Study Lists Potential Effects of Nuclear Attack on Long Beach Port

LONG BEACH, August 16, 2006 -- A nuclear blast at the Port of Long Beach could kill 60,000 people, expose 150,000 to radiation, send 6 million people fleeing and cause 10 times the economic losses attributed to 9/11, the Rand Corp. says.

Those projections are based on a scenario that assumes terrorists detonate a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb hidden in a shipping container shortly after it is unloaded at a Port of Long Beach pier.

"We used this scenario because analysts consider it feasible," says a summary of the report, which was an amplification of a study that the Santa Monica-based think tank conducted for the Department of Homeland Security in 2004.

But Rand officials said the study was not meant to predict such an attack was likely.

Based on the nuclear-blast scenario, Rand researchers conducted "strategic games" with leaders from government, business, and the insurance and real estate industries, according to Rand.

"Participants shared their perspectives on what the attack's longer-term consequences might be and outlined the decisions they would be likely to make in response to the sequence of events our scenario analysis suggested," the study said.

"They also anticipated the decision-making challenges that might arise and reflected on strategies that might address these problems."

The attack assumed by Rand researchers could prove overwhelming in the short-term and beyond. Within 72 hours, according to the study, the explosion would "devastate a vast portion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area," including a port complex that handles about a third of the nation's imports.

Additional outcomes, according to the study, might include:

• 60,000 people might die instantly from the blast itself or quickly thereafter from radiation poisoning;
• 150,000 more might be exposed to hazardous levels of radioactive water and sediment from the port, requiring emergency medical treatment;
• The blast and subsequent fires might completely destroy the entire infrastructure and all ships in the Port of Long Beach and the adjoining Port of Los Angeles.
• Six million people might try to evacuate the Los Angeles region. Two to three million people might need relocation because fallout will have contaminated a 500-square-kilometer area.
• Gasoline supplies might run critically short across the entire region because of the loss of Long Beach's refineries, responsible for one-third of the gas west of the Rockies.

Additionally, "the early costs of the Long Beach scenario could exceed $1 trillion, driven by outlay for medical care, insurance claims, workers' compensation, evacuation, and construction," compared to an estimate of $50 billion to $100 billion in losses resulting from 9/11.

"In general, consequences would far outstrip the resources available to cope with them," said the study, which projected long-term financial impacts.

"Many loans and mortgages in Southern California might default," it said, and "some of the nation's largest insurance companies might go bankrupt."

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