Scary huh..??

If terrorists detonated a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb inside a truck in Washington?s Dupont Circle, the blast would rip through the White House and most of the city?s downtown office district.

But if terrorists detonated the same weapon from an airplane at the same point above the city, the blast path would reach Capitol Hill, the Tidal Basin and Northern Virginia, according to a new mapping tool published on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Web site.



http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=367



The mapping system, devised by the FAS? Blake Purnell, uses a Java-based calculator to show the path of a blast in 25 American cities. The model can be altered to account for weapons of different size and different methods of delivery.

The map uses red, blue and yellow concentric circles to illustrate the path of the blast. The outermost yellow circle signifies the areas that would suffer "moderate" damage caused by flying debris, whereas the middle blue circle shows areas where most homes would be destroyed and commercial buildings severely damaged. The innermost red circle represents "intense heat from the explosion," which would cause widespread fires.

In addition to Washington, doomsday analysts can see what it would take to wipe out cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Reno, Nev.

?This is just a very graphic way to let anyone see what the effect of a bomb on his city would be,? Ivan Oelrich, FAS strategic security project director, recently told the journal Science.

Man, do I love the country.