Blue Skies
Mike Williams
March 02, 2006
Some things in life can never be stressed enough. This week, I’d like to revisit a column I wrote back in October of 2004. Sometimes, the only way to truly drive a point home is the use of a good story. This is not a political piece so leave your politics on the reading table, pick up those glasses, and hopefully you’ll take something away from this.
It’s a bright beautiful Monday morning in New York City. It’s unusually warm for a late October morning. Temperatures are in the low fifties. The time is 10:32 am. A young man walks down West 57th on his way to get a haircut. He’s four years old and too young to be in Kindergarten. On the radio that can be heard in the small barber shop, Glenn Beck is coming back from a break and talking about the second presidential debate. “Good morning Mr. Harris.” Charlie the barber offers. The father returns the greeting in kind. A small Ford Taurus passes by the barber shop. Inside, Jeanie Davis is talking on her cell phone to her husband John and trying to explain the sound that the washing machine was making before she left this morning. Wall Street is busy and bustling with activity. Despite her jail sentence, it appears as though Martha Stewart’s stock is doing well. The birds are singing. The taxi cabs move back and forth down the avenue.
In Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Gene Stevens walks by a downtown electronics store. He’s visiting from Wilkes-Barre and has never seen the capital. Displays of at least 15 televisions show CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews among others. He stops and concentrates on the CNN anchor. “She’s cute.” He thinks to himself. The station turns to static. Gene is disappointed. MSNBC turns to static and then Fox News. “My luck!” He mutters out loud to himself and continues down the street in search of the museum. It’s 10:34 am.
In Washington, D.C., a small group of congressmen huddle next to the entrance to the capital building. Off in the distance, a small caravan of black SUVs speeds toward the capital. The activity goes un-noticed by the small group as they continue their discussion. In a small D.C. classroom, Sandra Hawkins reads the speech she’s written for her eighth grade English class. An elderly lady is sitting on a bench in the mall. She takes special notice of two squirrels chasing each other about the grass. Out of the corner of her eye, a flash.
Before the neurons can transmit the image to her consciousness, she’s gone. A fireball that initiates somewhere near the Lincoln Memorial grows to 460 feet in a matter of nanoseconds. It creates a pressure wave that expands outward at a rate of 670 miles per hour. Everything that is made of metal evaporates within 450 feet of the initial blast. At the core of the explosion is a temperature of 10 million degrees Celsius which begins to expand outward following the preceding pressure wave. At 1,400 feet from the initial blast, plastic begins to melt and ignite. Anything made of wood begins to burn. Anything organic vaporizes and bones turn to dust. Before Sandra Hawkins can finish her speech, the building disappears.
The SUVs are pushed forward by the pressure wave and become fused with the people outside the capital as the wave destroys the building and everyone inside. The White House quickly succumbs to the pressure wave and heat and crumbles into a white pile before being blown as if like a birthday candle. A birds eye view shows that within minutes, all that remains is a perfectly round circle of nothing that extends for three square miles. Any buildings that managed to survive the enormous heat are blown down by the incredible wind. Over 300,000 people have died instantly without ever realizing what hit them. Approximately half a million or so who were outside the blast radius will suffer from radiation burns and permanent blindness. Of course, an additional two to three hundred thousand people will be killed or injured from falling glass and debris.
The people who have survived are being bombarded by bursts of ionizing radiation which attacks their immune system. They will die in a matter of days. The fallout contaminates the area and the people who survive the initial blasts of the ionizing radiation suffer the effects of radiation poisoning. Roughly 50 percent of those people will die in the subsequent weeks following the blast.
A similar explosion has leveled Manhattan and has reached inward into New York City. It was a much bigger blast which left no buildings standing within a five mile radius. It’s 10:46 am. No one will notice young Master Harris’ new haircut. Jeanie Davis won’t have to worry about a troubling washing machine noise.
Back in Pennsylvania, the televisions don’t work and the national syndicated radio shows are silent. Various subscribers try to call Comcast but nobody answers. Cable modem subscribers have lost their Internet signal. At 11:15 am., ABC27 breaks in with a message from Governor Ed Rendell who explains that contact has been lost with Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Washington. Very few people see the broadcast because they’ve lost the cable signal and very few have the antenna to pull the signal from the air. At this point, details are fuzzy and he promises to keep us updated as to what’s going on. Panic soon follows. Those who have been following the New York Stock exchange begin to wonder why they aren’t getting updated figures. WHP580 begins to play re-runs of “The Plant Doctor” while producers and technicians check their equipment and try to figure out why they’ve lost the Glenn Beck show.
