Steve Quayle News Alerts

February 19, 2003
By Josh Grossberg, DAILY BREEZE

It’s a bright, clear morning in San Pedro. A slight sea breeze blows inland and the sun glints off the Pacific. Cargo ships idle in the water, while cranes swing back and forth unloading packages. Workers driving across the Vincent Thomas Bridge pay no attention to the ship just passing beneath them.

Without warning, something hidden deep in the hull of the ship explodes. In less than a second, everything nearby is vaporized by temperatures hotter than the sun. The expanding fireball causes a shock wave of compressed air and winds strong enough to knock down or kill anything in its path. Miles away, the flash is bright enough to burn retinas. Windows shatter. Houses rock off their foundations.

The nightmare that has worried the nation since the Cold War started has come true: a nuclear bomb has detonated on American soil. It’s a scenario that experts say is unlikely but not to be ruled out. President Bush even took it seriously enough to broach the subject during his recent State of the Union address.

“It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known,” he solemnly advised the nation in his January address.

Experts agree the Port of Los Angeles, where more than 5 million shipping containers come and go every year, is one of the country’s most tempting terrorist targets, a place where one well-placed bomb can cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars to the nation’s economy.

“There are two things that keep me awake at night,” said Amy Zegart, an assistant professor of policy studies at UCLA. “One is bioterrorism and one is port security. I think the port system is one of the greatest vulnerabilities in the U.S. This is an opinion that is widely shared. You have literally millions of shipping containers and only 2 or 3 percent that are inspected in any way.”

After 2001’s terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, Zegart and a team of masters students have taken a close look at port security, particularly those in Los Angeles and Long Beach — the busiest port complex in the country.

“The natural inclination for political issues and the press is to focus on airports and drinking water, but in terms of the attractiveness of the port, you’re talking billions of dollars in damage.”

It is possible to model what would happen if a small nuclear device were detonated at the Port of Los Angeles. The Daily Breeze

asked a nuclear terrorism expert to do just that, using the Vincent Thomas Bridge as the detonation site because it’s an easily recognizable landmark and is central to the port’s operation.

Matthew McKenzie, a staff scientist with the nuclear program at the Natural Resource Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental organization, conducted two simulations. One used a 2-kiloton bomb, a crude version of which could be made by terrorists with technical savvy. The other used a 10-kiloton blast, which would require the use of a technologically advanced bomb, McKenzie said.

To keep things in perspective, it’s not easy to get the materials or produce a bomb. But it’s not impossible, either. Arms are easily bought in places where there are civil conflicts, such as in the Middle East or South Asia, said Hamoud Salhi, an expert on Middle East politics who teaches at USC and California State University, Dominguez Hills.

But a bomb doesn’t need to come from the Middle East. Salhi cited a 1998 State Department study that measured how many attacks were waged against U.S. interests.

“At the time, there were more attacks coming from Latin America than the Middle East,” he said.

McKenzie said terrorists probably could not acquire 25 to 50 pounds of radioactive material and build a bomb that would destroy Los Angeles. But the bomb doesn’t have to be that large to wreak terror.

“Because it’s so dense, the actual volume of material needed is quite small,” McKenzie said. “One Coke-can-sized slug of plutonium would be enough” to build a bomb.

An instant disaster

Exact calculations are impossible because of the complicated chain of events that occur during an atomic explosion. But the impact would be immediate and catastrophic.

It is estimated that within 12 hours of a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb explosion — somewhat smaller than the size of the bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II — 11,000 people would die in the South Bay. Another 23,000 would be injured by the blast or the resulting radiation.

The data comes from the Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability software system created by the government to accurately predict the effects of hazardous material released into the atmosphere and their impact on civilian and military populations. The results were provided to the Breeze

by the NRDC, one of the few nongovernment agencies licensed by the Defense Department to use the software.

Even a 2-kiloton bomb would kill 4,800 people and injure another 5,100 within the first few hours, the simulation showed.

To demonstrate how easy it would be to smuggle a bomb into a harbor, ABC News was able to bring 6 kilograms of depleted uranium — about the size of a soda can — into New York Harbor last year, enough for a Hiroshima-sized bomb.

