Hal Kempfer, a noted international security expert, is getting a roomful of California public health officials and emergency responders to think about the unthinkable – a nuclear bomb exploding at the port of Long Beach, about four miles away. His message – coming on the same day North Korea threatened to reduce the mainland United States to “ashes and darkness” and then launched a ballistic
missile over Japan – is unvarnished and uncompromising: get ready, because we all need to prepare for what comes after. “A lot of people will be killed,” he said, “but a large percentage of the population will survive. They will be at risk and they will need help.” Most likely, Kempfer tells his audience, if the device is fired from North Korea or smuggled in by North Korean agents, it wouldn’t be the sort of high-yield weapon that planners worried about during the cold war, READ MORE