The confusion continues at Harrisburg International Airport. A plane that was supposed to leave LaGuardia and arrive at HIA is now thirty minutes overdue. An official picks up the telephone but a recording politely reminds her that “All circuits are busy. Please try your call later.” An elderly man in Perry county tries to call his son in Harrisburg to tell him about the ABC27 report. He doesn’t have cable and was able to see it. He gets the same message “All circuits are busy...” The planes still take off and land. There is nobody around to tell them not to. A frantic radar operator activates a speaker switch on her console. She doesn’t think about it. She just does it. “This is American Airlines Flight 477 Heavy en route to Harrisburg...Mayday...Mayday!” She is unable to reach the plane. Apparently, it’s transceiver assembly has been damaged somehow. The pilot can send messages but, not receive them.
At 11:35 Am., the ABCRadio feed featuring Paul Harvey news is silent. WHP580 goes to a report of the governor from his previous press conference. There is speculation but at this point, nobody really knows what’s going on. More and more people begin turning on their radios. It seems to be the only thing working.
At 12:05 pm., instead of Rush Limbaugh...we hear a familiar voice. Phil Cummings reports the following: “Good afternoon. This is Phil Cummings with a special report. We currently have unconfirmed reports that New York City and Washington have been destroyed in what appears to be a terrorist attack...” The words fade away as your eyes begin to tear. You wonder about the President. What about the people in New York? How did they attack us? Your mind races with questions. Questions you can’t answer.
In the air and in the lower atmosphere, a radioactive cloud begins to organize and move towards Pennsylvania from Washington. At 2:22 pm., a local Comcast facility has re-routed the cable feed from New York and the images begin to reach the general population. CNN is off the air. MSNBC is off the air. The ABC News affiliate in Boston has assumed it’s parent station’s duties and reports that New York City and all who were in it have been destroyed. People are warned to stay inside their homes and seal them up as best they can. The radioactive clouds seem to be the primary concern. Air Force One is in Ohio. The Vice-President, the Speaker of the House, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condie Rice are missing and believed to have been in Washington when it was destroyed. The ABC affiliate has been in contact with the president and tells us that as soon as they can get the technical details worked out, he’ll be addressing the nation. We are also not able to communicate with Europe due to both the Electro-Magnetic-Pulse (EMP) created by the explosion in New York and the destroyed satellite system in the surrounding area. The old transatlantic cable system running from Ireland to Newfoundland doesn’t seem to be working at all. Crews scramble to get the other cables working.
Businesses in Pennsylvania begin to send their employees home as the picture becomes more clear about what happened. The interstate highways become congested as parents struggle to get home to their children. At 3:31 pm., a general announcement is made that all air traffic has been grounded. In the Palestinian territories, people are cheering in the streets. In Iran, North Korea, and Sudan it’s much of the same. It’s unclear how they know of the tragedy at first until it’s later reported that a few satellite phones are working.
The President’s address offers little comfort. Most of the information he reports has already been disseminated by the media or what’s left of it. He announces a tremendous resolve to help those people who are still alive and near the radiated areas. Most of the facilities that could help with the radiation burns have been destroyed in New York. Volunteers are needed to treat the dying. The President goes on to tell us that the Navy ships are being recalled and will form a blockade around America’s coasts.
As the days that follow reveal more and more about the devastation, water supplies are poisoned by nuclear fallout. Livestock up and down the east coast begin to die. The gold supplies at Fort Knox have been destroyed by the same size weapon that destroyed Washington D.C. The President sets up a base of operations in an undisclosed location. His advisors as well as Senators John Kerry and John Edwards sit around a conference table as they are being briefed by a senior military general.
The exact origin of the weapons is unknown at this time. It is the general consensus that they were suit-case sized nuclear devices.” The general reports.
How on earth did they get in this country?” The President asks.
It’s believed that they came in from the Mexican and Canadian borders Mr. President.”
