So many orders of magnitude worse than 9/11 -- the carnage, national trauma and economic reverb would be immense.

Every metropolitan area would be on edge as never before. Would urban residents be evacuating in a panic upon news of another city being hit? Would you?

I might very well be inclined to embark on a last-second camping trip, with minimal packing.

God bless those tasked with preventing this from happening, and all who are reliant on their success.



[i]Bystanders miles away would witness a 100-mph fireball shooting five miles into the sky. Sun-surface heat, hyperexplosive pressures and 900-mph winds would level buildings for half a mile. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people would vanish in smoke and flame.

Flash-blind drivers 10 miles away would crash, blocking evacuation routes. [i]Fallout would rain down for hundreds of miles, according to the White House's Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation,posted on the Internet in June.