“The Port Authority went through the ship and never found it,” McKenzie said.

Close to the explosion, the main threat wouldn’t be radiation but the effects of the huge blast. Nearby, the heat would be so intense that drapes near windows facing the explosion could burst into flames.

“At Hiroshima, there were fires from broken gas mains, flying glass, a whole host of terrible things going on,” McKenzie said.

Impact and shock waves

While the impact of the 10-kiloton bomb would obviously be much greater than that of the 2-kiloton bomb, both would create instant destruction in the immediate area of a blast. This is what would happen:

Within the first second, the shock wave destroys even the most heavily reinforced structure nearby. The change in air pressure is so severe and sudden that it would crush objects and create high winds. Flying debris and broken glass would kill anybody close by. A huge fireball erupts, but the shock wave causes much more damage.

Within the first few seconds of detonation, effects of the blast reach for several blocks. Buildings are destroyed by the shock wave. The heat generated by the bomb is intense enough to ignite most materials. Ships turn into furnaces and nearby refineries explode. People standing outside, but not in the direct line of sight of the blast, receive severe lung and eardrum injuries. While most buildings are damaged beyond repair, they may still provide shelter for those inside.

Within six seconds of detonation, the shock waves from the 10-kiloton bomb reach about a mile. Most buildings are damaged and windows shatter. Flying debris still poses a serious problem and kills many people. Most people indoors are spared unless injured by flying objects. This area contains the most severe fire hazard since fires are more likely in partly damaged buildings than flattened areas. Buildings would be less damaged by the smaller bomb.

Sixteen seconds after detonation, damage extends for several miles, including much of Terminal Island, parts of Wilmington and reaching toward Lomita. Damage to buildings is slight farthest from the blast. And since the bomb exploded at ground level, few people have a direct view of it, sparing their eyes.

Death will occur not only at the blast site, but from radiation that can travel for miles before it dissipates enough to become harmless. The model used by McKenzie assumed the wind would be traveling northwest following the coastline, but the direction of the plume would depend on which way the wind is blowing that day. The fewest people would be affected if the wind was blowing toward the ocean.

The weather factor

If the wind was blowing due east as is frequently the case, the plume would drift over Long Beach and head toward Orange County.

In the hours after the blast of a 10-kiloton bomb, a swath of deadly radiation would reach into the Harbor Area and kill most people it encounters. Death would not be instantaneous, however.

“They would die within two weeks, certainly a month,” said Dr. Rodney Withers, chairman of the radiation oncology department at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “The most sensitive thing is they would lose their bone marrow and there would be bleeding and infection. You would get some bleeding where you bumped yourself. There would be a tendency to bleed easily from scratches. Then you’d become susceptible to infections.”

Beyond that, people will suffer severe radiation sickness — and some deaths — as far away as Los Angeles International Airport.

Unlike what one sees in movies, exposure to radiation does not always result in death.

“Your gums might bleed,” Withers said. “You’d be prone to infection, but you’ve got a good chance to survive. The incidence of cancer is increased, but not all that much than if you weren’t radiated.”

By the time the radiation reaches Torrance, some sickness will occur, but most people will survive, Withers said.

“They will probably feel a little fatigue,” he said. “You wouldn’t feel like doing any exercise for a few days. But it would slowly get better.”

Firsthand experience

Harry Ota knows exactly what it’s like to survive a nuclear blast. The Torrance resident was 13 years old and living with his family in a village not far from Hiroshima when the United States dropped a nuclear bomb.

He was in school when he saw the flash, then heard a rumbling. Then every window shattered, showering shards of glass over the room. Ota still has small scars on his face. The students were undergoing health checkups at the time, so many of the boys were not wearing shirts.

“I was so lucky,” he said. “Other kids were cut badly.”

His village was spared the brunt of the damage, but he saw the mushroom cloud in the sky and, a few hours later, was pelted with the black rain that washed over the area.“The cloud didn’t dissipate,” he said. “I could see it swirling, not just brown and black but I could see green and yellow. As the cloud began to move, it became a storm. My clothes turned black. It looked like shoyu (soy sauce). In three years, there were no fish in the river.”

