Ms. Adams stares out at the confused looks the high schoolers in her classroom have on their
faces. She lets out a sigh of exasperation. “Let me explain this one more time,” she says,
turning to the map on the wall and pointing to eastern Europe. “Ukraine
gained independence—” before she can finish her thought, a strange sound
fills the classroom. It’s the sound of a siren. The shrill noise is dull at first,
but as the dust from decades of neglect works its way out of the system, the siren becomes louder.
“What is that?” the students say, looking around the room. Ms. Adams looks out the window; all is
quiet. She walks over to the door and opens it. There is no one in the hallway. Slowly other doors
start to open, and her colleagues peer their heads out. The teacher in the room next door shrugs.
Ms. Adams walks back into the classroom and shuts the door behind her. She looks at her class. They
shift in their seats. “Is it a fire alarm?” someone asks. But that doesn’t seem right.
There are no flashing lights, and a fire drill wasn’t in the plan for today. “Everything is
fine,” she tells the kids, but everything doesn’t seem fine. Ms. Adams walks over to the window once
again. She squints her eyes. In the distance, she can see the skyline of New York City.
She turns around and walks towards the phone on the wall to call down to the office. As she
walks away from the window, there is a bright flash. Screams erupt from the classroom full of
children. They dive under their desks as the room begins to shake. Moments later,
the windows explode inward; shards of glass go flying across the room.
Ms. Adams falls to the floor. A piece of glass as sharp as a knife whizzes over
her head and slams against the wall, breaking into hundreds of little pieces. The students
are protected from the mayhem as they hunker down under their desks. The siren continues to
blare. Ms. Adams shakes her head to clear her foggy vision. Her ears are ringing. She slowly
stands up and looks around. The students are scared, but they look to be unharmed.
Ms. Adams turns toward the window. Her jaw drops. The New York City skyline is gone.
She slowly approaches the opening; warm air blows into the classroom. “Stay under your desks,” she
says to the students. Ms. Adams stares out the window. Where New York City once stood,
a giant mushroom cloud now rises from the Earth. The surrounding area is aglow with radioactive
fires. A tear falls down her cheek. A nuclear bomb has just hit the east coast of the United States.
At the same time Ms. Adams’ history class was interrupted,
an intelligence officer named Corporal Greyson was working out of an air force base in Trenton,
New Jersey. Greyson had just gotten settled at his station when he spotted something strange.
Satellite feeds indicated there had been a missile launch from the Russian-Ukrainian
border. This had become a relatively common occurrence over the last several months,
so Greyson chalked it up to the Russian’s brutal tactics in their war against Ukraine.
However, as Corporal Greyson moved from satellite to satellite to try and identify the impact site,
he became increasingly worried. The missile had not yet detonated, which meant it was
either a misfire or Ukrainian forces weren’t the intended target. Greyson zoomed out his
search radius. The missile hadn’t exploded anywhere in Europe. “What is going on?” he
said out loud. Then he picked something up. It was his worst fears come to life.
Greyson pushed his chair away from his workstation and darted for the red phone on the wall. “This is
General Rodd,” the voice on the other line said. “Sir, we have a problem. You need to get to the
control room right away,” Greyson whispered into the phone. Moments later, an entourage
of highly decorated officers barged into the communications room. Greyson was furiously typing
on his keyboard. “I think the Russians launched a long-range missile,” he yelled over his shoulders.
The officers immediately dispersed to the different stations around the room. They
looked at the data and determine the President needed to be informed of the threat right away.
Fighter jets were scrambled. They took off towards New York. “I’ve got it!” Greyson
yelled. The officers rushed over to his station and looked at the data coming
in. A blurry image started to come into focus. “Mother of God,” one of the generals said. “Is
that the Russian hypersonic missile we were briefed on a while back?”
“Yes, sir,” Greyson confirmed. “And it’s headed straight towards New York City.”
The day that the nuke detonated over the East Coast of the United States was the
day that World War III started. The blast was immense as the bomb had a 1-megaton payload. Time
Square and most of Manhattan were vaporized in the initial blast. In an instant, over a million
people died. As the shockwave and radiation spread outwards, millions more would perish.
