What would happen if there was a nuclear bomb dropped in the Rio Grande Valley?

With Donald Trump’s diplomatic approach to international relations as if it’s some kind of game of Battleship, he probably forgets that the pieces are real and there’s actual warships involved capable of destroying entire nations with a push of a button.  With his decision to attack Syria last week without the approval of Congress and straining relations with Russia further, it’s difficult to not think of what would happen if there was a nuclear attack on the United States.   Just recently N. Korea has threatened the United States with a strike on South Korea, while they have mentioned this for years without anything  happening, you can’t ever remove the possibility now that Trump is in charge.  Donald Trump had met with China’s president and told him “either you guys deal with N. Korea or we will!”.  So exactly what would happen if we went to war because the President wants to see who can piss further?

To first understand what may happen, we have to understand how we could get bombed in the first place.  A nuclear missile can be launched from an underground bunker,  a portable missile carrier , dropped from the sky from a bomber, or launched underwater from a submarine.  From all the methods that I mentioned, it would be more than likely that missiles would be launched from a Submarine since it can move silently underneath water and get very close to the american coast, once it’s within range, a nuclear carrying submarine can launch anywhere from 12 – 16 missiles at once carrying one or more nuclear warheads.  Imagine laying down on the beach at South Padre and what you think is a Space X test rocket is actually just you witnessing death before your eyes?

Nuclear bombs come in all shapes and sizes and most importantly measured in kilotons (describing the energy output, and hence the destructive power). A 1 kiloton bomb is approximately equivalent to 1000 tons of TNT.   The atomic bombs used in Japan during World War 2 were between 15-20 KT (kilotons) and decimated Nagasaki and Hiroshima entirely.  During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union were going at it stockpiling nuclear weapons and testing each month a bigger and more explosive bomb.  Things were getting so out of hand that the destructive power of these weapons stopped getting measured in kilotons and measured in megatons.  The Soviet Union tested the biggest nuclear bomb in history with an impressive 50 megaton nuclear bomb called Tsar Bomba (The father of all bombs) and leveled everything within a 50 mile radius, the crater left can be seen in Google Earth.  While these super huge bombs are not developed anymore, both countries (US, Russia) still hold a large number of nuclear weapons.  If a nuclear weapon did explode in the middle of Brownsville, let’s say a 5 megaton bomb, the consequences would be devastating.  Immediately upon detonation, everything within 2 mile radius would be instantly disintegrated by a huge fireball.  At a 15 mile radius the thermal radiation would be hot enough to start fires and cause third degree burns.  Since winds usually go westward because of the Gulf of Mexico, at a 100 mile distance, people in the cities of McAllen and Reynosa would be dead within a few hours or a day due to the intense radiation.  People all the way as far as Monterrey would get enough radiation to cause acute radiation sickness because of the radiation plume reaching all the way, half the people would be dead within a month. 

Donald Trump thinks running the United States is a game and that he can just go to another country and dictate his terms and if they don’t like it, they can go to hell, well it doesn’t work that way.   It’s hard to predict what may happen or which country will strike first, but it’s safe to say that once that first missile is launched, the rest of the world can kiss their ass goodbye.  Kiss your little ones each night for you never know if today will be the last day.