Scared and hurt, he headed home. His village was spared the brunt of the damage, but soon, victims began arriving.

“I can’t describe in words what I saw,” he said.

“Skin just peeling off bodies, bodies red and black. People were asking for help and complaining of being thirsty.”

Ota and his family suffered from some radiation sickness, but they recovered.

In fact, all is not lost for people living downwind of a blast. It takes time for the radiation to reach an area and one can lessen any damage by moving a few miles downwind.

“When a person is exposed to radiation, the danger is from the intensity and duration of time,” McKenzie said.

“If the extent of the fallout was well known, then a person can dramatically reduce risk by moving out of the fallout pattern. There are things one can do, God forbid, to reduce one’s exposure to radiation.”

The radiation will dissipate quickly. Within two days, it will lessen to just 1 percent of its original strength. Exactly how long the port would be contaminated is hard to judge. It depends on how much fallout is produced, which depends on the location of the bomb and the altitude at which it explodes. The bombs dropped over Japan, for instance, produced little fallout and it was safe to return fairly quickly.

“In the near term, it would be considered a dangerous, hazardous area,” McKenzie said. “It is possible to visit the Trinity site and places in Nevada where there have been several blasts.”

The emotional effects could last longer.

“The purpose of terrorism is to strike terror,” said Torrance psychologist Moe Gelbart.

“Something big like that, the fear and anxiety, especially in L.A., would be overwhelming. By being wide open here, we’re much more vulnerable and that would expose the vulnerability.”

Stretching resources thin

Gelbart, who is director of Gelbart and Associates and also runs a program at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, said the terrorist attack in New York has left the city scrambling to deal with all the people who needed help.

“In New York, there was a tremendous amount of depression and anxiety, more than the services could cope with,” he said. “Something like that here would do the same, but maybe worse.” Even if a nuclear bomb were discovered before

it was detonated, the financial fallout would be huge.

Late last year, the federal government, several port authorities and private companies participated in an exercise that examined what would happen if a bomb were found in the Port of Los Angeles and intelligence showed more were on the way.

It was developed with former CIA Director James Woolsey and Dale Watson, former director of counterterrorism for the FBI. It was sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton, a management consulting firm.

“This caused both the port authorities and shippers to shut down the container shipping stream without there even being an explosion,” said Richard Saunders, a homeland security expert with Booz Allen Hamilton.

No easy way back

“The models we were using showed an almost exponential increase in costs, spoiled goods and lost revenues. Then it took an extremely long time to get things sorted out again. It’s tremendously hard to get the system up and running again because of all the complexities of the shipping system.”

In fact, according to the scenario, once the bomb was discovered, every port in the country shut down as a safety precaution.

They opened again after 12 days, but it took three months for normalcy to return. The total loss was estimated at $58 billion.

“Containers flow through the system so fast, companies may discover that within days it will start disrupting their production,” Saunders said.

Once it stops, there are no quick fixes to restarting port activity.

“There are no simple solutions,” he said. “The supply chain is a very complex interdependent system. . . . You can’t have perfect security, but you can have balanced approaches.”

Even if terrorists only had access to a dirty bomb, which uses conventional explosives encased in radioactive material, the impact could be huge.

While it wouldn’t cause as much damage as a nuclear device, radioactive material would be strewed around the port.

“With a dirty bomb, the general wisdom is it poses more of a terror and economic threat,” McKenzie said.

“The more you disperse it with TNT, the more diluted the material is. You wouldn’t want to live or work there, but you won’t see thousands of deaths.”

Still, a dirty bomb poses its own, unique problem for law enforcement: It doesn’t look any different from a regular explosion.

“A radiological attack may not be obvious at first,” said UCLA’s Zegart.

“The fact that there’s radiation that may not be readily apparent is important.”

Even though the threat of such an attack remains small and law enforcement works overtime to ensure it won’t happen, if it did, people would see the world differently.

“It would put a huge hole in our laid-back denial we live in,” Gelbart said.

“We’d start seeing bombs in every cardboard box and be suspicious of any strange looking man or woman. We’re still living in a massive denial. The next problem will explode that literally and figuratively.”

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