On a cold, gray morning in March 2008, a handful of New York City officials sat in a conference room high above Midtown, watching a nuclear bomb incinerate the city below. The blast was a simulation — a digital model built by a government scientist — but its realism was terrifying. We watched waves of destruction race outward, erasing block after block. The skyline vanished in a blinding instant. Then came the revelation: with swift, coordinated action, countless lives could be saved. I left that room shaken but sure of one thing: survival would depend on what we did next.
That grim demonstration wasn’t unique to New York. In the months that followed, federal officials crisscrossed the nation, plunging officials from many major cities — Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, D.C. — into that dystopian nightmare. Each was shown what a nuclear explosion would do to their downtown, and each was told the same thing: With decisive action in the first hour, hundreds of thousands could be saved.
Seventeen years later, the work required to prepare — the planning, training and exercising with communities — isn’t happening. Fewer than one-third of major U.S. cities have any kind of plan for a nuclear attack. Another third said they couldn’t respond at all without federal help…