by Gene Skellig
Qualicum Beach scored highest, with neighboring Parksville a close second. Casey’s evaluation revealed that the Oceanside region got its power from a series of modest sized dams in central Vancouver Island where rainfall amounts were ideal. The transmission lines passed through accessible terrain, bringing power through Oceanside and then on to Lantzville and Nanaimo.
There was some local food production and a surprisingly capable local contracting and light manufacturing base. The census data revealed that it was largely a well-to-do and well-educated collection of Anglo-Irish-Scotts with immigrants and aboriginal populations just under the provincial average.
When assessed in the context of the worst case scenario, Oceanside yielded a grizzly but positive conclusion. In order to assess how the Oceanside region would fare in a nuclear war, Casey carried out an effects-based calculation based on historical wind patterns, number and yield of likely weapons systems to be used against the nuclear targets in the Pacific Northwest, and the resulting impact on the regions inhabitants.
He used a variety of web-based tools, supplemented with a mapping application, which allowed Casey to input a location, weapon type and yield, hit “detonate” and be provided a detailed damage assessment.
He repeated the process for all the targets in the region. After plotting the results on a map it was clear that in a nuclear war the Oceanside community would be exposed to considerable radioactive fallout carried by prevailing winds from the Air Force base at Comox. It would be cut-off to the south by Lantzville and Nanaimo having been destroyed. Further down-island, Victoria and the Navy base at Esquimalt would also be hit. To the East, Greater Vancouver would be struck about a half dozen times. To the south, a large number of military and civilian targets in north-west Washington State would be struck.
All of this was, in a grim way, actually positive for Oceanside in terms of site selection. Other than radioactive fallout coming down from Comox, which depended on the winds, Oceanside itself would be intact. The effects of radioactive fallout could be mitigated. Oceanside’s remoteness from Greater Vancouver meant that there would not be large numbers of desperate victims flowing in. Oceanside would be surrounded by utter devastation and therefore sheltered by it.
The only area that would be in a better position would be the central Vancouver Island community of Port Alberni. Casey also assessed Port Alberni, even though it was not on the Sunshine Coast. However, he quickly eliminated it for being too isolated, with too little local food production, and with a variety of unfavorable characteristics revealed in the census data. Port Alberni residents would be well ahead in the first days after a war, true enough, but they would not have what they would need for the long haul. In that sense, Port Alberni was non-viable.
After confirming that the Oceanside community scored highest, Casey began to mitigate the risks of radioactive fallout. He studied the different types of radiation created in a nuclear blast and how to protect oneself from radioactive fallout. The key was to ensure that a safe area had a significant mass of material, such as a thick concrete wall and a few meters of earth, to shield people from radiation. Casey learned that the gamma radiation from fallout would fade within two weeks or so and that the protection afforded by materials of various thicknesses was expressed in terms of “halving thicknesses”. Casey determined that safe areas in the HOTH must provide as many as ten such halving thicknesses.
An air filtration system was essential, to filter out radioactive dust particles. Clean water, sanitation, food, lighting, first aid supplies, security and some scientific instrumentation would also be required.
The more Casey looked into details, the more he realized just how large and complex the task of being prepared for a nuclear war would become. An air filtration system would require a stable source of electrical power, and in the event of failure, a back-up power source had to be in place. A good supply of food and water would be essential during the first few weeks while the gamma radiation dissipated. Follow-on attacks could extend this danger considerably, so an infinite supply of water would be best.
After water, food (or “grub” as Casey called it) would become the most critical issue. The entire food distribution and transportation system would cease to operate. This was also true of other disasters, including the economic collapse and the Juan de Fuca earthquake scenarios. The recent tsunami and nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, provided Casey with an excellent case study.
Casey had looked into the disaster plans for the long overdue earthquake and associated tsunami and found that Greater Vancouver and Victoria would be devastated; however, Oceanside would be relatively untouched due to favorable geographic factors. Therefore, Casey made the assumption critical for planning that the nuclear war scenario really was the worst case and, therefore, would be the reference scenario.
Providing for grub would be the central task in Casey’s plans, while addressing water supply and sanitation, radiation, communications and security were just “Supporting Plans”.
Casey had learned that the longer-lived radiation would be largely confined to the immediate vicinity of the target areas. In his research, Casey had found that the world’s arsenal of ICBMs and other nuclear devices were of smaller yield than those of the cold war, while their accuracy and reliability had greatly improved. With the arms reductions from the various SALT, SALTII, and the Obama-Medvedev START treaty of 2011, the global arsenal of atomic weapons had seemed to be getting smaller and smaller up until about the end of 2011. After that, however, the US, Russia, and other nuclear powers began rebuilding their nuclear arsenals. In the US as well as Russia, decades long progress on disarmament so alarmed conservative elements and military contractors in both countries that they took steps to overturn this downward trend. Older systems were modernized and upgraded while newer warheads and delivery systems were also being introduced. The total stockpile of Russian and American warheads stood at over 12,000 operationally ready warheads and a further 14,200 warheads in various stages of mothballing, available as a strategic reserve.
