Disaster and Recovery

It was with more than passing interest that I noted recently the public admission of the certainty of a “dirty-bomb” strike against an American target at some unspecified future date. Such a scenario has long been a staple of science fiction. Stories of this genre usually focus on the event itself as it affects a central character and his or her family and friends. The story ends with the central character/family by some means coming through the calamity and starting to face a new and uncertain future. Variations on this basic theme often begin at some point well removed in time from the event as the survivors (or descendants) seek to cope with a life built on the fragments and ruins of largely forgotten technology.

The article in point described in quite limited terms the difficulty that such an event would pose for this country. There was no attempt to address the longer term issues or the more basic question of, “Will this country, even survive such an attack?” The attack pos-tulated the destruction of a single metropolitan area. It compared the subsequent dis-ruption with what happened to New Orleans as a result of hurricane “Katrina” in 2005. There were many similarities and some significant differences. One of the similarities was the large scale panic evacuation.

Most of the evacuees were the more affluent who had private automobiles or the funds to buy a ticket on commercial transportation. One peculiarity of New Orleans is the near “one route out” feature that the topography of the area imposes. Since the unnamed, but assumed target will be somewhere along the eastern seaboard, that particular fea-ture is not likely to be repeated. What will be repeated is the inevitable crush along all roads leading away from the point of detonation.

Given that the impending strike against this country will almost certainly come without any prior warning, only survivors on the periphery of the blast site will be in a position to flee. It is inevitable that families will be separated. The prime concern will be the saving of those still alive after the shock waves subside. Exactly how much control either civil or military authorities will have is pure conjecture. The questions of how to evacuate nursing homes and hospitals with whatever resources survive has already been the subject of numerous studies. Ditto for school age children. The movement of prison and jail inmates will be a real nightmare.

Longer term problems will also have to be addressed. The unavoidable separation of families has a parallel in the vast dislocation of entire populations in the wake of World War II. In the months following the end of the war, large numbers of “DP’s” (displaced persons) roamed Europe. While many were never able to find any family members, many others were successful by the expedient of returning to the general locale of their pre-war years and adding their names and current abode to the large lists that were publicly displayed on bulletin boards, power poles and the like. That situation was pos-sible because American military muscle kept the Russian Bear at bay while large scale American aid flooded into western Europe to boost the recovery. Hurricane Katrina taught us that the rest of the world views us as having unlimited resources. There was no rush of outside help to aid the victims of Katrina. We were almost totally on our own. And, in truth, we were able to handle that disaster with our own resources. But a large scale attack along our eastern seaboard, for instance, will completely outstrip even our considerable capacity to send aid. And there is every reason to believe that multiple cities will be targeted. The most likely targets, north to south, will be Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. And if that attack is only the first salvo in a larger attack against all of western culture, the rest of the nations of western civilization may well be completely swamped by efforts to hang onto their own territorial sovereignty.

Population dislocations of the above named cities will virtually bring this country to a halt. The government contingency plans addressing a surprise nuclear attack were first form-ulated in the 1950’s when the obvious enemy was the Soviet Union. An attack by a na-tion-state automatically defines a specific set of targets in that nation-state. An attack by a shadowy an ill-defined group without a specific national identity is another matter alto-gether.

But the immediate domestic problems will be enormous. New York is the financial nerve center of this country. If that is destroyed, it will immediately call into question the value of that indispensable commodity-money. The bills we carry in our wallets are only paper-worthless in and of themselves. We can use them in everyday life because we trust the government that backs them. If that government is paralyzed people will quick-ly begin to demand payment in some other commodity of value-food, clothing, etc.

A collateral effect of government paralysis will be the failure of the mail. The mails are the life-blood of all forms of business. Without the mail people will not be able to either pay their bills or collect debts that they are owed. And a considerable percentage of the populace still get their social security checks by mail. Commerce will grind to a halt. The American economy is a vast complex of highly integrated activities and functions.

Economists grade economies as to the “division of labor”. In a simple agrarian economy most people live on farms which are miniature factories that produce virtually all that those who live on and work the farm, need. I stress “need’. Farms do not produce lux- uries for the most part. I am speaking of a typical 18th or 19th century farm where a va-riety of crops were grown along with some livestock. There was little division of labor. The women of the house were proficient with the preparation of all types of food, including the meat from game animals. Another necessary skill was the spinning and weaving of cloth and then the converting of that cloth into clothing for the family. The men were hunters or fishermen. Other basic skills including a degree of metal-working proficiency using a simple forge. The most essential abilities were the handling of the farm animals, knowledge of what types of crops were suited to their particular, when to plant those crops and what needed to be done to assure a plentiful harvest. These skills provided a living, somewhat Spartan, but a living, nonetheless, for those who lived on and worked farms. There was little division of labor.

By contrast, a modern industrial society requires a myriad of specialized skills, some requiring many years to master. Once mastered however, they provided the artisan or professional the means to provide a living for their family commensurate with the eco-nomic demand for that particular skill. The average business or professional in today’s post-industrial society have only the highly developed skill for which they have trained. We are, for the most part quite unprepared to step suddenly back in time to the 18th or 19th century of our forefathers.

In one sense, it is the supreme irony that the country which unleashed the awesome power of the atom may well be the second to be destroyed by it.