I remember that was understood back then. It was spun differently in those days from the 'glass is half empty' version of the Guardian.
WI: Nuclear explosion over North Carolina
- Thread starter Zoidberg12
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I remember that was understood back then. It was spun differently in those days from the 'glass is half empty' version of the Guardian.
If you really want to calculate the blast and radiation effects, you can go to NUKEMAP here: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
A W39 warhead had a designed yield of 3.8 megatons. So plug in 3800 in the yield, and Faro, NC for the location (that's where the bombs landed). It sounds like this would have been a ground detonation, so select ground burst, and check off the box for radioactive fallout. The casualties box won't help much, since there's been too much change since 1961 - but today, it would be over 2,720 dead from the blast, 18,000 injured - not so bad as you might have thought, but still rivaling Antietam for the bloodiest day in American history. Figure no more than a third to a half of that for the population of the area in 1961. You'd get a 2km radius for the fireball, and a 19km radius for the thermal radiation radius (third degree burns if you're outside, exposed). In fact, I just realized that I can save you the trouble with a direct link to my modifications: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?...8303&psi_1=64816&rad_doses=1,10,100,1000&zm=9
The radiation fallout wouldn't be quite so bad as most fear, even with wind going directly for Philly and New York - about 1 RAD per hour up in Philly, less in NY. But that's all assuming a ground burst. Air bursts produce much less fallout. Unfortunately for us, the Mark 39 was designed to kill hardened targets (nuclear Soviet nuclear missile silos and command bunkers), so its triggers were set for ground burst.
Fortunately for us, the wind in North Carolina was blowing directly from the West on January 24, 1961 (yes, I looked it up, and you were right), so we'd have dodged another bullet there. Bad news for folks living in Greenville and Washington or around Pamlico Sound, but that's certainly far fewer people at risk than having the wind blowing toward Baltimore/Philly/New York. The detonation map I linked has the windsock moved to conditions for that day.
Nukes are bad, horrible news, no question, but it's easy to overestimate the effects of even a big one. The real problem here isn't so much the blast itself, especially over so a low population area, but the fact that the thing would have gone off during a period of high tensions and alert status, and the military would have been too prone to assume the worst before figuring out that it was one of our own. We were on launch on warning at that point, with a SAC commander (Thomas Power) who was, it's now generally realized, not entirely stable. This is the guy who was the basis for General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. JFK had been in office for only four days, and was probably still figuring out where the bathrooms were; Powers and LeMay were already in the habit of treating National Command Authority as a nuisance even under Ike. Power might well have opted to assume a Soviet first strike had just been launched (it could have looked like a depressed trajectory shot from a Soviet SLBM gone astray), and simply opt to flatten everything from Minsk to Vladivostok before Kennedy had time to order up coffee.
From Dr. What in the Chat thread:
You've probably heard by now that the U.S. military nearly committed the biggest "oopsie daisy!" in history when they accidentally dropped two nuclear bombs near Goldsboro, North Carolina. But what if they did? Thankfully they didn't detonate, but let's imagine, just for a split second, that they did. This isn't you typical Saturday morning exercise.
There's a certain macabre aspect to it investigation that can be hard to get over. Thousands of people would be dead, but it's hard not to be at least a little curious to know how much of the U.S. would have been affected had the bombs gone off.
Here's the story, as reported in the Guardian on Friday: a B-52 bomber went out for a "routine" flight along the east coast from Seymour Johnson Air Force base in Goldsboro on January 23, 1961, just three days after John F. Kennedy was inaugurated. But this routine flight was not routine at all. The bomber broke up and went into a tailspin and, as the plane was falling, two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs each with a payload equal to about 4 million tons of TNT explosive came loose. Thankfully the last possible safeguard -- a low-voltage switch designed to prevent unintended detonation -- kicked in at the last minute. The three other safeguards didn't work. The blast, had it occurred, would have been "260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima," according to the Guardian's Ed Pilkington.
So, it would have been bad.
How bad, you ask? Well, by using the handy NukeMap3D created by Alex Wellerstein, we can determine how much destruction would have followed at least one atomic bomb dropping in North Carolina. The blast could have reached, with the wind blowing in the right direction, as far up the coast as New York City. Philadelphia and Washington would likely have been affected. This map is calculated with a 15 mile an hour wind and 100 percent fission:
That's a lot of the east coast. The fallout would likely not fall in such a straight line. And depending on the weather, could bend in many directions and possibly stretch even further. This is all speculative, of course. Most importantly, thankfully, the bombs never detonated in real life.
We know about this ultimate close call thanks to investigate journalist Eric Schlosser. He unearthed this declassified document that details the incident in question through a Freedom of Information Act request while researching his new book, Command and Control, about the nuclear arms race.
Hello Plumber,
I didn't see that - I knew there were other threads, but I picked one of the longer ones I found to post in, and left it at that. Thanks for the link.
Of course, Dr. What didn't factor in the wind direction, was almost directly from the West. That would have left the Bos-Wash corridor relatively safe, but been bad news for the area due east out to Pamlico Sound. Otherwise, nothing too argue with there.
I didn't see that - I knew there were other threads, but I picked one of the longer ones I found to post in, and left it at that. Thanks for the link.
Of course, Dr. What didn't factor in the wind direction, was almost directly from the West. That would have left the Bos-Wash corridor relatively safe, but been bad news for the area due east out to Pamlico Sound. Otherwise, nothing too argue with there.
