right at the same time. What's the likelihood that a bomb knocked about enough to knock out the safeties won't also be knocked about enough to disable some key component of the bomb? Pretty low, I would have thought - in which case what you get is either a dud or a fizzle going of with a few KT at most. In the first case, all you will get is an even more excitable Guardian article. In the second, you'd get the mother of all cover-ups along the lines of a forest fire or bomber with a full (conventional) load crashing, and the most popular conspiracy theory being that the government was covering up a crashed alien space ship, or something.
 
JMT

JMT

Alstein said:
I don't think the worst case scenario would have happened. That said, a realistic scenario

Eastern NC is panicked/evacuated. I suspect certain things on a social level would change.

NC/Eastern VA would be less conservative and more liberal today, due to greater federal involvment in a part of the state that is heavily red these days. A westward shift of government would dilute another red base (Charlotte is pretty red, and the suburban Triad is especially red)

NASCAR is butterflied away- that area is important to NASCAR.

The ACC, and perhaps college basketball is weakened heavily, I could see NCSU/UNC/Duke evacuated, and Duke declining heavily due to radiation concerns among rich elites. I wouldn't be shocked if UNC was moved into Greensboro using what was the Women's college as a base- along with the state capitol, and NCSU moved to Charlotte. That alone has major butterflies. Maybe Duke moves back to Trinity, NC.

It's possible to have snow in Goldsboro, but it most likely wouldn't be much- cold in NC in January is cold, but long-term snow just doesn't happen without a historic blizzard like in 2000. Guessing little to no snow cover in that part of the state especially. I checked Climo for Goldsboro, and very little snow that month there, and most likely none of it stuck for long.

This fallout might take out Seymour Johnson AFB, so there would be some military casualties, but that might help with fallout relief- as I would not be surprised if an AF Base was some precautions in mind.
Click to expand...


A few things.

1. I agree, most of Northeast NC is evacced and probably isn't at OTL levels by 2013.

2. NASCAR survives, the important centers for the sport are in the southern-central region around Charlotte Motor Speedway.

3. State capital is more likely to be moved to Charlotte than Greensboro, UNC would move to the recently-opened Charlotte campus. NCState would likely move to Greensboro or to Wilmington if trade winds are favorable. Duke I can see moving back to Trinity if the old College site is available.

4. You're right on climate and the AFB.
 

Alstein

I went to HS at the old college site for Duke (in the same school district that banned Invisible Man this week)- they would have made it avaliable.

Wasn't Greensboro bigger/more presitigious than Charlotte in the early 60's?

We won't go to war with the USSR over this. We'll know we did it, and why would the USSR target Eastern NC anyways- do they really hate the pork industry that much?

Now if they nuked Lexington- you'd probably have terrorist attacks from enraged North Carolinians to this day. (Would be interesting to have a timeline where the Hardy Boyz became international terrorists instead of screwed-up in the head pro wrestlers)
 

jmc247

Clandango said:
I imagine sabotage would blamed, though the Pentagon might want to say it was an accident quickly or loudly. Blaming the Soviets would be fine if not for the chance of war.
Click to expand...

This is 1961 and many in the Pentagon still wanted WW3 as they believed they could still win it with relatively few causalities for the U.S. itself. If certain individuals thought they could convince the President it was a Soviet attack it is far from beyond the realm of possibility they wouldn't try to do so as long as the other people in the know made clear they would go along with it.

But, the safety features worked as intended so no story.
 
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