JFBat,

Wow, that was a great article! Thank you for posting it and welcome to the group by the way.

The resulting firestorm definately increases the zone of damage. Add all the refineries and chemical plants in the area and it becomes bigger still. As I mentioned before, I would expect an attack on Houston (or any port city) to take place at the port which is about 50 miles away from me. Since the detonation would occur at ground level the overall blast zone is reduced, but I don't know by how much. The article you referenced described a 300 KT bomb exploded 1500 feet off the ground which results in fires ignited to up to about 4.6 miles from the detonation. This is a big area and the fire would undoubtably grow. But compared to the overall size of Houston, a circle nine miles across is puny. Don't get me wrong, this would suck massively! I'm just glad I'm on the opposite side of town and I make my plans accordingly.

-Mark