Pinpricks. I'm talking about pinpricks.
In my last post I speculated that it might not take as much as we would like to think to utterly destroy the Civilization As we Know It (CAWKI). What if a coalition of Enemies of Civilization (EoC) were to cobble together just twelve motley WMDs of any type and smuggle them across our porous borders?
In this post, I speculate on how they might use them. Just to be sociable, I'll pick on my own country. We're probably as smug and complacent as anyone about our own national security. But this could happen anywhere, or everywhere at the same time.
Stage 1: Twelve Well-Placed Pinpricks
For maximum psychological effect, the attacks would be spread out over the better part of a year.
Day 1. Anthrax-powdered rolls of (squeezably soft) four-ply Charmin toilet paper are substituted on three jumbo jets early one morning. By the end of the day, hundreds of people have been exposed and delivered safely to scores of cities and small home towns across the country. We’ll hear from them later.
Day 2. Three smuggled nukes go off at morning rush hour in Washington DC, Wall Street New York, and El Segundo, California. National government and financial centers are decapitated and the major oil refinery, ports and defense contractors surrounding LAX airport are permanently shut down. Fallout covers much of LA, NY, and DC forcing their complete (highly voluntary) evacuation. Immediate deaths approaching half a million are incidental to the plan.
Days 3-33. The nation’s news media spend the next month burning the horrors of what just happened into the American psyche. Two million burn and radiation victims are evacuated to fill every hospital bed and hallway in North America. Everyone as smart as the average bear can now recognize the symptoms of radiation sickness. The death toll rises daily. Medical supplies and personnel are stretched to the breaking point... Then, isolated anthrax cases begin emerging everywhere. No town appears too small to target.
Day 34. A dirty bomb dusts the major oil refinery near Houston with radiation permanently rendering it and much of Houston psychologically uninhabitable. Even where radiation remains below safe levels, Geiger counters and rumors stimulate the well-primed public imagination.
Day 54. The same thing happens to the oil refinery in Philadelphia. The national gasoline supply is cut in half, then falls to zero as all remaining refineries are (highly voluntarily) evacuated.
Every 3 to 4 weeks thereafter. Another WMD goes off somewhere.
Today's Bonus Questions
- On which day does the population of every city in the US reach 50%..., then 10%?
- How much population can a city lose before it ceases to function as a livable environment?
- How many businesses remain open after three months?
- Where will all those refugees go?
Tune in next time for Post 010 - Do It Yourself Demolition Derby.