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03/05/01 Alumni Sandstorm on Ground Zero
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>>From: Larry Mattingly (60)

Re: Ground Zero

A trip to "Ground Zero". The "Nevada Test Site" where atomic bombs
were tested.

NOTE. A number of you had asked me to write about my tour of the NTS.
I suspect that like myself they feel a connection between being so
close to Hanford and the place where the results of the hard work of
our families and other Richland residents came together. I had
intended to make this a "brief narrative" but the NTS was so vast and
we saw so much, that it was impossible to be brief and really describe
what is there.

As I wrote earlier, I had a planned combination business trip to So CA
and parts of the SW. Because of the number of items I had to take
with me I decided to drive the 3800 mile trip. 3 Weeks ago Monday
when I was just leaving the office to enter I-5 South, we discovered a
virus in my laptop. So I loaded some e-mail software into another
older laptop and away I went. However when I stopped several hours
later to check my mail for some expected information, I found the hard
drive was toast. Hence the post to you from Ken my partner that I was
out of contact and could not get this out until the 5th. I never
imagined that 3 weeks of computer withdrawal could be so ugly.....

So I arrived at the DOE office in Las Vegas at 6:30 AM as required. 48
of us had already submitted the security info form 3 weeks previous.
The briefing officer warned us to stay with the group, no wandering,
no cameras, no camcorders, badges must be on the front of the torso,
above the waist, in plain site at all times. The bus driver was a
young girl who was very good at her job. The tour guide was a retired
fellow who had been in the test program for over 800 tests. He was a
nice guy; very proud of the part he had played in our nations defense.
He asked who this motley looking bunch was. He had a wry smile when
hearing we were just a "bunch of pyros". An hour later he was
surprised to learn that not only had two of us worked in nuclear R and
D for 8 and 10 years, but that the group included 2 with an MD, 2 with
DDS, 5 or 6 with a Ph.D., 5-6 with MS and the rest except for myself and
2 others had college degrees. He suddenly got very coy in answering
the very pointed questions.

The bus ride through the barren land with security check-points
reminded me of my years at Hanford. Only the brush was different. Our
first stop was at "news knob". The old weather-beaten wooden benches
on the hill are still there. This was where all non-test personnel
watched. Other then Mercury, that was as far as my Hanford clearance
got me when I went down to watch an actual test in '61. I remember
watching Walter "Cronic" in front of the TV cameras. Personal
note... that bomb exploding was the most awesome thing I have
witnessed in my entire life. TV did not even begin to do it justice.
The most frequently heard comment was "My God!". Just before H hour
the briefing officer had instructed us on the use of the goggles. They
were 4 levels darker then welder's goggles. He cautioned that you
could not shut your eyes fast enough to avoid damage. He said that we
might feel some heat (we did), as the temperature of the fireball at
the instant of detonation was several million degrees. Even at the 6
or 7 miles the noise was staggering.

Much of the area we drove through was rugged, remote, lonely, snow
covered and wind-blown with an icy chill. The high temp was about 35F. 
there are mountain ranges on both sides of the NTS. These are
mostly pointed rock and give the appearance of being not fit for man
or beast. The roads (except for the main entry highway) are minimum,
2 lane, and not all that well maintained. I couldn't help thinking it
was great for the purpose, who else would want it. With the exception
of a few new, and some well-maintained buildings, nearly everything we
saw was a victim of the harsh weather. Blazing heat in the summer and
freezing cold in the winter along with spring and fall rains have
taken their toll.

We went through the "low to medium level" waste burial pits. The
manager of that program said there was "no concern for ground water as
it is 700 feet down". That was where the questions started getting
very pointed and the answers very coy. From there we went to Mercury
site and viewed what was left from over the years. At the height of
the program there were several thousand workers there. Another 5 or 6
miles brought us to a cratered land. They were about 300 feet apart
and there were hundreds. The craters were called subsidence craters
because the ground had later subsided and fallen into the hole blasted
by the bomb underground. The bombs tested were different types, sizes,
shapes and descriptions, with many different purposes. Some were
shallow and some were deep.

