If you've been following the news lately (*shudder*), you've maybe noticed that relations with Russia aren't great right now. That made me wonder how our part of America would endure a worst case scenario. I have compiled a pretty somber list of the targets in the tri-states that FEMA used to believe would be in jeopardy if Russia were ever dare to attack us. "Used to" is the key phrase here.

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Before I begin, let's take a collective deep breath. There's both good news and bad news. The good news (if you can call it that) is that the consensus is that most experts believe only 6 US cities would likely be targeted in a major attack. The bad news is one of them is Chicago. Business Insider covered this a couple years ago.

I hate fearmongering and I don't intend this to be that. This is just a curious wondering about what targets the government thought would be hit in a hypothetical Russian/American war back during the Cold War era. I have stayed away from conspiracy theory sites and will only share the official government list. Let's begin with a 1990 map created by FEMA that shows potential Missouri targets.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This was created at the height of the Cold War. No one expects this sort of horrific attack present day.

The map FEMA created in 1990 for Illinois shows St. Louis and Chicago as the main vulnerable areas.

Map published by FEMA showing potential US nuclear targets in 2,000 and 500 warhead scenarios.
by u/quartz_koala in oddlyterrifying

To summarize, in an all-out conflict, we expected that power plants and transportation hubs would be hit along with the very obvious missile squadron locations in Missouri. Military bases like Whiteman were a given, too.

That was over 30 years ago. What does the government prepare for today? Ready.gov seems more concerned with a small nuclear device being detonated in a major US city than a catastrophic nation vs nation attack. It's highly unlikely that the immediate tri-state area would be directly affected by an attack like this if it were ever to happen.

Now, back to current day reality. It's interesting to look back and see how dire the FEMA predictions were over 30 years ago. Thankfully, the current strain between Russia and NATO over Ukraine is NOT expected to result in concerns about target locations. Let's leave this in the realm of movies like The Day After which freaked many of us out back in 1983.

Jesse James Farm in Kearney, Missouri

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