Highway from Hell: Building Roads to Escape Cities under Nuclear Attack

For details on this issue of Collier's, see https://lithub.com/new-york-city-the-perfect-setting-for-a-fictional-cold-war-strike/

There are many things to consider when building highways in and out of our cities today. But one thing probably none of us have considered since the end of the Cold War is the need for citizens to get out of urban centres rapidly before they are incinerated in a nuclear attack.
 
But that was in the mind of US President Eisenhower in the nerve-wracking Cold War days of the 1950s.

The 1950s were a time of rapid escalation of tensions between the two superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union. Both powers were building and stockpiling atomic bombs (as they were called) as well as hydrogen bombs (or “H-Bombs”).[1] The hydrogen bomb in particular was terrifying, for it could be over 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Japan.
 
Since cities would be a primary target for such weapons, it was clear that those in urban centres were especially vulnerable. Something had to at least be tried to mitigate their plight. 
 
And it was that grim reality that led US President Eisenhower to consider ways to protect American citizens from such a hell on earth disaster.
 
The 1950s were a part of the postwar boom, with cities and suburbs growing at a rapid rate. What was needed to support such growth, and spur on even more, was the building of wide, straight, and multilane highways. And so in 1956 Congress passed the Federal Aid Highway Act that established a road network called the “National System of Interstate and Defence Highways.”[2]
 
Those same roads build for growth and prosperity were envisioned to also provide a quick escape from urban Ground Zeros. As the President stated “Our roads ought to be avenues of escape for persons living in big cities threatened by aerial attack or natural disaster.”[3]
 
And so one of the most extensive building projects in human history began, and America eventually built an amazing road system so far-reaching that it was visible from space. Today it continues to carry out its main service of providing the free movement of goods and people. As for getting people out of cities in the event of a looming nuclear hell on earth attack, that is another story.
 
Of course, if such an attack ever came en masse we would be devastated even with good highways. Not the most encouraging thought in light of the new nuclear arms race and increasing nuclear proliferation. 
 
Yet the example of Eisenhower and the highways from hell is a telling reminder that our civil leaders need to take all contingencies into account when planning major projects. And that includes disaster planning, as unpleasant (and expensive) as it is.
 
However, hopefully wise and humble heads prevail and the highways from hell will not be needed for that scenario.


[1] For an sobering display of nuclear tests, see this video. Remember that hundreds were above ground, each one releasing more radiation than Chernobyl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
[2]https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Federal_Highway_Act.htm#:~:text=The%20highways%20could%20be%20used,70%20percent%20of%20the%20cost.;https://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/interstate-system/50th-anniversary/interstate-highway-system-myths;https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/civildef.cfm
[3] Martin Gilbert, History of the Twentieth Century (HarperCollins, 2001), 398.

Here is an image to illustrate the size of bombs developed. Taken from ​https://datainnovation.org/2022/03/visualizing-the-science-behind-nuclear-weapons/