Be prepared

This would be easy to make fun of, but I'd glad somebody is thinking about such things, and it's kinda cool that it's happening in Indiana:

INDIANAPOLIS - A major training exercise designed to simulate the response to a nuclear detonation is planned next month at a southern Indiana military training center - a site getting a $100 million renovation to help soldiers prepare for urban warfare and disasters.

[. . .]

One of the first major training exercises at the site will be held from May 10-18. The drill will simulate the response to a nuclear device going off in a major metropolitan area.

In this case, Indianapolis is the target, so city and Marion County firefighters and police officers will drive about 75 miles southeast to Muscatatuck for the training scenario. The exercise will also involve deploying more than 1,000 National Guard soldiers from Indiana and surrounding states and more federal responders. Civilians could also play roles as "victims" of the nuclear detonation, officials said.

Sure, sure, nuclear bomb goes off, what's left to do but put a 100-year quarantine around the rubble? But the kind of nuke a terrorist is likely to have is a suitcase bomb, a tactical weapon that will be somewhat less destructive than the two we dropped on Japan. It's somewhat remarkable we haven't been hit since 9/11, but most experts think we will be, sooner or later, one way or another. And, as our recent pet-food recalls should have reminded us, we are vulnerable in a lot of ways in a lot of our distribution systems.