One was the "Sudan" crater. This mega-million cubic yard hole blasted
in the ground was part of the "Plowshare" or "peaceful uses" program.
The ultimate plan was that they might dig another Panama Canal with a
"nuclear ditching blast". Riiiiiiight. Well they gave that up pretty
fast. Anyway, we got to walk around in selected areas at Sudan. The
crater is nearly 3000 thousand feet wide and about 1/2 as deep. You
could see where they had lowered equipment on cables and drilled into
the blast zone. Some personal notes here if I may... I remember reading
that the Russians did try it with multiple bombs and now there are
thousands of square miles that no man will walk on again. Ditching
blasts with conventional explosives are not uncommon but require great
skill. The charges have to be set off at just the right depth;
distance and timing to properly move the material being excavated. I
have worked as a blaster loading and wiring charges on two ditching
blasts designed by a master in the business. I cannot even imagine the
complexity of using nuclear charges on such a large scale.

Our guide told us that they had quickly stopped drilling straight down
to the blast zone after one subsided under the crew sending the
drillers scrambling for their lives. From then on they drilled from
the edge of the probable crater at an angle to the blast zone. Blast
zone sampling was necessary to complete test information. There was no
way to predict when the surface would actually subside. With the
exception of only one or two, they all did. We were on the ground at
several sites and even down in a couple of select craters. I noted
that the test drill holes had a small fence around them with radiation
zone signs. We went right up to the thick steel well casing that was
used to line the hole and guide the lowering of the device. They
always referred to the bombs as a "device". The casings were always
"stemmed" or back-filled with specially crushed rock designed to
interlock when compacted, and topped by a long concrete plug.

There was a lot of narrative describing the extensive security and
accounting for personnel surrounding a test. We saw two sites that had
been drilled and cased but not loaded. They still have the rigging
and enclosure over the hole and are under light security watch. At
the pleasure of the President, testing can resume at very short
notice. Our guide, and an undisclosed number of other people are on
"few days notice" should testing begin again. Some expect that it
will on a limited basis for very special purposes. The holes are 3 to
8 feet in diameter. They run from a few hundred to several thousand
feet deep. Our guide told me he had been down in a 3-foot diameter
hole 4000 feet deep. Personal note: Think about the claustrophobic
possibilities of that situation. There is lots of skid-mounted gear at
these sites. Our guide said that all equipment and gear on the surface
is removed from the sight for the shot. The only items remaining are a
fair number of electrical boxes on short posts. These are for the
firing and instrumentation circuits. We saw many of these boxes
standing like sentinels over the over the snow covered craters. We did
see a picture of a packaged device ready to be lowered into a shot
hole. The "package" appeared about 4-feet in diameter and about 30
feet long. It looked like a big white cylinder with wires coming out
the top. The actual device was described as only a small part of the
overall package. The rest was firing apparatus, instrumentation, and
protective wrapping to prevent damage during the lowering process.
Bundles of cables were laid out on the ground in huge coils carefully
arranged to feed smoothly during the lowering process. We were not
told which shot it was or any details of the package in the picture.
We asked if there were ever any "duds". The guide admitted two. Both
he felt were the result of damage to mechanism during lowering rather
then a failure of the device to function. What happened we asked?  One
was recovered and "fixed". Drilling a parallel shaft and lowering
another device alongside solved the other one. Instrumentation showed
that both devices functioned during firing. No further details were
given.

We were taken into a high security area to the Test Control and
Communications Center. This oval shaped room was like something out
of the movies. It had a huge wall of large TV screens and desks full
of phones and computer screens were on several levels. We ate the
lunches we brought with us while watching several short videos on the
site and testing. Security people were stationed at each door in the
hall as we walked in and out to and from the bus. Late in the day when
we stopped at the large modern lunch facility for a snack, we asked
the guide why we didn't eat lunch there. His answer was that they like
to show us as much as possible, and the video equipment at Com Central
is second to none.

