Re: Anthrax Bombs

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Buenos dias, folks. Just got back from Chile...

At 13:28 -0700 10/8/97, Tim May wrote:
>(As is well-known, or should be, folks survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki as
>close as 400 meters from ground zero. And they were both roughly 20 KT
>nukes. Inasmuch as the blast effects scale as the cube root of megatonnage,
>a 2 KT blast might be expected to be survivable as close as a few hundred
>meters or even less. Of course, some will die even out at a 1000 meters,
>but not many.)

I'm sitting here in my office between 17th and 18th streets just north of
the White House (which is at 16th and Pennsylvania) trying to calculate
blast radius. I suspect that if I'm in my office, I _could_ survive the
radiation -- if Tim's figures are correct.

It would help, of course, if anyone bombing the White House would do it
from the _Mall_ side of the building (the south side) rather than the north
side, which would be about four blocks closer to me.

But I'm more worried about the shock wave and firestorm that would follow
such a blast. I'm on the eighth floor of a large office building. I figure
I don't stand much of a chance.

>By comparison, anthrax bacillus is relatively easy to manufacture, and
>aerosol dispersion could kill hundreds of thousands or more before even
>being detected. Aerosolized dispersion in Washington or Manhattan could be
>a far worse human and infrastructure disaster than a suitcase nuke.

It might kill or harm more people, but it doesn't have the viceral,
psychological impact of a nuke. Let's hope the terrorists stay away from
biowar. At least until I move to West Virginia.

-Declan


-------------------------
Declan McCullagh
Time Inc.
The Netly News Network
Washington Correspondent
http://netlynews.com/