What Happens if Someone Nukes D.C.?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Washington, DC, suffered a nuclear attack? Apparently, some of DC’s higher-ups were wondering the same thing and, like everything else they’re curious about, they decided to conduct a study.

Turns out, 10-kiloton nuke would be very, very bad for D.C., Northern Virginia, and Maryland (shocker, I know).

“The study—‘National Capital Region: Key Response Planning Factors for the Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism’—simulates and prognosticates a nuclear strike at 16th and K Streets, the heart of downtown DC and only a couple blocks from the White House. The kind of spot a terrorist would want to plant a bomb,” Gizmodo’s Sam Biddle writes.

However, as easy as it is to snicker at the study’s findings (What? D.C. would be destroyed? You don’t say!), the report also “paints a horrifying, incredibly detailed radioactive portrait” of what would most likely happen should someone detonate the nation’s capitol.

“Unlike the Cold War-era bombs of yore, which were designed to erase entire capitals, a ‘smaller’ bomb like the one in question here would, hypothetically, leave survivors. What happens to us?” Biddle asks.

First, as the 2011 study shows, there would be “Three Layers of Destruction”:

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