As we headed for the above ground test sites we passed a very securely
fenced area with many buildings and shaft hoisting gear sticking up in
the air. The main shaft is almost 1000 feet deep and the horizontal
tunnel at the bottom is over a mile long with many "test chambers".
This is a non-nuclear test facility. We took it from comments that at
least some of the testing was on triggering devices. No details were
given. At last we arrived at the area I was most interested in.
Surface and air tests. Actually only one or two devices were exploded
on or near the ground. Some were suspended from large balloons on a
tether, while others were on tall steel towers. They kept them up 500
feet or more to avoid a lot of soil and organic material from being
sucked up by the blast. This kept the cloud a lot cleaner from
radioactive particles. He did admit that there was some radioactivity
in the cloud from some tests. Details were not open to discussion. I
was surprised at the number of "airdrops" from planes. While the
devices were not fully armed until just before dropping, there were
still a lot of devices in planes over a good share of the SW. Some
came out of Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. Details were few and sketchy.

I was personally disappointed at not being able to walk on an actual
"Ground Zero". It was not a terrible blow but I had rather hoped I
could. We were right there maybe 20 feet from it on the bus and could
see the rusty pieces of steel sticking out of the concrete. That was
the excuse for not letting us walk around. Too may hazards sticking
up, and I have to admit there were a lot of pieces of steel sticking
up. Oh Well.... The guide did say that while there may be isolated
pockets of radiation it was pretty well gone now. At another surface
site I did see a couple of techies walking and they had booties over
their shoes. So I would assume there is still some smearable and
particulate contamination present. The bus went right out across the
ground and drove around several surface sites. It was sand and hard-
packed dirt with some snow. As I said, the driver was very good. The
bus was a big, heavy, European-style tour bus. We could see the bases
of the towers and the anchors for the guy wires. There was some
twisted metal lying around. It was obvious that the area had been
severely scorched at one time. However the creosote and sage were
growing again. And of course the stumps of the electrical boxes were
present.

We drove right into the area where they had set up the "test city".
During the tests there were all types of houses, stores with real
items in them. Substation and power lines with real telephones. Even
the groceries on the shelves and food in the refer were real. The
houses had several types of furniture in them and there were many
mannequins. We confirmed that some of the dummies were in bed and yes,
some wag had on one test, placed a male and a female dummy
"inflagrante'". The story has it that the test managers failed to see
the humor in it.

One wood frame house, best described as a "standard split-level" was
still standing in fair shape after all these years. The chimney was
cracked in a couple of places. Several concrete structures were still
standing. These were various distances from the tower and the closer
they were, the more damage. I saw a few broken stumps of telephone
poles or trees. As we got closer to the base of the shot tower you
could see the asphalt of the road changing to a melted mess and
ultimately to where it had just been burned away. This now desolate
area had all of the appearance of "nuclear aftermath". That evening
when we got back into the DOE center they opened the building so we
could use the rest rooms and go through the visitors room where many of
us bought some kind of memento of the trip. Proceeds go to the NTS
museum, a privately funded venture. I bought a tee shirt with a photo
of a shot on it. They also gave us a couple of nice books on the
program and the history of the site. I have a list of every test
conducted by the US. Again, details are sketchy, but I think the
total was 970...

This was an impressive trip for me. The vast areas, the incredible
number of craters, the ruins remaining from the tests, and the
bleakness of it all was in tune with the silent, icy wind. In contrast
to this was the upbeat attitude of all we spoke with. They are
confident in their abilities, and sincerely believe in the purpose of
their efforts. They have a fierce and sincere sense of patriotism.
Aside from my work at Hanford, just being from the "atomic city"
probably gave me a different understanding of the program then the
average visitor. The air raid sirens and "duck and cover" lessons of
my youth, the TV coverage of the bomb, my viewing of one of those
awesome events, the implications of the cold war have at times hung
like the sword of Damocles' over my emotions. Seeing it all brought
a sense of closure to many aspects of my psyche. This trip left me
with lasting images that will be forever in my personal treasure chest
of memories.

"Happiness is the sky in bloom" 
-J Larry Mattingly (60) ~ Tacoma, WA
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