Would Austin Survive Nuclear Bomb Lobbed By North Korea? Web Tool Lets You Know

AUSTIN, TX — Talk this week of mutual destruction between the U.S. and North Korea amid heightened tensions has raised our collective anxiety. Unable to resist responding to the taunts of Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump has vowed to unleash the power of "fire and fury" against the Asian country — which, in turn, prompted a threat against the U.S. territory of Guam.

It's enough to make one lie awake at night, contemplating the tragic possibilities if either leader makes good on his threat. Staring at the ceiling in that midnight of the soul, one wonders in silent terror what sort of destruction would visit one's own city while pondering if any steps could possibly be taken to save oneself.

With NUKEMAP, you can aid your obsessive imagination with some nifty (for lack of a better term) interactive maps created by Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology who studies the history of nuclear weapons. The maps offer visual aids to the fleeting, yet horrific, images already lurking in the dark recesses of one's imagination, yielding tangible illustrations to complement the ephemeral imagery that haunts one's dreams on nights when actual sleep is actually achieved.

In other words, NUKEMAP offers fun for the whole family! One can select not only a targeted city, but the type of weapon to be virtually launched. One sees the impact of an attack in tailored form within seconds, allowing the user to input a specific city to be targeted in a faux attack and choosing from a menu of various bombs for the simulated detonation.

Helpfully, there's even instant casualty figures that appear on the screen after virtual detonation. Overlapping rings appear form ground zero, illustrating the radius of the ensuing fireball, reach of resulting thermal radiation and the outermost circle showing buildings that would survive the blast.

We selected Austin for our own simulation, selecting for our macabre exercise the weapon tested by North Korea in 2013 (that most recent available option for the purposes of the fake bombing). Were this bomb to be dropped in Austin, some 31,290 would instantly die with another 69,000 sustaining varying levels of injury.

"Modeling casualties from a nuclear attack is difficult," a disclaimer on the site reads. "These numbers should be seen as evocative, not definitive. Fallout effects are ignored."

Either way, given the downtown-centered point of impact, this means the estimated 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats calling the underbelly of the Congress Avenue bridge home also would be toast. Unless, of course, the bomb hit when they had already ventured out en masse for their nocturnal feeding. Still, the bomb would ensure its arrival would mark the last we'd see of the winged mammals whose nightly flight for food has yielded a major tourist draw as people line the length of the bridge to get a glimpse of them flying in unison.

The University of Texas at Austin would stay intact, situated just outside the outermost ring of death in the simulated NUKEMAP attack. By the looks of it, half of the Zach Theater would be damaged with the rest remaining untouched by the blast. Austin Convention Center, we're sorry: There would be nothing left.

In addition to selecting a city for the war games, users can pick from an array of weaponry of mass destruction — from the least-damaging, American-made "Davy Crockett" to the Russian-made "Tsar Bomba" crafted for inconceivable destruction.

The NUKEMAP site has proved popular, well before the current tensions with North Korea. In estimating casualties for mock detonations, a helpful message appears alerting it may take a while to estimate deaths, depending on how many people are using the site simultaneously.

In his nuclearsecrecy.com blog, its creator writes that he often sees a spike in use during milestone bomb-dropping events, especially commemoration of the U.S. drops of Fat Man and Little Boy dropped on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, respectively, during World War II. Just this week, the Japanese solemnly marked the immense destruction those all-too-real bomb had on those two cities, with the bombing in Hiroshima occurring Aug. 6 and the one in Nagasaki on Aug. 9 in the year 1945 that ushered in the end of the big war.

So where could one hide to avoid the ancillary impacts of a nuclear bomb? Lifehacker.com provides some answers on that front. But first, tips on knowing that you're still alive and not living in some other post-dystopian universe after a bomb drops.

"You’ll know a nuclear bomb went off near you if there’s a sudden flash of bright, white light, which may or may not give you flash blindness if you’re within 50 miles or so of ground zero," Lifehacker offered. "If that bright, white blindness eventually clears up, and you don’t suddenly feel at peace, you’re alive. Other signs of a nuclear blast include near instant first-degree to third-degree burns if you’re within 10 miles or so, and of course, the trademark mushroom cloud looming over the skyline."

Once you've confirmed your clinging existence, researcher Michael Dillon, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, suggests you find shelter immediately in order to escape nuclear fallout, Lifehacker.com reported. In his report for the journalProceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Dillon recommends hiding within the most dense building material possible, the thicker the better.

Think sturdy brick or concrete structures lacking windows, for example. Or an underground cellar or sub-basement would be nice. Hiding in such a place, Lifehacker notes, will expose you to just 1/200 of the fallout radiation you’d be exposed to outside.

Naturally, an actual bomb shelter would be the ideal spot to scurry to, but most people aren't in near proximity to these. This FEMA graphic provides a visual aid in showing good places to go post-bomb-dropping.

Of course, we hope none of these ghoulish scenarios ever come to pass in real life. It is our fervent wish both leaders stop upping the rhetorical ante that could trigger an actual response. Perhaps naively or idealistically, we wish the tactics of diplomacy somehow materialize to avert any doom.

Until then, we laugh while employing dark, gallows humor. For it's better to laugh than to cry.

>>> Photo by South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images/Getty Images News