All other nuclear powers from Great Britain to China further 1,700 warheads, which was steadily climbing.
The total warhead count was therefore on the order of 28,000. This was way down from the cold war totals approaching 100,000 which made the public complacent and believe that nuclear war was a thing of the past. Yet the world was still capable of destroying itself five times over.
On the American side there were 6,154 operationally deployed warheads including 1,050 Minuteman II ICBMs; 1,980 W-86 warheads rigged as bombs for B-52, B-1B and B2 bombers; 2,024 SLBMs carried on Ohio Class nuclear submarines; and over 1,100 warheads yielding 150 kilotons carried on Tomahawk cruise missiles deployable on ships at sea and custom-rigged aircraft as SLCMs and as ALCMs. A further 4,437 moth-balled warheads provided a strategic reserve, making a grand total of over 10,500 American warheads. The US also had enormous stockpiles of fissionable materials and the industrial sophistication to quickly bring new warheads into production at any time.
On the Russian side, there were 5,864 operationally ready warheads and 9,800 warheads in tactical reserve. This includes 1,788 warheads carried on the SS18, SS19 and SS-27 missiles of the land-based Strategic Rocket Forces. There were 1,152 warheads deliverable as SS-25 “Sickle” sea-based missiles which could be launched from Delta III and Delta IV submarines. There were also over 1,700 ALCMs in the 150 kiloton range and 1,224 older contact-fused fission bombs in the one to five megaton range, deliverable by long range bombers. A variety of small tactical nuclear devices with sub-ten-kiloton yields could be delivered by artillery or other battlefield means.
The official count included Russia’s new R-30 Bulava missile, NATO designation SS-NX-30 “Mace”. These had recently been fielded as the standard armament for the eight hulls of the new “Borei” class of ballistic missile submarines, with 16 missiles carried on each of the SSBNs. Bulava missiles were also convertible to mobile launchers. In full production by 2010, the
Bulava had been replacing the Topol-M missiles in conjunction with an upgrade to the computers and software used for command, control and launch security. Even with a much smaller payload than the Topol-M, the Bulava was a superior weapon because it was shielded to survive electromagnetic pulse effects. In addition to the EMP protection, it had other countermeasures which made it a much harder missile to destroy or to defend against. Some analysis that Casey had read speculated that, in an emergency, Russia could ramp up production of a number of variants of the Bulava, using fissionable material conserved from the scrapping of decommissioned missiles.
While Russia’s stockpile of 1,224 older aircraft-delivered bombs were in the multiple megaton range, the newer missile-delivered warheads were less powerful due to the packaging of multiple re-entry vehicles into missile busses carrying six to ten re-entry vehicles in the 550 to the 750 kiloton range for the SS18s and SS19s, and 150 kilotons of the Bulava SLBMs.
Casey encountered some speculation that Russia and the United States each held on to a few hundred of the massive 10 to 25 megaton warheads from the cold war. These were apparently installed on newer, more accurate and reliable launch vehicles.
With all of this in mind, Casey calculated that the actual Net Explosive Quantity of only 10,000 or so high readiness weapons was about three billion tons of NEQ yield. When compared to the more commonly discussed official estimate of 4,000 warheads and under one billion tons, the difference was considerable to Casey.
Casey read an analysis of a possible limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan, with only 200 of the combatants’ 400 warheads being detonated. This would put enough dust and debris into the stratosphere to increase the reflective albedo of the earth, reducing solar insolation by over 10% and lowering global temperatures by one degree C. The atmosphere would be cleared of these materials within four to five years, but global food production and weather patterns would be badly disrupted.
When Casey looked into the effects of a much larger war, he found there were many uncertainties. Things could be initially warmer due to energy released in the detonations. Night-time radiation of heat into space could be blocked by the hundreds of millions of tons of dust blanketing the atmosphere. The heat of the oceans could also be trapped by the thick overcast layer.
These initial effects could add a few degrees to the average temperatures in the lower levels of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere, changing weather patterns abruptly.
Casey knew from his meteorological studies that the air masses in the northern hemisphere did not mix all that much with those of the southern hemisphere, due to the opposing coriolis forces of the northern and southern air masses working in opposite directions. So in the event of a nuclear war, the effects would be most pronounced over the continental landmasses of the northern hemisphere. With high humidity and a surplus of condensation nuclei, there would be incredibly intense rainfall accompanied by unusually strong winds. Flooding and wind-damage to buildings would add to the misery of the radiation sickness and blast injuries. Homes and power lines would be damaged by the huge numbers of downed trees, and nobody would be out there trying to clear the debris or restore power.
Once the dust and smoke particles worked their way into the upper atmosphere, above fifteen km, the earth’s reflectivity would greatly increase. Much of the sun’s energy would be reflected away from the earth in the same way ice cover reflects the sun’s energy away from the polar ice caps. With a higher albedo over the entire planet there would be a long period of global cooling, with the continental areas in the northern hemisphere being the most severely affected.