The explosion heated up the surrounding area to thousands of degrees, incinerating buildings,
cars, and roads. The superheating of the air also caused a massive change in pressure,
which resulted in a shockwave with winds blowing hundreds of miles per hour,
strong enough to blow people off their feet and cause trees to topple. This
shockwave extended for three miles in all directions. But it was the
radiation from the explosion that would end up killing the most people.
As the mushroom cloud rose into the air, it carried radioactive particles with it.
The wind pushed these particles northeast. The fallout covered parts of Brooklyn and Queens,
but the Bronx was the borough that received the largest dose
of radiation. The fallout continued to travel with the wind, which carried it
up the East Coast of the United States, reaching as far north as New Hampshire.
Hours after the blast, Corporal Greyson has a moment to breathe. He has been relieved by another
officer so he can contact his wife, who is a school teacher in New Jersey. She teaches history,
and he knows that she has an excellent view of the New York City skyline from her classroom,
or at least she did until it was wiped off the face of the Earth.
Greyson dials his cell phone. The phone rings, and rings, and rings. “Come on,
pick up. Please pick up,” he preys. There is a pause in the ringing,
then a familiar voice answers. “Thank God you’re okay,” Greyson says into the receiver. Ms. Adams
is still at the school. It has become a shelter for families needing food or water. Many in the
community commuted into the city for work, and even though the town was spared from the
blast and initial fallout, at least half of its residents were lost in the attack.
Corporal Greyson explains what is happening to his wife. A nuke was fired using a long-range
hypersonic missile. The United States believed Russia was still decades away
from making the weapon operational, but as Putin became more and more frustrated with
his shortcomings in the war with Ukraine, he took drastic measures. It was more luck than
anything else that the hypersonic missile actually worked, but now the East Coast
of the United States is consumed in flames and radiation. Putin couldn’t be happier.
After the bomb detonated, the United States immediately went into lockdown. All flights
were grounded. The borders closed up. No one was allowed in or out. The armed forces were
instantly mobilized, and since it was clear where the nuke came from,
soldiers were ordered to report to their bases for immediate deployment.
New York City is in ruins, and much of the North East coast will be covered in fallout.
The military sends doctors and medics to the surrounding areas to help the hospitals deal
with the millions of people with burns, radiation sickness, and wounds caused by
blunt force trauma. The death toll will continue to rise, and over the next several years, anyone
who received even a small dose of the initial radiation will need to be examined for cancer.
The nuke will have long-lasting effects on the East Coast of the United States,
but none of that might matter as NATO is about to go to war with Russia.
After the nuke struck Manhattan, the U.S. immediately reached out to its allies and
informed them of what was going on. They needed to take care of things at home,
but Russia had declared war on the free world, and now the nations of NATO needed to make them
pay. The U.K. and France arm their own nukes and await orders from high command. Even though the
United States had been attacked, military leaders know the consequences of retaliating with nukes.
If World War III becomes a nuclear war, the entire planet will be at risk. There
are no winners in a war where NATO and Russia continuously fire nukes at one another. However,
this does not mean they will not be going to war. After the nuke hit the East Coast,
all negotiations were off the table. The U.S. will be invading Russia, and Vladamir Putin will pay.
A nuke hitting New York City is a worst-case scenario,
and the enemy knew this. There is no doubt that wherever a nuclear bomb detonates,
there will be mass destruction and countless lives lost. However, New York City is the most densely
populated urban center in the U.S. By firing a nuke here, it ensures that it will cause the
most amount of casualties. Another side effect of nuking New York City is much more widespread.
If a nuke hits the East Coast of the United States, economies around the world will crash.
This may not be the most immediate concern, but if New York City is wiped off the face
of the planet, the world economy could collapse. All-out war will likely occur,
so nations around the world will start gearing up. The private sector will pool its resources
to start building more weapons and machinery to help in the war effort. The U.S. dollar and
economy will probably tank as investors pull their money from the stock market.
But what if another nuke detonated somewhere else on the East Coast of the United States? Regardless
of the exact target, the results would likely be the same. The U.S. military would mobilize
and immediately strike whoever was responsible for the atrocious act. All NATO countries would
send aid to the United States and help in any way they could. The nuclear arsenals of NATO would be
put on high alert, and at any given moment, the world could be plunged into nuclear war.
A nuke going off in New York City would most definitely cause the most
casualties as far as targets on the east coast of the United States go,
but there is another key location that an enemy could strike. If someone wanted to
hit the heart of America, they would detonate a nuke in Washington, D.C.
