The Effects of Nuclear War
Chapter II
DETROIT AND LENINGRAD
Infrastructure Status
As a complement to the preceding description of physical destruction, the status of the various infrastructure elements of the Detroit metropolitan area, and the potential for their recovery, can be addressed. The reader should understand that this tutorial considers Detroit to be the only damaged area in the United States, that there is no other threat that would prevent survivors and those in surrounding areas from giving all possible aid, and that Federal and State governments will actively organize outside assistance.
The near half-million injured present a medical task of incredible magnitude. Those parts of Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland counties shown on the map have 63 hospitals containing about 18,000 beds. However, 55 percent of these beds are inside the 5-psi ring and thus totally destroyed. Another 15 percent in the 2- to 5-psi band will be severely damaged, leaving 5,000 beds remaining outside the region of significant damage. Since this is only 1 percent of the number of injured, these beds are incapable of providing significant medical assistance. In the first few days, transport of injured out of the damaged area will be severely hampered by debris clogging the streets. In general, only the nonprofessional assistance of nearby survivors can hope to hold down the large number of subsequent deaths that would otherwise occur. Even as transportation for the injured out of the area becomes available in subsequent days, the total medical facilities of the United States will be severely overburdened, since in 1977 there were only 1,407,000 hospital beds in the whole United States. Burn victims will number in the tens of thousands; yet in 1977 there were only 85 specialized burn centers, with probably 1,000 to 2,000 beds, in the entire United States.
The total loss of all utilities in areas where there has been significant physical damage to the basic structure of buildings is inevitable. The electric power grid will show both the inherent strength and weakness of its complex network. The collapse of buildings and the toppling of trees and utility poles, along with the injection of tens of thousands of volts of EMP into wires, will cause the immediate loss of power in a major sector of the total U.S. power grid. Main electrical powerplants (near Grosse Point Park to the east, and Zug Island to the south) are both in the l-psi ring and should suffer only superficial damage. Within a day the major area grid should be restored, bringing power back to facilities located as close to the blast as the l-psi ring. Large numbers of powerline workers and their equipment brought in from the surrounding States will be able to gradually restore service to surviving structures in the 1- to 2-psi ring over a period of days.
The water distribution system will remain mostly intact since, with the exception of one booster pumping station at 2 psi (which will suffer only minor damage), its facilities are outside the damaged area. However, the loss of electric power to the pumps and the breaking of many service connections to destroyed buildings will immediately cause the loss of all water pressure. Service to the whole area will be restored only when the regional power grid is restored, and to the areas of light and intermediate damage only as valves to broken pipes can be located and shut off over a period of days. There will be only sporadic damage to buried mains in the 2- to 5-psi region, but with increasing frequency in the 5- to 12-psi region. Damaged sections near the explosion center will have to be closed off.
The gas distribution system will receive similar damage: loss of pressure from numerous broken service connections, some broken mains, particularly in the 5- to 12-psi ring, and numerous resulting fires. Service will be slowly restored only as utility repairmen and service equipment are brought in from surrounding areas.
Rescue and recovery operations will depend heavily on the reestablishment of transportation, which in Detroit relies on private cars, buses, and commercial trucks, using a radial interstate system and a conventional urban grid. Since bridges and overpasses are surprisingly immune to blast effects, those interstate highways and broad urban streets without significant structures nearby will survive as far in as the 12-psi ring and can be quickly restored to use on clearing away minor amounts of debris. However, the majority of urban streets will be cluttered with varying quantities of debris, starting with tree limbs and other minor obstacles at 1 psi, and increasing in density up to the 12-psi ring, where all buildings, trees, and cars will be smashed and quite uniformly redistributed over the area. It could take weeks or months to remove the debris and restore road transportation in the area.
The Detroit city airport, located in the middle of the 2- to 5-psi ring, will have essentially all of its aircraft and facilities destroyed. Usually runways can be quickly restored to use following minor debris removal but, in this particular example with the southwest wind, the airport is the center of the fallout hot spot from the dust column as well as of the intensive fallout from the cloud. Thus, cleanup efforts to restore flight operations could not commence for 2 weeks at the earliest, with the workers involved in the cleanup receiving 100 rems accumulated during the third week. The Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and the Willow Run Airport are far outside the blast effects area and would be available as soon as the regional power grid electric service was restored.
The main train station, near the Detroit- Windsor highway tunnel, would have suffered major damage (5 psi), but since few people commute to the downtown area by train, its loss would not be a major factor in the overall paralysis of transportation. The surrounding industry depends heavily on rail transportation, but rail equipment and lines will usually survive wherever the facilities they support survive.
Most gasoline fuel oil tanks are located out beyond Dearborn and Lincoln Park and, at 16 miles from the detonation, will have suffered no damage. Arrival of fuel should not be impeded, but its distribution will be totally dependent on cleanup of streets and highways.
The civil defense control center, located just beyond the Highland Park area in the 1- to 2- psi ring, should be able to function without impairment. Commercial communications systems (television and base radio transmitters) will be inoperable both from the loss of commercial power in the area and, for those facilities in the blast area, from EMP. Those not blast damaged should be restored in several days. In the meantime, mobile radio systems will provide the primary means of communicating into the heavily damaged areas. The telephone system will probably remain largely functional in those areas where the lines have survived structural damage in collapsing buildings, or street damage in areas where they are not buried.