I would like to thank Paul Williams (no relation) whose book “Osama’s Revenge” helped with some of the details of what happens when a suit-case nuke is detonated ***
I would also like to thank Doug Giles who in some sick twisted way, gave me the idea to write something like this. ***
This article is dedicated to Christopher Reeve. He’ll always be Superman to me! ***
It’s a bright beautiful Monday morning in New York City. It’s unusually warm for a late October morning. Temperatures are in the low fifties. The time is 10:32 am. A young man walks down West 57th on his way to get a haircut. He’s four years old and too young to be in Kindergarten. On the radio that can be heard in the small barber shop, Glenn Beck is coming back from a break and talking about the second presidential debate. “Good morning Mr. Harris.” Charlie the barber offers. The father returns the greeting in kind. A small Ford Taurus passes by the barber shop. Inside, Jeanie Davis is talking on her cell phone to her husband John and trying to explain the sound that the washing machine was making before she left this morning. Wall Street is busy and bustling with activity. Despite her jail sentence, it appears as though Martha Stewart’s stock is doing well. The birds are singing. The taxi cabs move back and forth down the avenue.
In Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Gene Stevens walks by a downtown electronics store. He’s visiting from Wilkes-Barre and has never seen the capital. Displays of at least 15 televisions show CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews among others. He stops and concentrates on the CNN anchor. “She’s cute.” He thinks to himself. The station turns to static. Gene is disappointed. MSNBC turns to static and then Fox News. “My luck!” He mutters out loud to himself and continues down the street in search of the museum. It’s 10:34 am.
In Washington, D.C., a small group of congressmen huddle next to the entrance to the capital building. Off in the distance, a small caravan of black SUVs speeds toward the capital. The activity goes un-noticed by the small group as they continue their discussion. In a small D.C. classroom, Sandra Hawkins reads the speech she’s written for her eighth grade English class. An elderly lady is sitting on a bench in the mall. She takes special notice of two squirrels chasing each other about the grass. Out of the corner of her eye, a flash.
Before the neurons can transmit the image to her consciousness, she’s gone. A fireball that initiates somewhere near the Lincoln Memorial grows to 460 feet in a matter of nanoseconds. It creates a pressure wave that expands outward at a rate of 670 miles per hour. Everything that is made of metal evaporates within 450 feet of the initial blast. At the core of the explosion is a temperature of 10 million degrees Celsius which begins to expand outward following the preceding pressure wave. At 1,400 feet from the initial blast, plastic begins to melt and ignite. Anything made of wood begins to burn. Anything organic vaporizes and bones turn to dust. Before Sandra Hawkins can finish her speech, the building disappears.
The SUVs are pushed forward by the pressure wave and become fused with the people outside the capital as the wave destroys the building and everyone inside. The White House quickly succumbs to the pressure wave and heat and crumbles into a white pile before being blown as if like a birthday candle. A birds eye view shows that within minutes, all that remains is a perfectly round circle of nothing that extends for three square miles. Any buildings that managed to survive the enormous heat are blown down by the incredible wind. Over 300,000 people have died instantly without ever realizing what hit them. Approximately half a million or so who were outside the blast radius will suffer from radiation burns and permanent blindness. Of course, an additional two to three hundred thousand people will be killed or injured from falling glass and debris.
The people who have survived are being bombarded by bursts of ionizing radiation which attacks their immune system. They will die in a matter of days. The fallout contaminates the area and the people who survive the initial blasts of the ionizing radiation suffer the effects of radiation poisoning. Roughly 50 percent of those people will die in the subsequent weeks following the blast.
A similar explosion has leveled Manhattan and has reached inward into New York City. It was a much bigger blast which left no buildings standing within a five mile radius. It’s 10:46 am. No one will notice young Master Harris’ new haircut. Jeanie Davis won’t have to worry about a troubling washing machine noise.
Back in Pennsylvania, the televisions don’t work and the national syndicated radio shows are silent. Various subscribers try to call Comcast but nobody answers. Cable modem subscribers have lost their Internet signal. At 11:15 am., ABC27 breaks in with a message from Governor Ed Rendell who explains that contact has been lost with Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Washington. Very few people see the broadcast because they’ve lost the cable signal and very few have the antenna to pull the signal from the air. At this point, details are fuzzy and he promises to keep us updated as to what’s going on. Panic soon follows. Those who have been following the New York Stock exchange begin to wonder why they aren’t getting updated figures. WHP580 begins to play re-runs of “The Plant Doctor” while producers and technicians check their equipment and try to figure out why they’ve lost the Glenn Beck show.
