Day After Disaster.

History Channel had a special on last night (I’m sure it will repeat occasionally) called Day After Disaster.  It detailed what is known of disaster preparations for the explosion of a nuclear device in a major city, with a 10 kiloton device in Washington D.C. as the example.  Sensationalist video excerpt link.

In part it was something of propaganda piece, made with the apparent cooperation of the Department of Homeland Security to show they are a different department since the Katrina days.  It mentioned (but glossed over) how very little is being done at our ports and borders to prevent this eventuality from occurring.

Yet it had some really interesting points:

• A Russian nuclear worker was caught with about a pound and a half of highly enriched uranium he’d smuggled out of work, his apparent goal was to sell it for enough money to be able to buy some new appliances for his family.
• The worry doesn’t seem to be a completed bomb out of a Soviet (or even Pakistani) arsenal, but rather that terrorists get enough fissile material to make a bomb using basic physics knowledge.
• It is likely that if terrorists manage to acquire enough material to make an effective device it may be from several sources–making forensically tracing it difficult. Our response is likely to be not only disproportionate, but inaccurate.
• Under Reagan (and then Sec Def Dick Cheney) Continuity of Government plans were altered/created to entirely bypass the constitution and put power in the hands of the senior available bureaucrat.  I wonder if this planning is why Haig thought he was in charge, instead of the Constitutional order of Succession which is designed to keep power in elected hands (or at the least in people publicly vetted by the Senate).  Yet another reason Cheney should by tried for treason.

All in all Day after Disaster is a worthwhile show, though the VFX get tiresome after the 8th repeat or so (and the cut in video-distortion effect is horribly overused).  I’m not sure if the show served to make smart people think or to make stupid people scared… I’d guess both.  But I did come away from it immensely relieved that competent people were once again nominally in charge of our government.

The show was based on a document called DHS-National Planning Scenarios.  I found a copy online, it’s entirely worth perusal (in the correct sense of that word).  Maybe even more-so than the nuking of DC, scenario 3 is about pandemic flu and scenario 9 is for a major Earthquake.  I highly recommend downloading it (right-click link and save-as).

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Tags: day after disaster, dhs, dick cheney, media review, national planning scenarios, treason