Moments before the nuke strikes New York City, the President of the United States sits in the
oval office sipping coffee. It had been a long night; decisions needed to be made about further
sanctions being placed on the countries aiding Russia in the war against Ukraine. Suddenly,
a squad of secret service agents bursts through the doors. The President startles,
spilling his coffee across the desk. “Sir, we need to get you out of here!” the lead agent yells.
The president grabs his jacket from the back of his chair and is escorted out of
the room. “What is going on?” he asks. There is no time to talk; the agents
rush him toward Marine One. The helicopter's propellers are already spinning. The agents
desperately try to get the President on board. “Where is my family?” he asks.
“They will be right behind you, sir!” the agent yells over the chopper’s blades cutting
through the air. The President stops dead in his tracks. “I’m not leaving without them,” he says,
but it doesn’t matter. Before anyone can protest, there is a bright flash. A nuke
explodes in downtown D.C. The dome of the Capitol Building instantly melts. The Washington Monument
goes up in flames like a torch. The White House is obliterated. In a millisecond, the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. government are all wiped out.
Luckily, the Vice President was visiting family on the other side of the country. She is immediately
informed of the incident in the capital and is rushed to a secure location where she starts
making decisions about rescue efforts in D.C. and New York City and how best to help the people in
those areas that need medical attention. She contacts one of her closest advisors,
a general working out of an airbase in New Jersey, to become her new Secretary
of Defense. The National Guard is deployed to the surrounding regions. These soldiers are provided
with radiation suits and iodine tablets to give them an extra layer of protection.
They have to wait several days for the fires to die out before they can search for survivors in
downtown D.C. During this time, anyone who was exposed to the fallout is brought to
the closest hospital where they are treated for burns and radiation sickness. The initial blast
killed half a million people in D.C. and wiped out most members of the U.S. government. As the wind
swept through the capital, it carried radioactive particles north, covering Maryland, Philadelphia,
and parts of New Jersey. The fallout reaches as far as Connecticut, where it isn’t as deadly but
can still cause complications, especially for anyone who ingests contaminated food or water.
If Washington D.C. was destroyed, there could be a slight delay in action as a
new chain of command would need to be put in place. But as soon as the
Vice President or whoever was next in line to become President was sworn in,
the full might of the U.S. military would be unleashed on whoever committed this atrocity.
B-2 bombers carrying massive payloads or their own nuclear bombs would take off and unleash a
firestorm upon enemy military bases and key strategic locations. Nuclear submarines and
aircraft carriers would be re-positioned to areas where they could launch counter-offensives and
fire high-powered conventional missiles at the enemy. Next, there would be boots
on the ground and tanks rolling toward the enemy capital to remove the current regime from power.
NATO would mobilize to aid in the war effort, but one thing is absolutely
sure to happen. If the East Coast of the U.S. was attacked by nuclear weapons,
there would be retaliation on a scale that the world has never seen before. Time would be of
the essence as the longer the enemy remained in control and had access to their weapons arsenal,
the more likely it would be that another nuke would hit the United States.
Perhaps the next nuke would be fired at the southeastern coast of the U.S.
Marcus sits on his fishing boat with the line in the water. He hasn’t caught much today and decides
maybe it’s time to head in and cut his losses. He begins reeling in the line when suddenly it
gets stuck. Marcus pulls and pulls but whatever is on the hook is gigantic. He smiles. Perhaps
this will make up for not catching anything else that day. He hopes it’s a tuna or a swordfish;
at this point, he thinks it could be a tiger shark as whatever he’s caught won’t let him real it in.
Suddenly the water all around him starts to bubble. The boat whips back and forth. Marcus
lets go of the rod and grabs onto the side of the boat for dear life. Out of the depths of
the ocean, a metal hull appears. On the side is a five-pointed red star. It’s a Russian submarine
rising to the surface. Marcus shouts in terror as his boat capsizes and he is thrown into the water.
A few moments later, Marcus surfaces. The Russian sub sits on the water like a giant metal whale
coming up from air. He watches in horror as a hatch opens on the top of the sub. There is a
rumbling sound and a missile launches from its tube. It rises up into the air, arcing towards
downtown Miami. For a moment, Marcus can’t breathe. He watches as the nuclear warhead
falls from the sky. It disappears for a second before a bright flash of light fills the sky.