The confusion continues at Harrisburg International Airport. A plane that was supposed to leave LaGuardia and arrive at HIA is now thirty minutes overdue. An official picks up the telephone but a recording politely reminds her that “All circuits are busy. Please try your call later.” An elderly man in Perry county tries to call his son in Harrisburg to tell him about the ABC27 report. He doesn’t have cable and was able to see it. He gets the same message “All circuits are busy...” The planes still take off and land. There is nobody around to tell them not to. A frantic radar operator activates a speaker switch on her console. She doesn’t think about it. She just does it. “This is American Airlines Flight 477 Heavy en route to Harrisburg...Mayday...Mayday!” She is unable to reach the plane. Apparently, it’s transceiver assembly has been damaged somehow. The pilot can send messages but, not receive them.
At 11:35 Am., the ABCRadio feed featuring Paul Harvey news is silent. WHP580 goes to a report of the governor from his previous press conference. There is speculation but at this point, nobody really knows what’s going on. More and more people begin turning on their radios. It seems to be the only thing working.
At 12:05 pm., instead of Rush Limbaugh...we hear a familiar voice. Phil Cummings reports the following: “Good afternoon. This is Phil Cummings with a special report. We currently have unconfirmed reports that New York City and Washington have been destroyed in what appears to be a terrorist attack...” The words fade away as your eyes begin to tear. You wonder about the President. What about the people in New York? How did they attack us? Your mind races with questions. Questions you can’t answer.
In the air and in the lower atmosphere, a radioactive cloud begins to organize and move towards Pennsylvania from Washington. At 2:22 pm., a local Comcast facility has re-routed the cable feed from New York and the images begin to reach the general population. CNN is off the air. MSNBC is off the air. The ABC News affiliate in Boston has assumed it’s parent station’s duties and reports that New York City and all who were in it have been destroyed. People are warned to stay inside their homes and seal them up as best they can. The radioactive clouds seem to be the primary concern. Air Force One is in Ohio. The Vice-President, the Speaker of the House, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condie Rice are missing and believed to have been in Washington when it was destroyed. The ABC affiliate has been in contact with the president and tells us that as soon as they can get the technical details worked out, he’ll be addressing the nation. We are also not able to communicate with Europe due to both the Electro-Magnetic-Pulse (EMP) created by the explosion in New York and the destroyed satellite system in the surrounding area. The old transatlantic cable system running from Ireland to Newfoundland doesn’t seem to be working at all. Crews scramble to get the other cables working.
Businesses in Pennsylvania begin to send their employees home as the picture becomes more clear about what happened. The interstate highways become congested as parents struggle to get home to their children. At 3:31 pm., a general announcement is made that all air traffic has been grounded. In the Palestinian territories, people are cheering in the streets. In Iran, North Korea, and Sudan it’s much of the same. It’s unclear how they know of the tragedy at first until it’s later reported that a few satellite phones are working.
The President’s address offers little comfort. Most of the information he reports has already been disseminated by the media or what’s left of it. He announces a tremendous resolve to help those people who are still alive and near the radiated areas. Most of the facilities that could help with the radiation burns have been destroyed in New York. Volunteers are needed to treat the dying. The President goes on to tell us that the Navy ships are being recalled and will form a blockade around America’s coasts.
As the days that follow reveal more and more about the devastation, water supplies are poisoned by nuclear fallout. Livestock up and down the east coast begin to die. The gold supplies at Fort Knox have been destroyed by the same size weapon that destroyed Washington D.C. The President sets up a base of operations in an undisclosed location. His advisors as well as Senators John Kerry and John Edwards sit around a conference table as they are being briefed by a senior military general.
The exact origin of the weapons is unknown at this time. It is the general consensus that they were suit-case sized nuclear devices.” The general reports.
How on earth did they get in this country?” The President asks.
It’s believed that they came in from the Mexican and Canadian borders Mr. President.”
I would like to thank Paul Williams (no relation) whose book “Osama’s Revenge” helped with some of the details of what happens when a suit-case nuke is detonated ***
I would also like to thank Doug Giles who in some sick twisted way, gave me the idea to write something like this. ***
This article is dedicated to Christopher Reeve. He’ll always be Superman to me! ***
Print
Email
