The Bridges
 

Well thought out and written Webstral.
I am not an engineer, my degree is in heavy weapons and small arms and tactics laugh.
I was thinking of the damage done to the Bay Bridge in ’89. While the piers did not let go sections fell. I am not sure if this would be the same with either of the spans we are discussing and if only the road sections let go they would not implead river traffic to a significant degree.

I may have let my Hollywood driven thinking drive my thoughts. Too many movies of explosion and floods taking down the bridge affecting my reasoning. I am unsure of single direction forces being similar to the earthquake type safety features now built into structures in the Bay Area.

It does seem that traffic would be stopped for an unknown period of time across both structures. Looking at the pictures of the equipment and material needed to repair the bay bridge, it would likely be way down the priority list. I am trying to find just how far rerouting of rail traffic would have to go if the river cannot be crossed at the straights.

My other thoughts are just what needs to go up or down that part of the bay after the strikes? Prior, it was almost entirely oil products, a very little Navel activity and some cargo for Sacramento I think. After the ford plant shut down in Richmond the need for container transshipment ended in that part of the bay, the alameda and west bay taking everything.

So, depending on how you run your game, rehab the area is going to be by truck for a long time. Just what salvageable material one could find, what condition and how much, well that is again up to the GM.

100% agreed. Given the fact that Benicia and Martinez are going to be hot for a while, I think it might be safe to say that there will be no traffic across the Benicia-Martinez Bridge for a long time. Also, the road network feeding onto the bridge is going to be in very poor condition on either side of the bridge.

Vallejo probably is destroyed by a firestorm. I-80 runs down the eastern side of the city, which is the side nearest Benicia. I’m not an engineer, either, so I can’t predict how the fires will affect the surface of the highway given its separation from the nearest combustible structures. There are some unknowns involved. For instance, if the attack occurs at rush hour, there’s going to be a lot more fuel on the road than if the attack occurs at 2:15am. On the other hand, at night one will have more tractor trailers on the road. Some of these tractor trailers will be tanker trucks hauling highly flammable liquids. A 20-ton tank of burning petrochemicals is not good for the road surface. It’s not hard to see one direction or the other being completely blocked by damage to the road wherever this occurs. If we’re very unlucky, a fire like this occurs side-by-side on either side of the highway. Or an overpass is so damaged that it becomes unusable. Also, I-80 runs through San Pablo and Richmond on the south side of the bridge. This is another case of a relatively intact bridge with heavily impacted roads on either side.

I agree, too, that no one is going across the Richmond Bridge anytime soon. Even if the bridge stays up, Richmond is going to be completely destroyed. Burning tanks of fuel will melt the roadway at the eastern end of the bridge and probably damage the concrete. There is no convenient bypass that won’t also have been severely affected by the destruction of Richmond.

I imagine the primary products moving through San Pablo Bay and Carquinez Strait are food and security services, in that order. Once the relocation effort gets underway, there probably will be a flurry of human traffic upriver to provide labor in the Delta and in the Central Valley. Barge traffic will assume an even greater importance, given its energy efficiency. Thus the amount of radiation one is exposed to in the Strait becomes pretty important.

I notice that for a 500kt explosion, the 500 rem ring reaches near to the shore for all three explosions. I don’t know how this translates into rads on the ground in January 1998. It would be good to know more about how much, if any, radiation is going to affect someone in the shipping lane passing through the eastern end of the Strait. I imagine the Navy is going to be quite keen to measure that right away.

Radiation
 

I went to so many Schools as a Junior Officer. One was a three week CBR class
Good class and we used a lot of real materials including radioactive materials, that took the starch out of you when you looked at the dose meter at the end.
Thank you for the hazard suits.
We also used real mustard gas but a liquid form which we were required to apply to each wrist. We then used a detox agent to one side…. And got one hell of a nasty blister on the other.
Upshot of this stroll down memory lane is; Moving water! Staying away from the hard ( or muddy and ash shore line) I expect traffic could move from San Francisco to Sacrament and points between with relative safety as soon as they came up with a reason to do so.
A fire Boat and sea water spray as a wash down on both ends of trip ( or even as a scheduled safety procedure) would most likely be an idea some timid person ( like me) would like.

Saw this thread and the discussion of the 1.5 Megaton strike against Richmond versus the .5MT strikes elsewhere - and I dont think we are looking at a different type of weapon there versus the other strikes in the San Francisco area - what I think you are looking at is three 0.5MT strikes on Richmond adding up to a total of 1.5MT - thus they may all have been from the same strike using the same sub and the same type of weapons

If you look at Urban Guerrilla you can see how the strikes in Howling Wilderness dont necessarily mean a single weapon - a combination of weapons adds up to the total yield that HW states

example

HW says Kennedy Spaceflight Center - 1 Megaton ground burst, Eglin is hit by 1 Megaton

Urban Guerrilla - released earlier - states it as follows -

Cape Kennedy is hit by 10 .1MT warheads from a single MIRV that add up to 1 Megaton

Eglin is hit by 10 .1MT warheads airbursts that take out specific targets in the base

Thus the Richmond strike was most likely not a 1.5 Megaton airburst but instead was three 0.5MT airbursts