Marcus goes blind for a moment. He thrashes in the water, trying to catch his breath and
reorient himself. He blinks hard, just in time to see the Russian sub sink back below
the water and disappear. He looks around for his boat, hoping that he can climb onto
it and wait to be rescued. Surly, the coast guard will come to aid the people of Miami.
Marcus spots his capsized boat and starts swimming toward it. Before he can reach the side,
he feels a wind against the back of his head. Marcus slowly turns around and treads water. He
closes his eyes and shakes his head. A tidal wave created by the nuclear blast is rushing
toward him at hundreds of miles per hour. In that moment, he thinks about his family. He
wonders if there is any way his wife, who works in the local fish shop, could have survived the
blast. He then thinks of his twin brother, who is on the President’s detail in the Secret Service.
He hopes he is okay, even though deep down, he knows no one is safe. Marcus grabs onto the side
of his boat and grips it tightly. The sea was his entire life, and now it will claim him.
Approximately 200,000 people die instantly in Miami as a result of the nuclear blast. The
fallout would likely drift out into the Atlantic, with some radiation reaching the Bahamas.
It is the thought of this horrifying scenario that would lead the United States and NATO to
take immediate action and destroy any enemy nuclear launch site or housing facilities
as quickly as possible. That being said, if U.S. and NATO forces invaded a country with
nuclear capabilities like Russia, there is a good chance that they would deploy everything
they had in their arsenals. Cities across the world would be targeted by nuclear weapons,
and millions of people would be vaporized or succumb to the horrors of radiation poisoning.
Regardless of who fired the nuke or why, there is a very real possibility that if the East
Coast of the United States was bombed, the world would come to a terrible end.
The last thing the United States or most countries want is nuclear war. However,
if a nation like Russia was the one who detonated the nuke and the U.S. tried
to fight back, Russia would likely unleash their entire arsenal, which contains enough
nukes to cover most of the European and North American continents in radioactive fallout.
There are several cities that are likely to be major targets on the east coast if a nuke
was ever launched at the United States. New York City and Washington D.C. are definitely
the two most likely areas to get hit for the reasons mentioned earlier. However,
cities like Boston, Atlanta, and Annapolis, could also be targets. The problem with being
on either coast when it comes to war is that submarines equipped with nuclear warheads could
theoretically find their way to an area where they could hit several key targets.
Take Washington, D.C., for instance. If an enemy sub loaded with several
nukes found itself off the coast of Delaware and Maryland, or even worse, in the Chesapeake Bay,
it could hit several major east coast cities all at once. Baltimore, Richmond,
Philadelphia, Annapolis, and D.C. would be within firing range. The terrifying part
is that once the nukes were deployed, it would be impossible to stop them before they reached
their targets. This would give residents in these cities little time to seek shelter and
hide from the oncoming apocalypse. That is if they received any warning at all.
The last time serious nuclear drills were carried out in the United States was during
the Cold War. The sirens and fallout shelters of that era have fallen into disuse, and it’s highly
unlikely the average U.S. citizen knows where the closest fallout shelter is. Even if there
was time to warn a population of an incoming nuclear strike, it’s doubtful people would
know what to do. There would be mass hysteria up until the nuke reached its target and detonated.
Make no mistake. If a nuke hit the east coast of the United States, it would almost certainly be
the end of the world. The only way that World War III wouldn’t start would be if whoever detonated
the device had no political ties or worked for a terrorist group. In these circumstances,
the world might rally around the attack and decide that nukes are much too dangerous to
be used in conventional warfare. Perhaps if this happened, all countries that possess
these doomsday devices would decommission them and lock them away so they could never be used again.
This is wishful thinking, however. It’s much more likely that if nukes ever did go off on
the East Coast of the U.S., the world would be put on a path to nuclear war,
and missiles would start flying across the planet in a desperate attempt to wipe out the enemy
before they themselves are wiped out. In this scenario, Ms. Adams, Corporal Greyson, the Vice
President, Marcus, and every other human on the planet, including you, likely wouldn’t survive.
Now watch “What if Russia Launched a Nuclear Bomb
(Minute by Minute).” Or check out “This Is How You Actually Survive a Nuclear Attack.”