r/preppers • u/[deleted] • Jan 16 '26

AMA (Requires Moderator Approval) AMA with Dr. David Teter (former nuclear war planner/etc.)

Hi Everybody, thanks for the great questions and civility. Much appreciated. Enjoyed doing this. Cheers.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

Sure, but still without power, food, electricity, drugs, etc. etc. etc.

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u/IncredibleVelocity4 Jan 17 '26

Depending on the scale of the exchange, I think you would see Astoria hit to knock down the Megler bridge and block the channel in the Columbia, as well as cut off Hwy 101.

Same for Longview, WA.

You would also have Bonneville/The Dalles/and McNary Dam be targets.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

A lot of those bridges and locks & dams on the Columbia would be probably taken out by a series cascading dam failures starting up in Canada and continuing all the way down.

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u/IncredibleVelocity4 Jan 17 '26

Excellent point. So the dams on the upper river would be hit and they would let the lower river take care of itself?

Incidentally, what are the dynamics of hitting a dam? Do they require anything other than a ground burst on target?

Thanks for doing this AMA. I studied targeting as an Undergrad but never had an opportunity to practice.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

It depends on the specific location and type of dam. Some dams are essentially invulnerable while others might even fail on a "sunny day".

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u/IncredibleVelocity4 Jan 17 '26

Ok, now you have my brain moving. Iā€™m looking for a new career and Emergency Management has always been on the table.

This conversation has me thinking about cascading disasters in the mode of Tohoku earthquake -> tsunami -> Fukushima, or in this case Nuclear exchange -> dam failure -> flooding of Hanford. Systemic disaster risk rather than more localized (even if local is on a nuclear scale).

Are cascading mega disasters part of your area of study, or are you focused more on the localized engineering? Can you point me towards any good sources on systemic risk (nuclear or otherwise), because I think I just populated my reading list for a while!

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u/HazMatsMan Radiological/Nuclear SME Jan 17 '26

I don't really have anything for you on "risk assessment", I'm more on the "consequence" side. But, if you're interested in nuclear power plants, maybe take a look at the State of the Art Reactor Consequence Analyses (SOARCA) Project reports. https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/research/soar

The project and reports are broken up into numerous parts that deal with risk assessment and others that deal with the consequences of some scenarios.

If you're planning to get into EM and want to mix nuclear into it, there are training courses that will be of interest to you at these sites:
https://training.fema.gov/is/

https://cdp.dhs.gov/repp

https://www.firstrespondertraining.gov/frts/

https://preptoolkit.fema.gov/web/fema-repp-academy

There's additional information in these documents and at these sites:

Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) Program Manual

Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex to the Response and Recovery Federal Interagency Operational Plan

Livermore Radiological and Nuclear Response Planning Training

Livermore Radiological and Nuclear Response Planning Publications

FEMA's Technological Hazards Resource and Reference Library

Tools Sponsored by the Office of Emerging Threats

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

I suggest that you ask u/HazMatsMan (one of the mods). I think that he could answer this better than me. FYI, I don't do this stuff anymore. I work in environmental remediation and redevelopment of tainted properties.