[Buzz123]

They are called "Down-winders" and Southern Utah got the brunt of it. If you Google "Down-winder" you get all kinds of information. I guess the government finally admitted it and settled a lot of claims made by the people affected, or their survivors. In 1978-79 my wife did a series of news reports on the Down-winders, and she interviewed quite a few people in St. George. It was sad. She also worked for the prime contractor at the Test Site, and actually witnessed at least one below ground test. She spent an uncomfortable amount of time out there, and it has always worried me a little, but we've know dozens of Test Site workers and they are OK.

Jim Rogers who owns Ch-3 witnessed at least one above ground test when he was a student at Las Vegas High. From what he said he was apparently pretty close to it. His dad was an executive out there, and the Atomic Museum on Flamingo is named for him.

I worked with a lady who lost her teen-aged son to cancer caused by the fallout in Pioche, NV, so part of Nevada got it too. I've taken a tour of the Test Site, and it's hard to imagine that it is completely safe, but we stood on the edge of the Sedan Crater that is supposed to be at normal radiation levels. We saw a herd of Pronghorn Antelopes running among the hundreds of nuclear test craters, as there is all kinds of wildlife out there. I find it hard to believe that some of that fallout didn't settle here in town, but I have never heard of any above normal stats for cancer here, or any radiation findings above normal for the desert.

Google

Atomic testing burned its mark - Las Vegas Sun

Google

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

Very interesting. Nothing over Las Vegas. I don't know if I really understand the maps very well. But one of them has a lot of activity around the Pittsburgh area. Not sure if I really understand how or why though.

The explosion drove the junk mostly high in the atmosphere. The jet stream and other currents moved it east. After the appointed time it began to fall out...

You got it.

[jfkIII]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

Very interesting. Nothing over Las Vegas. I don't know if I really understand the maps very well. But one of them has a lot of activity around the Pittsburgh area. Not sure if I really understand how or why though.

Not just Pittsburgh...but the whole state of PA! Which by the way....has a huge coal fire burning in the ground underneath it.

[lisdol]

Originally Posted by jfkIII

Not just Pittsburgh...but the whole state of PA! Which by the way....has a huge coal fire burning in the ground underneath it.

West Virginia looked hard-hit as well.

There is a name for the glass that formed from the sand during testing isn't there? We thought to take a tour of the Trinity site in NM but never got around to it, and I remember reading something about the glass.

[Buzz123]

Don't get hung up on the "glass". That was at ground zero for the Trinity test at White Sands, NM. It has mostly been buried. Anyway, they didn't blow glass all over the entire western states. It just formed from the heat at ground zero. I haven't heard of it happening at the Nevada Test Site, but that's not to say it didn't. You can see it at the Trinity Site, or at least you could at one time, but I don't think you would at NTS. Sand is an important component of glass, and it takes a lot of heat to make it. Glass at White Sands was an example of how hot it would get in a nuke explosion. If you want to know everything there is to know about nuke testing, visit the Atomic Testing Museum on Flamingo. The Atomic Testing Museum and the NTSHF - Las Vegas, NV

[jfkIII]

Originally Posted by Buzz123

We saw a herd of Pronghorn Antelopes running among the hundreds of nuclear test craters, as there is all kinds of wildlife out there.

Did any of them have 2 heads?...or were conjoined, back-to-back?...or their antlers spell out the words, Las Vegas, in script?

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by jfkIII

Not just Pittsburgh...but the whole state of PA! Which by the way....has a huge coal fire burning in the ground underneath it.

Pennsylvania doesn't have a huge coal fire burning under the whole state JFK. Those fires occur in scattered places in all coal mining states. In West Virginia we would see smoke coming out of the ground right next to the highway in a few places. Subsidence is really the problem. I've driven down roads that had warning signs telling you that mining was six feet beneath your car, and the road could collapse at any time.

subsidence - Google Search

[jfkIII]

Originally Posted by Buzz123

Pennsylvania doesn't have a huge coal fire burning under the whole state JFK. Those fires occur in scattered places in all coal mining states. In West Virginia we would see smoke coming out of the ground right next to the highway in a few places. Subsidence is really the problem. I've driven down roads that had warning signs telling you that mining was six feet beneath your car, and the road could collapse at any time.

subsidence - Google Search

Sorry, Buzz...I did take liberty there and apologize for exaggerating. When I lived in Scranton PA (yuck!) for 3 years...I heard about them all the time. Anyway...here's a good example of one:

Centralia PA Mine Fire - Coal Burning underground, Homes destroyed

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by humboldtrat

That was 60 years ago and the wind drifted towards St. George Utah. Don't worry - thousands of people live in Hiroshima today and it got a direct hit!

Our last atmospheric test was 1962...49 years ago. But it then it went underground for hundreds (nearly 1,000) of tests. There weren't many leaks (that we know of), but there was at least one major accident where people died as a result of radiation fallout on the range itself.

The Baneberry test was one of the worst nuclear accidents in history:

Baneberry's accidental radioactive plume rises from a shock fissure. It was carried three different directions by the windArea 8 hosted the "Baneberry" shot of Operation Emery on December 18, 1970. The Baneberry 10 kiloton test detonated 900 ft (270 m) below the surface but its energy cracked the soil in unexpected ways, causing a fissure near ground zero and the failure of the shaft and cap.[11] A plume of fire and dust was released three and a half minutes after ignition,[12] raining fallout on workers in different locations within NTS. The radioactive plume released 6.7 megacuries (250 PBq) of radioactive material, including 80 kCi (3.0 PBq) of iodine-131.[7][13] After dropping a portion of its load locally, the hot cloud's lighter particles were carried to three altitudes and conveyed by winter storms and the jet stream to be deposited heavily as radionuclide-laden snow in Lassen and Sierra counties in northeast California, and to lesser degrees in southern Idaho, northern Nevada and some eastern sections of Oregon and Washington states.[14] The three diverging jet stream layers conducted radionuclides across the US to Canada, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

Two US Federal court cases resulted from the Baneberry event. Two NTS workers who were exposed to high levels of radiation from Baneberry died in 1974, both from acute myeloid leukemia. The district court found that although the Government had acted negligently, the radiation from the Baneberry test did not cause the leukemia cases. The district decision was upheld on appeal in 1996.[15][16]

In March 2009, TIME magazine identified the Baneberry Test as one of the world's worst nuclear disasters. Yucca Flat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

China continued above ground testing until 1980.

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by jfkIII

Sorry, Buzz...I did take liberty there and apologize for exaggerating. When I lived in Scranton PA (yuck!) for 3 years...I heard about them all the time. Anyway...here's a good example of one:

Centralia PA Mine Fire - Coal Burning underground, Homes destroyed

Yeah, that's a famous one. Here are others around the world. Google