From: dw@unislc.uucp (Dan Wright)
Subject: Last (was third) to be bombed
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Organization: Unisys UNIX Salt Lake City
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 23:51:40 GMT

Kurt Bose of Biscayzee (kbos@carina.unm.edu) wrote:
:OK, followup question.  Now that most everyone has established that their town,
:city, state, hole in the ground, etc. is high on the list, is there anyplace in
:the US that prides itself on being relatively safe from nuclear devastation?
: 
:I have read that Tierra del Fuego was ranked last among all strategic targets
:for nuclear devastation worldwide, but where in America has this honor?  
:Anywhere???

Alamo, Nevada.   One motel (all vacancy), one church (tumbleweeds stacked
on the lee side), three houses (two of them boarded up), and one combined
gas-station/restaurant/bar/grocery-store/post-office.  I was there for 10
days on, 4 days off, 10 days on, 4 days off during the summer of '80,
putting in the land surveying control points for the proposed MX missile.
Installation of these second-order brass monuments was about the only thing
the US Government contracted to have done in eastern Nevada/western Utah
with regards to the MX.

We were the only customers the motel had seen all summer, and we were
greeted warmly (no doubt they considered us the first trickle of a flood of
construction workers and $MONEY about to pour in if the MX project went
through).  They let us have the run of the motel; moving into any room we
fancied, using the laundry and kitchen in the master apartment, etc.
Since the gnarled old cuss across the street at the restaurant/bar/grocery
store/gas-station/post-office  knew we were going to eat at his place each
morning and evening, and drink in his bar during "Miller time", he would
sit down with us about every five days and ask what choices we were likely
to make from his menu so he could drive into Vegas and purchase the
prescribed meat, veggies, bread, beer, etc.

Several miles north-east of Alamo, a narrow shimmering road stretches
straight as a ruler across a bleak valley surrounded by nondescript grey
mountains.  There are no other cars, much less any highway patrol.  The
fastest I have ever driven any vehicle in my life is 117 miles per hour.
This was the company truck, a beefy 4 by 4 Suburban fully loaded with a
snoozing survey crew and racks of expensive equipment.  The knobby off-road
tires were wailing loudly.  When, as an afterthought, I slowed down to 60,
it felt like 30 and it was intolerable.

I see why they considered this valley for the MX missile.  It's one of
the most desolate places in the continental states.  The valley contains
nothing except wicked cactus.  There are no fences.  We would steer right
off the blacktop and start blazing across the desert floor, kicking up a
grand tail of dust, shearing off cactus, and bouncing and cussing our way
between arbitrary points on a map which only crazed survey bastards like
ourselves should have any interest in.

The Soviets must be able to tell from their satellite snapshots that the MX
was never installed there.  That valley as well as several other equally
bleak and desolate valleys in Nevada must be the places least likely to get
nuked, except if you factor in Murphy's Law, which would suggest that the
nukes aimed at California could well screw up and fall short.

  -- Dan Wright
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,soc.culture.jewish