Nuclear Vulnerability?

     The U.S. and it’s allies have been fighting “the war on terror” for over a decade and up until this point we’ve been lucky. The attacks on 9/11/01 were potent and over 3000 people lost their lives, but future attacks could make this seem small in comparison. Imagine, there could be an attack on this country that would create a swath of death 50-100 miles wide stretching from Washington state dipping down gently into Louisiana and Mississippi and then rising into the northeast, maybe over New York City or Boston, it’s really up to the wind. Since 1957 the United States has been producing and increasingly relying on nuclear power. As of 2010 there are about 120 nuclear power plants in the United States. Of these, 16 have been decommissioned and are sitting idle with pools of spent nuclear fuel that have no final place for storage. Northwest’s Nuclear Columbia Generating station is active and located in Washington state on the banks of the Columbia river. It’s spent fuel is stored in steel casks wrapped in concrete needing no power or maintenance as they are air cooled, pictured below

But let’s say the terrorists from 9/11 changed tactics and went for economic calamity instead of immediate body count? A plane diverted from New york and striking this facility would not only destroy these casks, but engulf them in a fire of jet fuel and nuclear waste! The resulting nuclear plume would be sent into the jet stream and carried across the country in a cataclysmic event that would have nuclear fallout reach the lumber intense industry of the northwest to the fishing hubs of the gulf and the farmlands of middle America, finally hitting the dense population centers of the northeast causing mass confusion and disruption to the nation’s economy on a scale that would rival anything we've seen yet. This is a worst case scenario, but definitely one that's plausible!