This cooling would cause a nuclear winter. The length would depend on how long that the atmosphere took to clear itself out. Crop failures would certainly occur. And given that there would be no more than six months of food reserves in the railway cars, warehouses, grain silos and commercial shipping of the world, this would lead to starvation on a global scale.
Casey was quite certain that the dust and debris created by a large scale nuclear war would cause extreme climate change. After all, the earth had previously experienced periods of excessive dust caused by mega-volcanism and large meteor impacts again and again over the Earth's long history.
Water droplets could only clean the lowest twelve km or so of the atmosphere. Any dust above about that would be just above the altitude at which a commercial aircraft flies, would be well above the level in the atmosphere where liquid water plays a role. The time required for the atmosphere to settle out was uncertain, because the mechanism for cleaning out the stratosphere was theoretical at best.
While researching the climactic effects of a nuclear war, Casey realized that it did not matter what the cause of the catastrophe actually was. The planned facility should be designed to deal with strong winds, temperature extremes, extreme precipitation, drought, toxic gasses and radioactive fallout no matter what the disaster – man-made or natural.
His reasoning also took him into the social and economic effects of such disasters. As a result, Casey became more and more focused on three essentials: “guns, gold, and grub”. These essentials, along with concepts of security and sustainability, informed his thinking on every aspect of his project.
By the time he had enough money available to him from his investment in TFG, and had completed preliminary work on the design features of the planned facility, Casey had also developed a fairly detailed understanding of what the attributes of the parcel of land should have.
With Qualicum Beach as the selected community, the parcel of land should be within moderate walking distance. The land must be somewhat remote, be serviced by a few good roads, but should not be on a major route. Ideally, the property would be on a paved dead-end road. It should be close to local food production, such as hobby farms and the occasional green-house. Socially, the area should have its own community identity.
The acreage had to be large enough to afford some privacy, such as five to twenty hectares. Other properties in the area should be well constructed, demonstrating that their owners have the economic means to enhance their own disaster preparedness. The property should not be near any high-density housing such as a trailer park or housing development, as those areas would be full of people who would not be well provided for in a crisis, which represented a potential threat.
The land should have a source of water, ideally with a luscious water table or a year-round creek. There should be some supplies of gravel and clay material on the acreage, for construction purposes. Sun exposure for a productive garden and orchard would be absolutely essential. Good forest cover would also be important, and some elevation such as ridges and bluffs associated with the lower slopes of a mountain could be helpful provided that the terrain was not vulnerable to flooding or landslide. Wind exposure was important and a view desirable.
With those and other criteria in mind, and with Tanya’s support for his taking two weeks to go on a land-hunting trip, Casey had set out in April to buy acreage. He left Tanya at home in Winnipeg to take care of their children. This would allow Casey to spend a lot of time crawling over the acreages that he and Tanya had identified through the internet. With his Helly Hansen rain gear, digital camera and a GPS set, he was ready for some adventures stomping around in the bush.
For Tanya, it was just one more of Casey’s many trips. It really didn’t make much difference to her routine. She gave Casey a list of things she wanted him to bring back, just to give him a way to show his appreciation for her efforts at home.
Thanks to Tanya’s earlier resistance, Casey now had the money in hand. By the time Casey took his trip in mid April, the stock had already taken out the $4.00 level. He would have had no trouble selling off 200,000 or so shares to generate the money he would need to buy a suitable property. He didn’t actually have to sell the shares, however, because TFG had now moved from the Venture Exchange onto the main TSX Exchange, so the shares were now marginable securities.
With the price of gold setting
new highs above $3,000 per ounce, Casey wanted to hang on to the TFG shares as long as possible. He was certain that the price of gold would continue to rise. Casey was prepared to use up to $800,000 from his margin account without selling a single share.
The best property turned out to be the first on his list. The eighty acres which Casey had pre-selected was listed for $660,000. The site was just one km from the Island Highway and only four km from Qualicum Beach. It was thirty minutes from Nanaimo, where anything needed was available from big box stores and the city’s industrial base.
What Casey really liked about the site was the terrain. There were some folds and undulations that offered lots of great locations for the house. A driveway could loop around to the back without being too steep, and still reach a site on a knoll from which he could have a commanding view from the planned roof-top deck all the way down to the town and the ocean beyond.
The rising terrain had good wind exposure and access to the forest-covered mountains to the rear. Some of the rocky outcrops featured the arbutus trees so distinctive to southern Vancouver Island. There were streams on both sides of the property. With clay and gravel seams in some of the lower areas near the front, the site met all of Casey’s criteria.
It would certainly lend itself well to the facility Casey planned to build with catastrophe in mind, but even should nothing go wrong with the world the property would make a wonderful place to raise his family.
After giving the other properties a good look just to be sure he was not missing out on anything better, Casey made an all-cash offer of $550,000. The $610,000 he ultimately agreed on with the vendor was the largest transaction Casey Callaghan had ever made, and was the most satisfying. The property was just ideal.
With the property secured by the fifth day of his two-week trip, Casey set about ordering a topographic survey of the property. He obtained the zoning and other regulations from the Oceanside Regional District Office, and collected a variety of topographic property-boundary maps to begin his “Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield”.